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Arkady Averchenko

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  • Magnificent Bastard ("The Two-Faced Boy"): Alyoshka is a ten-year-old boy who lives with his paraplegic mother. When he is by her side, he is kindness incarnate, caring for her gently and patiently. The narrator encounters him in the hall and is surprised to see Alyoshka as a smug Deadpan Snarker when his mother isn't nearby. When the narrator watches him, he sees that Alyoshka makes money by conning women in the park: Alyoshka comes to them and claims that he has brought them a letter from an admirer, which leads to the women giving him tips without any prompting from his side. The "letter" is invariably a single sheet of paper that reads "Fool!" When the narrator confronts Alyoshka, the latter reasons he has never been beaten and has to be the breadwinner somehow. In the evening, the bewildered narrator sits in his room and, once again, listens to Alyoshka talking with his mother in a sweet childish voice, with Alyoshka apparently planning to continue the cons in the foreseeable future.

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