nt-general. His mother was the daughter of the general's
governess, a pretty girl who died on the day of Nejdanov's birth. He
received his early education in a boarding school kept by a certain
Swiss, a very energetic and severe pedagogue, after which he entered the
university. His great ambition was to study law, but his father, who
had a violent hatred for nihilists, made him go in for history and
philology, or for "aesthetics" as Nejdanov put it with a bitter smile.
His father used to see him about four times a year in all, but was,
nevertheless, interested in his welfare, and when he died, left him a
sum of six thousand roubles "in memory of Nastinka" his mother. Nejdanov
received the interest on this money from his brothers the Princes G.,
which they were pleased to call an allowance.

Paklin had good reason to call him an aristocrat. Everything about him
betokened his origin. His tiny ears, hands, feet, his small but fine
features, delicate skin, wavy hair; his very voice was pleasant,
although it was slightly guttural. He was highly strung, frightfully
conceited, very susceptible, and even capricious. The false position he
had been placed in from childhood had made him sensitive and irritable,
but his natural generosity had kept him from becoming suspicious
and mistrustful. This same false position was the cause of an utter
inconsistency, which permeated his whole being. He was fastidiously
accurate and horribly squeamish, tried to be cynical and coarse in
his speech, but was an idealist by nature. He was passionate and
pure-minded, bold and timid at the same time, and, like a repentant
sinner, ashamed of his sins; he was ashamed alike of his timidity and
his purity, and considered it his duty to scoff at all idealism. He had
an affectionate heart, but held himself aloof from everybody, was easily
exasperated, but never bore ill-will. He was furious with his father
for having made him take up "aesthetics," openly interested himself in
politics and social questions, professed the most extreme views (which
meant more to him than mere words), but secretly took a delight in art,
poetry, beauty in all its manifestations, and in his inspired moments
wrote verses. It is true that he carefully hid the copy-book in which
they were written, and none of his St. Petersburg friends, with
the exception of Paklin, and he only by his peculiar intuitiveness,
suspected its existence. Nothing hurt or offended Nejdanov more than the