"You haven't changed," I said, smiling, as I looked at him.
He had the same absurd appearance that I remembered. He was a
fat little man, with short legs, young still -- he could not
have been more than thirty -- but prematurely bald. His face
was perfectly round, and he had a very high colour, a white
skin, red cheeks, and red lips. His eyes were blue and round
too, he wore large gold-rimmed spectacles, and his eyebrows
were so fair that you could not see them. He reminded you of
those jolly, fat merchants that Rubens painted.
When I told him that I meant to live in Paris for a while, and
had taken an apartment, he reproached me bitterly for not
having let him know. He would have found me an apartment
himself, and lent me furniture -- did I really mean that I had
gone to the expense of buying it? -- and he would have helped
me to move in. He really looked upon it as unfriendly that I
had not given him the opportunity of making himself useful to me.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Stroeve sat quietly mending her stockings,
without talking, and she listened to all he said with a quiet
smile on her lips.
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