or any extraneous influence could have had nothing to do. That
fact, satisfactory and obscure in itself, had for me a certain ideal
significance. It was an answer to certain outspoken scepticism, and even
to some not very kind aspersions. I had vindicated myself from what had
been cried upon as a stupid obstinacy or a fantastic caprice. I don't
mean to say that a whole country had been convulsed by my desire to go
to sea. But for a boy between fifteen and sixteen, sensitive enough,
in all conscience, the commotion of his little world had seemed a very
considerable thing indeed. So considerable that, absurdly enough, the
echoes of it linger to this day. I catch myself in hours of solitude and
retrospect meeting arguments and charges made thirty-five years ago by
voices now for ever still; finding things to say that an assailed
boy could not have found, simply because of the mysteriousness of his
impulses to himself. I understood no more than the people who called
upon me to explain myself. There was no precedent. I verily believe mine
was the only case of a boy of my nationality and antecedents taking
a, so to speak, standing jump out of his racial surroundings and
associations. For you must understand that there was no idea of any sort
of "career" in my call. Of Russia or Germany there could be no question.
The nationality, the antecedents, made it impossible. The feeling
against the Austrian service was not so strong, and I dare say there
would have been no difficulty in finding my way into the Naval School at
Pola. It would have meant six months' extra grinding at German, perhaps,
but I was not past the age of admission, and in other respects I was
well qualified. This expedient to palliate my folly was thought of--but
not by me. I must admit that in that respect my negative was accepted
at once. That order of feeling was comprehensible enough to the most
inimical of my critics. I was not called upon to offer explanations; the
truth is that what I had in view was not a naval career, but the sea.
There seemed no way open to it but through France. I had the language