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important role in my life, but because he was really such. For the
rest, from the fact that he was bad, we must conclude that he was
irresponsible. He was a musician, a violinist. Not a professional
musician, but half man of the world, half artist. His father, a country
proprietor, was a neighbor of my father's. The father had become ruined,
and the children, three boys, were all sent away. Our man, the youngest,
was sent to his godmother at Paris. There they placed him in the
Conservatory, for he showed a taste for music. He came out a violinist,
and played in concerts."
On the point of speaking evil of the other, Posdnicheff checked himself,
stopped, and said suddenly:
"In truth, I know not how he lived. I only know that that year he came
to Russia, and came to see me. Moist eyes of almond shape, smiling red
lips, a little moustache well waxed, hair brushed in the latest fashion,
a vulgarly pretty face,--what the women call 'not bad,'--feebly built
physically, but with no deformity; with hips as broad as a woman's;
correct, and insinuating himself into the familiarity of people as far
as possible, but having that keen sense that quickly detects a false
step and retires in reason,--a man, in short, observant of the external
rules of dignity, with that special Parisianism that is revealed in
buttoned boots, a gaudy cravat, and that something which foreigners pick
up in Paris, and which, in its peculiarity and novelty, always has
an influence on our women. In his manners an external and artificial
gayety, a way, you know, of referring to everything by hints, by
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