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FÉDYA [smiles] No, I left her a widow.
PETUSHKÓV. What do you mean?
FÉDYA. I mean that she's a widow! I don't exist.
PETUSHKÓV. Don't exist?
FÉDYA. No, I'm a corpse! Yes ... [Artémyev leans over, listening] Well,
you see--I can tell you about it; and besides, it happened long ago;
and you don't know my real name. It was this way. When I had tired out
my wife and had squandered everything I could lay my hands on, and had
become unbearable, a protector turned up for her. Don't imagine that
there was anything dirty or bad about it--no, he was my friend and a
very good fellow--only in everything my exact opposite! And as there is
far more evil than good in me, it follows that he was a good--a very
good man: honourable, firm, self-restrained and, in a word, virtuous. He
had known my wife from her childhood, and loved her. When she married
me
he resigned himself to his fate. But later, when I became horrid and
tormented her, he began to come oftener to our house. I myself wished
it. They fell in love with one another, and meanwhile I went altogether
to the bad, and abandoned my wife of my own accord. And besides, there
was Másha. I myself advised them to marry. They did not want to, but I
became more and more impossible, and it ended in ...
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