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CHAPTER XXI.
"When we moved to Moscow, this gentleman--his name was
Troukhatchevsky--came to my house. It was in the morning. I received
him. In former times we had been very familiar. He tried, by various
advances, to re-establish the familiarity, but I was determined to keep
him at a distance, and soon he gave it up. He displeased me extremely.
At the first glance I saw that he was a filthy debauche. I was jealous
of him, even before he had seen my wife. But, strange thing! some occult
fatal power kept me from repulsing him and sending him away, and, on
the contrary, induced me to suffer this approach. What could have been
simpler than to talk with him a few minutes, and then dismiss him coldly
without introducing him to my wife? But no, as if on purpose, I turned
the conversation upon his skill as a violinist, and he answered that,
contrary to what I had heard, he now played the violin more than
formerly. He remembered that I used to play. I answered that I had
abandoned music, but that my wife played very well.
"Singular thing! Why, in the important events of our life, in those in
which a man's fate is decided,--as mine was decided in that moment,--why
in these events is there neither a past nor a future? My relations with
Troukhatchevsky the first day, at the first hour, were such as they
might still have been after all that has happened. I was conscious that
some frightful misfortune must result from the presence of this
man, and, in spite of that, I could not help being amiable to him. I
introduced him to my wife. She was pleased with him. In the beginning,
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