em. Here is a special passion, CHIC, the allurement of the
forbidden. Already in the third class went from hand to hand the
manuscript transcripts of Barkov; of a spurious Pushkin; the youthful
sins of Lermontov and others: "THE FIRST NIGHT," "THE CHERRY," "LUCAS,"
"THE FESTIVAL AT PETERHOF," "THE SHE UHLAN, GRIEF THROUGH WISDOM," "THE
PRIEST," &c.

But no matter how strange, fictitious or paradoxical this may seem,
still, even these compositions, and drawings, and obscene photographic
cards, did not arouse a delightful curiosity. They were looked upon as
a prank, a lark, and the allurement of contraband risk. In the cadets'
library were chaste excerpts from Pushkin and Lermontov; all of
Ostrovsky, who only made you laugh; and almost all of Turgenev, who was
the very one that played a chief and cruel role in Kolya's life. As it
is known, love with the late great Turgenev is always surrounded with a
tantalizing veil; some sort of crepe, unseizable, forbidden, but
tempting: his maidens have forebodings of love and are agitated at its
approach, and are ashamed beyond all measure, and tremble, and turn
red. Married women or widows travel this tortuous path somewhat
differently: they struggle for a long time with their duty, or with
respectability, or with the opinion of the world; and, in the
end--oh!--fall with tears; or--oh!--begin to brave it; or, which is
still more frequent, the implacable fate cuts short her or his life at
the most--oh!--necessary moment, when it only lacks a light puff of
wind for the ripened fruit to fall. And yet all of his personages still
thirst after this shameful love; weep radiantly and laugh joyously from
it; and it shuts out all the world for them. But since boys think
entirely differently than we grown-ups, and since everything that is
forbidden, everything not said fully, or said in secret, has in their
eyes an enormous, not only twofold but threefold interest--it is
therefore natural that out of reading they drew the hazy thought that
the grown-ups were concealing something from them.

And it must be mentioned--had not Kolya (like the majority of those of
his age) seen the chambermaid Phrociya--so rosy-cheeked, always merry,
with legs of the hardness of steel (at times he, in the heat of
playing, had slapped her on the back), had he not seen her once, when
Kolya had by accident walked quickly into papa's cabinet, scurry out of
there with all her might, covering her face with her apron; a