could once have been an officer, could have maintained discipline, have given his commands—and that, too, in the stern days of Catherine! I watched him; now and then he puffed out his cheeks and uttered a feeble whistle, like a little child; sometimes he screwed up his eyes painfully, with effort, as all decrepit people will. Once he opened his eyes wide and lifted them. . . They stared at me from out of the depths of the water—and strangely touching and even full of meaning their dejected glance seemed to me.
VII
I tried to begin a conversation with the brigadier . . . but Narkiz had not misinformed me; the poor old man certainly had become weak in his intellect. He asked me my surname, and after repeating his inquiry twice, pondered and pondered, and at last brought out: 'Yes, I fancy there was a judge of that name here. Cucumber, wasn't there a judge about here of that name, hey?' 'To be sure there was, Vassily Fomitch, your honour,' responded Cucumber, who treated him altogether as a child. 'There was, certainly. But let me have your hook; your worm must have been eaten off. . . Yes, so it is.'
'Did you know the Lomov family?' the
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