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This sensitive and precious décadent, who flaunts his descent from French emigres and Russian noblemen, delights in literary masquerading. He is in turn an eighteenth century dandy, a Byzantine romancer, a contemporary of Boccaccio, or a fin de siècle Alexandrian. His Alexandrian Songs imprison all the exquisite fatigues and refined perversions of a culture cynical about its own passing. The texture of his poetry shows the care and competence lavished by a belle upon her complexion. His lyrics have the perfumed fragility and piquant charm of Somov's paintings.