second--apply those thoughts to life, with the firm intention of
never again changing them.

It is from that moment that I date the beginning of my youth.

I was then nearly sixteen. Tutors still attended to give me
lessons, St. Jerome still acted as general supervisor of my
education, and, willy-nilly, I was being prepared for the
University. In addition to my studies, my occupations included
certain vague dreamings and ponderings, a number of gymnastic
exercises to make myself the finest athlete in the world, a good
deal of aimless, thoughtless wandering through the rooms of the
house (but more especially along the maidservants' corridor), and
much looking at myself in the mirror. From the latter, however, I
always turned away with a vague feeling of depression, almost of
repulsion. Not only did I feel sure that my exterior was ugly,
but I could derive no comfort from any of the usual consolations
under such circumstances. I could not say, for instance, that I
had at least an expressive, clever, or refined face, for there
was nothing whatever expressive about it. Its features were of
the most humdrum, dull, and unbecoming type, with small grey eyes
which seemed to me, whenever I regarded them in the mirror, to be
stupid rather than clever. Of manly bearing I possessed even
less, since, although I was not exactly small of stature, and
had, moreover, plenty of strength for my years, every feature in
my face was of the meek, sleepy-looking, indefinite type. Even
refinement was lacking in it, since, on the contrary, it
precisely resembled that of a simple-looking moujik, while I also
had the same big hands and feet as he. At the time, all this
seemed to me very shameful.