prevaricate

Kazuo Ishiguroの "an artist of the floating world" も終わりに近くなってきました。　タイトルにもなっている "an artist of the floating world" は小説の前半にも書いてあった気もしますが（？）、次ぎの様に、主人公の言葉の中にも出てきます。
Sensei, it is my belief that in such troubled times as these, artists must learn to value something more tangible than those pleasurable things that disappear with the morning light. It is not necessary that artists always occupy a decadent and enclosed world. My conscience, Sensei, tells me I cannot remain forever an artist of the floating world.
英国人はどうか分かりませんが、"an artist of the floating world" から主人公は浮世絵師なのかなとつい連想してしまいますが、主人公の描く絵は浮世絵ではないようです。　それはともかく、次ぎの文に出てきた単語を覚えたい。
When one holds convictions deeply enough, there surely comes a point when it is despicable to prevaricate further.
"prevaricate" する訳にはいかなくなるとの事ですが、"prevaricate" とはどんな行為でしょう。
・Collins English Dictionary: to speak or act falsely or evasively with intent to deceive: When I knew that I could prevaricate no longer, I spent an unhappy afternoon agonising over which stories to give her to read.
嘘をつく事や騙すに近い言葉ですが、この単語を詳しく説明している辞書がありました。
・Vocabulary.com: be deliberately ambiguous or unclear in order to mislead or withhold information; While prevaricate basically means to lie, it also has the sense of making it hard to know exactly what the lie was. You talk in a confusing way, go back and forth, and as deliberately as possible mislead someone. Government officials, bureaucrats, and sneaky types prevaricate in the hopes that it will be too difficult to figure out whether they've been doing something wrong. Don't prevaricate with your parents ? it will definitely make you look guilty, but they just won't be sure of what!
なるほど、政治家や官僚のトップに "prevaricate" を特技とする人が多くいますね。
・V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary: to avoid telling the truth by being deliberately ambiguous or misleading: Even under oath, he continued to prevaricate about what exactly had happened.; I knew that when I confronted her she would prevaricate about who started the rumor. (be ambiguous, be evasive, equivocate)
Tips: Because the words sound similar, many people confuse prevaricate with procrastinate. Procrastinate means "to put off doing something," while prevaricate means "to deliberately avoid the truth or try to mislead someone." Prevaricate comes from the Latin phrase praevaricari, which means "to walk crookedly." Think, "avoiding being straight in order to confuse and mislead." Prevaricate is synonymous with equivocate. To prevaricate is to avoid telling the truth by being ambiguous and misleading. Equivocate is the act of being unclear and misleading. For example: "The journalist accused the politician of prevaricating when the politician began to equivocate instead of providing a straightforward and honest answer to the question." Prevarication is the act of prevaricating.
"prevarication" は政治の世界だけではなく、オリンパスの例で分かる様に、ビジネスの世界でも横行している様です。 真実を見抜く力が必要ですね。