Such were the dreams whose fulfilment Katerina Vasílyevna would have liked to see. Her fancy did not carry her beyond the thoughts of Geneviève and Miss Nightingale. Can one say that she was fanciful? Can one call her imaginative?
Geneviève in a frivolous, contemptible society of fops and empty-headed dandies, Miss Nightingale in idle grandeur, would not they be lonesome? wouldn't they be melancholy? And therefore Katerina Vasílyevna was rather more glad than sorry when her father failed. She was sorry to see him who had been so strong growing prematurely old; she was sorry also that her ability to help others was curtailed. At first it was offensive to see the scorn of the crowd which had crawled and cringed before her and her father. But she was also glad that this mean, pitiable, wretched crowd had deserted them, had ceased to burden her life, to arouse her indignation by their falsehood and degradation; she felt so free now! Hopes of happiness arose in her heart. "Now if any one shows me any devotion, it will be for myself alone, and not for my father's millions."
IX.
Pólozof was anxious to arrange for the sale of the stearine factory of which he was part owner and had been the manager. After more than half a year of energetic effort, he found a purchaser. On the purchaser's visiting-cards was engraved the name Charles Beaumont, not pronounced Sharl Bomon, as the ignorant might suppose, but in the true English fashion, Beemont; and it was entirely natural that it was pronounced so, for the purchaser was the agent of the London house of Hodgson, Lotter and Company, for the purchase of tallow and stearine. The factory could not exist under the wretched financial and administrative conduct of its shareholders; but in the hands of a solid firm it would be sure to bring great profits. After spending on it five or six hundred thousand rubles, the firm could count on having one hundred thousand rubles of profits. The agent was a conscientious man; he looked over the factory with great care, and examined the books in detail before he advised the firm to buy the property. Then followed negotiations with the stockholders in regard to the selling of the factory. They were excessively long and according to the nature of Russian business
