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Could he somehow make up to them and get round them if they

really were powerful? Was this the thing to do or not? Couldn't

he gain something through them? In fact hundreds of questions

presented themselves.

Andrey Semyonovitch was an anaemic, scrofulous little man, with

strangely flaxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud.

He was a clerk and had almost always something wrong with his

eyes. He was rather soft-hearted, but self-confident and

sometimes extremely conceited in speech, which had an absurd

effect, incongruous with his little figure. He was one of the

lodgers most respected by Amalia Ivanovna, for he did not get

drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch

really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of

progress and "our younger generation" from enthusiasm. He was one

of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate

abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach

themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and

who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.