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RUDIN contrary! But through his cursed habit of pinning every emotion—his own and other people’s —with a phrase, as one pins butterflies in a case, he set to making clear to ourselves our relations to one another, and how we ought to treat each other, and arbitrarily compelled us to take stock of our feelings and ideas, praised us and blamed us, even entered into a correspondence with us— fancy! Well, he succeeded in completely disconcerting us! I should hardly, even then, have married the young lady (I had so much sense still left), but, at least, we might have spent some months happily à la Paul et Virginie; but now came strained relations, misunderstandings of every kind. It ended by Rudin, one fine morning, arriving at the conviction that it was his sacred duty as a friend to acquaint the old father with everything—and he did so.’

‘Is it possible?’ cried Alexandra Pavlovna.

‘Yes, and did it with my consent, observe. That’s where the wonder comes in! I remember even now what a chaos my brain was in; everything was simply turning round; things looked as they do in a camera obscura— 127