It was blue and biting in the cabinet
from the dense tobacco smoke; guttered, warty little streams had
congealed on the candles in the candelabras; the table, flooded
with coffee and wine, scattered all over with orange peels, seemed
hideous.
Jennie was sitting on the divan, her knees clasped around with her
arms. And again was Platonov struck by the sombre fire in her deep
eyes, that seemed fallen in underneath the dark eyebrows,
formidably contracted downward, toward the bridge of the nose.
"I'll put out the candles," said Lichonin.
The morning half-light, watery and drowsy, filled the room through
the slits of the blinds. The extinguished wicks of the candles
smoked with faint streams. The tobacco smoke swirled in blue,
layered shrouds, but a ray of sunlight that had cut its way
through the heart-shaped hollow in a window shutter, transpierced
the cabinet obliquely with a joyous, golden sword of dust, and in
liquid, hot gold splashed upon the paper on the wall.
"That's better," said Lichonin, sitting down. "The conversation
will be short, but .
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