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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD 133
this also in proper measure, not that every one should
observe it, but only in a way to make it understood
that " he had views."
As is usual in such cases, all our family knew that
he was a possible and a desirable match; but all
pretended that they suspected no such possibility. Even
my mother, when she remained alone with my aunts,
could not make up her mind to touch upon this
delicate question otherwise than by half words and hints.
It was enough for Dostoévsky to take one glance
at this handsome, well-formed, self-satisfied person, to
make him immediately hate him to madness.
The young cuirassier, picturesquely posed in an
arm-chair, was displaying in all their beauty his
fashionably made trousers, which fitted closely his long,
shapely legs. Jingling his epaulets, and bending
slightly over my sister, he related something amusing
to her. Aniuta, still confused by the recent episode
with Dostoévsky, listened to him with her rather
stereotyped, drawing-room smile, " the smile of a tender
angel," as the English governess viciously designated it.
Feödor Mikhåilovitch looked at this group, and a
whole romance immediately took form in his brain.
Aniuta hated and despised this "horrid little
German," this " conceited, impudent fellow," but her
parents wished to marry her to him, and were
throwing them together in every possible way. Of course
the whole party had been arranged exclusively with
that object. Having concocted this romance,
Dostoé-sky immediately put faith in it, and flew into a
frightful rage.
The fashionable topic of conversation that winter
was a little book published by some English
clergyman or other—containing a comparison between the
Russian State Church and Protestantism. In this
9*
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