Page:Rudin - a novel (IA rudinnovel00turgrich).pdf/269

 EPILOGUE

years had passed by.

It was a cold autumn day. A travelling carriage drew up at the steps of the principal hotel of the government town of C; a gentleman yawning and stretching stepped out of it. He was not elderly, but had had time to acquire that fulness of figure which habitually commands respect. He went up the staircase to the second story, and stopped at the entrance to a wide corridor. Seeing no one before him he called out in a loud voice asking for a room. A door creaked somewhere, and a long waiter jumped up from behind a low screen, and came forward with a quick flank movement, an apparition of a glossy back and tucked-up sleeves in the half-dark corridor. The traveller went into the room and at once throwing off his cloak and scarf, sat down on 231