Having borrowed money from his brother-in-law, Nikolai tried to conceal his disastrous situation from him. His situation was especially bad because he not only had to support himself, Sonya, and his mother on his twelve-hundred-rouble salary, but had to support his mother in such a way that she did not notice they were poor. The countess could not understand the possibility of life without the conditions of luxury she had been accustomed to since childhood, and, not realizing how difficult it was for her son, she demanded now a carriage they did not have to send for a lady acquaintance, now
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