brigadier suddenly asked me in a cracked voice.
'What Lomov family is that?'
'Why, Fiodor Ivanitch, Yevstigney Ivanitch, Alexey Ivanitch the Jew, and Fedulia Ivanovna the plunderer, . . . and then, too . . .'
The brigadier suddenly broke off and looked down confused.
'They were the people he was most intimate with,' Narkiz whispered, bending towards me; 'it was through them, through that same Alexey Ivanitch, that he called a Jew, and through a sister of Alexey Ivanitch's, Agrafena Ivanovna, as you may say, that he lost all his property.'
'What are you saying there about Agrafena Ivanovna?' the brigadier called out suddenly, and his head was raised, his white eyebrows were frowning. . . 'You'd better mind! And why Agrafena, pray? Agrippina Ivanovna—that's what you should call her.'
'There—there—there, sir,' Cucumber was beginning to falter.
'Don't you know the verses the poet Milonov wrote about her?' the old man went on, suddenly getting into a state of excitement, which was a complete surprise to me. 'No hymeneal lights were kindled,' he began chanting, pronouncing all the vowels through his nose, giving the syllables 'an,' 'en,' the nasal sound they have in French; and it was strange
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