The young mistress was afraid of books, too.
"It is very injurious to read books, and especially when you are young," she said. "At home, at Grebeshka, there was a young girl of good family who read and read, and the end of it was that she fell in love with the deacon, and the deacon's wife so shamed her that it was terrible to see. In the street, before everybody."
Sometimes I used words out of Smouri's books, in one of which, one without beginning or end, was written, "Strictly speaking, no one person really invented powder; as is always the case, it appeared at the end of a long series of minor observations and discoveries." I do not know why I remembered these words so well. What I liked best of all was the joining of two phrases, "strictly speaking, no one person really invented powder." I was aware of force underlying them; but they brought me sorrow, ludicrous sorrow. It happened thus.
One day when my employers proposed that I should tell them about something which had happened on the boat I answered:
"I have n't anything left to tell, strictly speaking." This amazed them. They cried:
"What? What's that you said?"
And all four began to laugh in a friendly fashion, repeating:
"'Strictly speaking,'—ah, Lord!"
Even the master said to me:
"You have thought that out badly, old fellow." And for a long time after that they used to call me: