Youth | Page 2

I was holding a ragged, long- suffering "Algebra" and in the other a
small piece of chalk which had already besmeared my hands, my face,
and the elbows of my jacket. Nicola, clad in an apron, and with his
sleeves rolled up, was picking out the putty from the window-frames
with a pair of nippers, and unfastening the screws. The window looked
out upon the little garden. At length his occupation and the noise which
he was making over it arrested my attention. At the moment I was in a
very cross, dissatisfied frame of mind, for nothing seemed to be going
right with me. I had made a mistake at the very beginning of my
algebra, and so should have to work it out again; twice I had let the
chalk drop. I was conscious that my hands and face were whitened all
over; the sponge had rolled away into a corner; and the noise of
Nicola's operations was fast getting on my nerves. I had a feeling as
though I wanted to fly into a temper and grumble at some one, so I
threw down chalk and "Algebra" alike, and began to pace the room.
Then suddenly I remembered that to-day we were to go to confession,
and that therefore I must refrain from doing anything wrong. Next, with
equal suddenness I relapsed into an extraordinarily goodhumoured
frame of mind, and walked across to Nicola.
"Let me help you, Nicola," I said, trying to speak as pleasantly as I
possibly could. The idea that I was performing a meritorious action in
thus suppressing my ill-temper and offering to help him increased my
good-humour all the more.

By this time the putty had been chipped out, and the screws removed,
yet, though Nicola pulled with might and main at the cross-piece, the
window-frame refused to budge.
"If it comes out as soon as he and I begin to pull at it together," I
thought, "it will be rather a shame, as then I shall have nothing more of
the kind to do to-day."
Suddenly the frame yielded a little at one side, and came out.
"Where shall I put it?" I said.
"Let ME see to it, if you please," replied Nicola, evidently surprised as
well as, seemingly, not over-pleased at my zeal. "We must not leave it
here, but carry it away to the lumber-room, where I keep all the frames
stored and numbered."
"Oh, but I can manage it," I said as I lifted it up. I verily believe that if
the lumber-room had been a couple of versts away, and the frame twice
as heavy as it was, I should have been the more pleased. I felt as though
I wanted to tire myself out in performing this service for Nicola. When
I returned to the room the bricks and screws had been replaced on the
windowsill, and Nicola was sweeping the debris, as well as a few torpid
flies, out of the open window. The fresh, fragrant air was rushing into
and filling all the room, while with it came also the dull murmur of the
city and the twittering of sparrows in the garden. Everything was in
brilliant light, the room looked cheerful, and a gentle spring breeze was
stirring Nicola's hair and the leaves of my "Algebra." Approaching the
window, I sat down upon the sill, turned my eyes downwards towards
the garden, and fell into a brown study.
Something new to me, something extraordinarily potent and unfamiliar,
had suddenly invaded my soul. The wet ground on which, here and
there, a few yellowish stalks and blades of bright-green grass were to
be seen; the little rivulets glittering in the sunshine, and sweeping clods
of earth and tiny chips of wood along with them; the reddish twigs of
the lilac, with their swelling buds, which nodded just beneath the
window; the fussy twitterings of birds as they fluttered in the bush

below; the blackened fence shining wet from the snow which had lately
melted off it; and, most of all, the raw, odorous air and radiant
sunlight--all spoke to me, clearly and unmistakably, of something new
and beautiful, of something which, though I cannot repeat it here as it
was then expressed to me, I will try to reproduce so far as I understood
it. Everything spoke to me of beauty, happiness, and virtue--as three
things which were both easy and possible for me--and said that no one
of them could exist without the other two, since beauty, happiness, and
virtue were one. "How did I never come to understand that before?" I
cried to myself. "How did I ever manage to be so wicked? Oh, but how
good, how happy, I could be--nay, I WILL be--in the future! At once, at
once--yes, this very