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The particulars which the princess had learned in regard to

Varenka's past and her relations with Madame Stahl were as

follows: Madame Stahl, of whom some people said that she had worried her

husband out of his life, while others said it was he who had made

her wretched by his immoral behavior, had always been a woman of

weak health and enthusiastic temperaave birth to her only child,

the child had died al her sensibility, and fearing the neould kill

her, had substituted another child, a baby born the sahter of the chief

cook of the Imperial Household This was Varenka Madame Stahl

learned later on that Varenka was not her own child, but she went

on bringing her up, especially as very soon afterwards Varenka

had not a relation of her own living Mada more than ten years continuously abroad, in the south,

never leaving her couch And some people said that Madame Stahl

had ious

wohly

ethical being, living for nothing but the good of her

fellow creatures, which she represented herself to be No one