I have always known that
people would only come to me for what I have got to give and I have
pretended that I do not care. And once I had an English merchant as my
guest. He was very agreeable and pleasant to me--and then by chance I
overheard him say: 'Ah, Andrey Vassilievitch! A vulgar little snob!'
That is perhaps what I am--I do not know--we are all what God pleases.
But I had mistresses, I had friends, acquaintances. They despised me.
They left me always for some one finer. They say that we Russians care
too much what others think of us--but when in your own house
people--your friends--say such things of you...."
He broke off, then, smiling, continued:
"My wife came. There was something in me, just as I was, that she
cared for. She did not passionately love me, but she loved me with her
heart because she saw that I needed love. She always saw people just
as they were.... And I understood. I understood from the beginning
exactly what I was to her...."
He paused again, put his hand on my knee, then spoke, looking very
serious with his comic little nose and mouth like the nose and mouth
of a poodle.
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