CHAPTER VI.
That very same day, at evening, a very important event took place
in the house of Anna Markovna: the whole institution--with land
and house, with live and inanimate stock--passed into the hands of
Emma Edwardovna.
They had been speaking of this, on and off, for a long time in the
establishment; but when the rumours so unexpectedly, immediately
right after the death of Jennka, turned into realities, the misses
could not for a long time come to themselves for amazement and
fear. They knew well, having experienced the sway of the German
upon themselves, her cruel, implacable pedantism; her greed,
arrogance, and, finally, her perverted, exacting, repulsive love,
now for one, now for another favorite. Besides that, it was no
mystery to any one, that out of the fifteen thousand which Emma
Edwardovna had to pay the former proprietress for the firm and for
the property, one third belonged to Kerbesh, who had, for a long
time already, been carrying on half-friendy, half-business
relations with the fat housekeeper. From the union of two such
people, shameless, pitiless, and covetous, the girls could expect
all sorts of disasters for themselves.
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