y way, and, while submitting myself to his will,
tried to appear merely careless and indifferent. Although at times his
influence seemed irksome and intolerable, to throw it off was beyond my
strength.

I often think with regret of that fresh, beautiful feeling of boundless,
disinterested love which came to an end without having ever found
self-expression or return. It is strange how, when a child, I always
longed to be like grown-up people, and yet how I have often longed,
since childhood's days, for those days to come back to me! Many times,
in my relations with Seriosha, this wish to resemble grown-up people
put a rude check upon the love that was waiting to expand, and made me
repress it. Not only was I afraid of kissing him, or of taking his hand
and saying how glad I was to see him, but I even dreaded calling him
"Seriosha" and always said "Sergius" as every one else did in our
house. Any expression of affection would have seemed like evidence of
childishness, and any one who indulged in it, a baby. Not having yet
passed through those bitter experiences which enforce upon older years
circumspection and coldness, I deprived myself of the pure delight of
a fresh, childish instinct for the absurd purpose of trying to resemble
grown-up people.

I met the Iwins in the ante-room, welcomed them, and then ran to tell
Grandmamma of their arrival with an expression as happy as though she
were certain to be equally delighted. Then, never taking my eyes off
Seriosha, I conducted the visitors to the drawing-room, and eagerly
followed every movement of my favourite. When Grandmamma spoke to
and fixed her penetrating glance upon him, I experienced that mingled
sensation of pride and solicitude which an artist might feel when
waiting for revered lips to pronounce a judgment upon his work.

With Grandmamma's permission, the Iwins' young tutor, Herr Frost,
accompanied us into the little back garden, where he seated himself
upon a bench, arranged his legs in a tasteful attitude, rested his
brass-knobbed cane between them, lighted a cigar, and assumed the air
of a man well-pleased with himself. He was a German, but of a very
different sort to our good Karl Ivanitch. In the first place, he spoke
both Russian and French correctly, though with a hard accent Indeed,
he enjoyed--especially among the ladies--the reputation of being a very
accomplished fellow. In the second place, he wore a reddish moustache,
a large gold pin set with a