mother; but to make up for it all, what bliss, what peace was yours in
the evening, after supper, when, free at last of all duties, you sat at
the window pensively smoking a pipe, or greedily turned the pages of a
greasy and mutilated number of some solid magazine, brought you from the
town by the land-surveyor--just such another poor, homeless devil as
yourself! How delighted you were then with any sort of poem or novel;
how readily the tears started into your eyes; with what pleasure you
laughed; what genuine love for others, what generous sympathy for
everything good and noble, filled your pure youthful soul! One must tell
the truth: you were not distinguished by excessive sharpness of wit;
Nature had endowed you with neither memory nor industry; at the
university you were regarded as one of the least promising students; at
lectures you slumbered, at examinations you preserved a solemn silence;
but who was beaming with delight and breathless with excitement at a
friend's success, a friend's triumphs?... Avenir!... Who had a blind
faith in the lofty destiny of his friends? who extolled them with pride?
who championed them with angry vehemence? who was innocent of envy as of
vanity? who was ready for the most disinterested self-sacrifice? who
eagerly gave way to men who were not worthy to untie his latchet?...
That was you, all you, our good Avenir! I remember how broken-heartedly
you parted from your comrades, when you were going away to be a tutor in
the country; you were haunted by presentiment of evil.... And, indeed,
your lot was a sad one in the country; you had no one there to listen to
with veneration, no one to admire, no one to love.... The
neighbours--rude sons of the steppes, and polished gentlemen
alike--treated you as a tutor: some, with rudeness and neglect, others
carelessly. Besides, you were not pre-possessing in person; you were
shy, given to blushing, getting hot and stammering.... Even your health
was no better for the country air: you wasted like a candle, poor
fellow! It is true your room looked out into the garden; wild cherries,