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What is the meaning of "She glanced mechanically at the house oppiste" in the following sentences (Source: Of human bondage by W. Somerset Maugham),

The day broke gray and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house oppsite, a stucco house with portico, and went to the child's bed.

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Does it mean "A woman servant came into a room and drew the curtains. She glanced through the window of the room mechanically at the house that is opposite (===> the house opposite is not the house with a room in which a child was sleeping but another different house in which a child was not sleeping) ?

Whose house did a woman servant look at? Did she look at the house with a room in which a child was sleeping? Or did she look at someone else's house, not the house with a room in which a child was sleeping (==> figure A) but someone else's house(==> figure B)?

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Hm, what is the opposite of a house? A tomb? A hole in the ground? The surface of a ball?

There's no opposite of a house - and generally, nouns don't have opposites.

Fortunately, there's an entirely different meaning of opposite being used here:

opposite

being in a position on the other side; facing:

The two settlements are on opposite sides of the river.
We’re in the building opposite the gas station.
She asked the man sitting opposite if she could borrow his newspaper.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/opposite

The woman came into the room, drew the curtains, and looked mechanically at the house directly across the street.

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  • If so, she look at someone else's house that is directly across the street(==> figure B) ? In a case of a hotel, if we open the window of a room, we can see a corridor of a hotel that is opposite the room, a structure of a hotel that is opposite the room etc. Is it not possible to use those words in such a case (for example, She entered a room of the hotel. She open the window. she glanced at the hotel oppsite (==> the hotel where she is staying. the hotel is opposite the room where she is staying).?)
    – user22046
    Apr 30, 2019 at 4:22
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    @user22046, if you're in a hotel and you look at the hotel opposite you, across the hall from you, under you, above you (or any other phrase that describes a relative position), it always implies a different hotel. If I'm in a hotel room and I "look at the hotel across the corridor," I am looking at a different hotel. If you want to refer to the same hotel and use a phrase that describes a relative position, you can say something like, "She went into the hotel room and looked at the part of the hotel across the corridor."
    – Juhasz
    Apr 30, 2019 at 13:14

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