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40 The Gospel in Dostoyevskymade his fiftieth” as the French say, with rather long, still thick,dark hair, slightly streaked with grey, and a small pointed beard.He was wearing a brownish reefer, rather shabby but evidentlymade by a good tailor and of a fashion that had been discardedby the smart and well-to-do for the last two years. His linen andhis long scarflike necktie were such as are worn by people whoaim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his linen was notoverclean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The visitor’scheck trousers were of excellent cut but were too light in colorand too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white hat wasout of keeping with the season.In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitenedmeans. It looked as though the gentleman belonged to that classof idle landowners who used to flourish in the times of serfdom.He had unmistakably been, at some time, in good and fashionablesociety, had once had good connections, had indeedpossibly preserved them, but after a gay youth, becoming graduallyimpoverished after the abolition of serfdom, he had sunkinto the position of a poor relation of the best class, wanderingfrom one good old friend to another and received by themfor his companionable and accommodating disposition and asbeing, after all, a gentleman who could be asked to sit down withanyone, though of course not in a place of honor. Such gentlemenof accommodating temper and dependent position, whocan tell a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinctaversion for any duties that may be forced upon them, are usuallysolitary creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes theyhave children, but if so the children are always being broughtup at a distance, at some aunt’s to whom these gentlemen neverallude in good society, seeming ashamed of the relationship.They gradually lose sight of their children altogether, though at