As a matter of course, my reading also changed. Politics for me in future, and, above all, the history of the French Revolution, which I knew only as described by Mme. Provo. Among the books in our cellar I unearthed a history of the period, written by a royalist; it was so unfair that, even at fourteen, I could not believe it. I had chanced to hear old Bouchot say that he was in Paris during the Revolution; and I was very anxious to question him. But Bouchot was a surly, taciturn man, with spectacles over a large nose; he never indulged in any needless conversation with me: he conjugated French verbs, dictated examples, scolded me, and then took his departure, leaning on his thick knotted stick.
The old man did not like me: he thought me a mere idler, because I prepared my lessons badly; and he often said, “You will come to no good.” But when he discovered my sympathy with his political views, he softened down entirely, pardoned my mistakes, and told me stories of the year ’93, and of his departure from France when “profligates and cheats” got the upper hand. He never smiled; he ended our lesson with the same dignity as before, but now he said indulgently, “I really thought you would come to no good, but your feelings do you credit, and they will save you.”
§4
To this encouragement and approval from my teachers there was soon added a still warmer sympathy which had a profound influence upon me.
In a little town of the Government of Tver lived a granddaughter of my father’s eldest brother. Her name was Tatyana Kuchin. I had known her from childhood, but we seldom met: once a year, at Christmas or Shrovetide, she came to pay a visit to her aunt at Moscow. But we had become close friends. Though five years my senior, she was short for her age and looked no older than myself. My chief reason for getting to like her was that she was the first person to talk to me in a reasonable way: I mean, she did not constantly express surprise at my growth; she did not ask what lessons I did and whether I did them well; whether I intended to enter the Army, and, if so, what regiment; but she talked to me as most sensible people talk to one another, though she kept the little airs of superiority which all girls like to show to boys a little younger than themselves.
We corresponded, especially after the events of 1824; but letters mean paper and pen and recall the school-room table with its ink-stains and decorations carved with a penknife. I wanted to see her and to discuss our new ideas; and it may be imagined with what delight I heard that my cousin was to come in February (of 1826) and to spend several months with us. I scratched a calendar on my desk and struck off the days as they passed, sometimes abstaining for a day or two, just to have the satisfaction of striking out more at one time. In spite of this, the time seemed very long; and when it came to an end, her visit was postponed more than once; such is the way of things.
One evening I was sitting in the school-room with Protopópov. Over each item of instruction he took, as usual, a sip of sour broth; he was explaining the hexameter metre, ruthlessly hashing, with voice and hand, each verse of Gnyéditch’s translation of the Iliad into its separate feet. Suddenly, a sound unlike that of town sledges came from the snow outside; I heard the faint tinkle of harness-bells and the sound of voices out-of-doors. I flushed up, lost all interest in the hashing process and the wrath of Achilles, and rushed headlong to the front hall. There was my cousin from Tver, wrapped up in furs, shawls, and comforters, and wearing a hood and white fur boots. Blushing red with frost and, perhaps, also with joy, she ran into my arms.
§5
Most people speak of their early youth, its joys and sorrows, with a slightly condescending smile, as if they wished to say, like the affected lady in Griboyédov’s play, “How childish!” Children, when a few years are past, are ashamed of their toys, and this is right enough: they want to be men and women, they grow so fast and change so much, as they see by their jackets and the pages of their lesson-books. But adults might surely realise that childhood and the two or three years of youth are the fullest part of life, the fairest, and the most truly our own; and indeed they are possibly the most important part, because they fix all that follows, though we are not aware of it.
So long as a man moves modestly forwards, never stopping and never reflecting, and until he comes to the edge of a precipice or breaks his neck, he continues to believe that his life lies ahead of him; and therefore he looks down upon his past and is unable to appreciate the present. But when experience has laid low the flowers of spring and chilled the glow of summer—when he discovers that life is practically over, and all that remains a mere continuance of the past, then he feels differently towards the brightness and warmth and beauty of early recollections.