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close-knit community. In the course of one school year, however, Sebastian succeeds in tempting, and eventually seducing, many of his classmates to truancy, stay up late on a regular basis, lie to their teachers and parents, drink excessive amounts of alcohol, and eventually associate with prostitutes.
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due to poor grades and is forced to continue his education in the provincial town of Sankt
Nikolaus, where he stays with two aunts of his. A mediocre pupil, he tries desperately to attract the attention of his new classmates, who turn out to be very reluctant to accept the new boy into their
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On the Monday following the class reunion, Adler is again brought before
Sebastian. This time the judge does reveal his identity to Adler, but on closer inspection of the file in front of him he finds out that the man's assertion that he has never gone to school in Sankt Nikolaus is true.
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In particular, although he is aware of his mediocre performance at school and also of his own abominable character, Sebastian, rather than repent for his sins, sets out to conquer the intellectual superiority of his classmate Adler, a red-haired Jew who writes dramas and
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without having made up his mind in advance, can scarcely fail to see that, if there are any similarities at all between the characters, it is Hiss who superficially resembles the bad boy and
Chambers who superficially resembles his
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That night, Sebastian does not go to sleep. Rather, upset by his chance meeting with Adler and the enervating talk at the class reunion, he sits down at his desk and writes down a confession in
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treatises, though he is only 17. To get rid of his rival once and for all, Sebastian pushes him into forging a document. The truth comes out, and before Adler can be
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189:(Class of '02), a meeting he knows he will regret going to as it will bring back both a plethora of unpleasant memories and a confrontation with the
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in 1949, his defense team included in their attacks on
Chambers' character the argument that Chambers was accusing Hiss out of a suggestion from
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At the age of 16, Sebastian, on the command of his father, the highest-ranking judge in
Austria-Hungary, has to leave the prestigious
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during which the two men are alone in
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The novel is about 43-year-old Dr. Ernst
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I have always held that anyone who takes the trouble to read
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As it happens, that same
Saturday night Sebastian attends a
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of the title) occasioned by the 25th anniversary of his
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384:. WhittakerChambers.org. Archived from
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168:in Sankt Nikolaus, which was then in
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368:References
329:Heinz Moog
313:Hans Jaray
255:Alger Hiss
85:P. Zsolnay
56:Translator
238:In 1929,
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191:bourgeois
82:Publisher
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335:See also
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66:Language
432:Witness
392:23 July
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