Everything was ordinary enough.
Semyonov was in the armchair reading a newspaper; Markovitch was walking
very quietly up and down the farther end of the room. He wore faded blue
carpet slippers; he had taken to them lately. Everything was the same as
it had always been. The storm that had raged all day had now died down,
and a very pale evening sun struck little patches of colour on the big
table with the fading table-cloth, on the old brown carpet, on the
picture of the old gentleman with bushy eyebrows, on Semyonov's
musical-box, on the old knick-knacks and the untidy shelf of books.
(Bohun looked especially to see whether the musical-box were still
there. It was there on a little side-table.) Bohun, tired with his long
day's efforts to shove the glories of the British Empire down the
reluctant throats of the indifferent Russians, dropped into the other
armchair with a tattered copy of Turgenieff's _House of Gentle-folks_,
and soon sank into a state of half-slumber.
He roused himself from this to hear Semyonov reading extracts from the
newspaper. He caught, at first, only portions of sentences.
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