problems boldly. But we think too much, we are eaten up by logic
. . . . The more developed a man is, the more he reflects and gives
himself up to subtleties, the more undecided and scrupulous he
becomes, and the more timidity he shows in taking action. How much
courage and self-confidence it needs, when one comes to look into
it closely, to undertake to teach, to judge, to write a thick
book. . . ."

It struck ten.

"Come, boy, it's bedtime," said the prosecutor. "Say good-night and
go."

"No, papa," said Seryozha, "I will stay a little longer. Tell me
something! Tell me a story. . . ."

"Very well, only after the story you must go to bed at once."

Yevgeny Petrovitch on his free evenings was in the habit of telling
Seryozha stories. Like most people engaged in practical affairs,
he did not know a single poem by heart, and could not remember a
single fairy tale, so he had to improvise. As a rule he began with
the stereotyped: "In a certain country, in a certain kingdom," then
he heaped up all kinds of innocent nonsense and had no notion as
he told the beginning how the story would go on, and how it would
end. Scenes, characters, and situations were taken at random,
impromptu, and the plot and the moral came of itself as it were,
with no plan on the part of the story-teller. Seryozha was very
fond of this improvisation, and the prosecutor noticed that the
simpler and the less ingenious the plot, the stronger the impression