I could not help looking at them, I could not efface them, I could not keep from evoking them.
"The more I looked at these imaginary pictures, the more I believed in their reality, forgetting that they had no serious foundation.

The vivacity of these images seemed to prove to me that my imaginations were a reality.

One would have said that a demon, against my will, was inventing and breathing into me the most terrible fictions.
A conversation which dated a long time back, with the brother of Troukhatchevsky, I remembered at that moment, in a sort of ecstasy, and it tore my heart as I connected it with the musician and my wife.

Yes, it was very long ago.

The brother of Troukhatchevsky, answering my questions as to whether he frequented disreputable houses, said that a respectable man does not go where he may contract a disease, in a low and unclean spot, when one can find an honest woman.