"You must drop those thoughts . . ." said the engineer gravely and
admonishingly.

"Why?"

"Because. . . . Thoughts like that are for the end of life, not for
the beginning of it. You are too young for them."

"Why so?" repeated the student.

"All these thoughts of the transitoriness, the insignificance and
the aimlessness of life, of the inevitability of death, of the
shadows of the grave, and so on, all such lofty thoughts, I tell
you, my dear fellow, are good and natural in old age when they come
as the product of years of inner travail, and are won by suffering
and really are intellectual riches; for a youthful brain on the
threshold of real life they are simply a calamity! A calamity!"
Ananyev repeated with a wave of his hand. "To my mind it is better
at your age to have no head on your shoulders at all than to think
on these lines. I am speaking seriously, Baron. And I have been
meaning to speak to you about it for a long time, for I noticed
from the very first day of our acquaintance your partiality for
these damnable ideas!"

"Good gracious, why are they damnable?" the student asked with a
smile, and from his voice and his face I could see that he asked
the question from simple politeness, and that the discussion raised
by the engineer did not interest him in the least.

I could hardly keep my eyes open. I was dreaming that immediately