and of everything around us, fall to reasoning.
We talked of a future life, of art, service, marriage, and education;
nor did the idea ever occur to us that very possibly all we said was
shocking nonsense. The reason why it never occurred to us was that the
nonsense which we talked was good, sensible nonsense, and that, so long
as one is young, one can appreciate good nonsense, and believe in it. In
youth the powers of the mind are directed wholly to the future, and
that future assumes such various, vivid, and alluring forms under the
influence of hope--hope based, not upon the experience of the past, but
upon an assumed possibility of happiness to come--that such dreams of
expected felicity constitute in themselves the true happiness of that
period of our life. How I loved those moments in our metaphysical
discussions (discussions which formed the major portion of our
intercourse) when thoughts came thronging faster and faster, and,
succeeding one another at lightning speed, and growing more and more
abstract, at length attained such a pitch of elevation that one felt
powerless to express them, and said something quite different from what
one had intended at first to say! How I liked those moments, too, when,
carried higher and higher into the realms of thought, we suddenly felt
that we could grasp its substance no longer and go no further!
At carnival time Nechludoff was so much taken up with one festivity and
another that, though he came to see us several times a day, he never
addressed a single word to me. This offended me so much that once again
I found myself thinking him a haughty, disagreeable fellow, and only
awaited an opportunity to show him that I no longer valued his company
or felt any particular affection for him. Accordingly, the first time
that he spoke to me after the carnival, I said that I had lessons to do,
and went upstairs, but a quarter of an hour later some one opened the
schoolroom door, and Nechludoff entered.
'Am I disturbing you?' he asked.
'No,' I replied, although I had at first intended to say that I had a
great deal to do.
'Then why did you run away just now? It is a long while since we had a
talk together, and I have grown so accustomed to these discussions that
I feel as though something were wanting.'
My anger had quite gone now, and Dimitri stood before me the same good
and lovable being as before.
'You know, perhaps, why I ran away?' I said.
'Perhaps I do,' he answered, taking a seat near me. 'However, though it
is possible I know why, I cannot say it straight out, whereas YOU can.'
'Then I will do so. I ran away because I was angry with you--well, not
angry, but grieved. I always have an idea that you despise me for being
so young.'
'Well, do you know why I always feel so attracted towards you?' he
replied, meeting my confession with a look of kind understanding, 'and
why I like you better than any of my other acquaintances or than any of
the people among whom I mostly have to live? It is because I found out
at once that you have the rare and astonishing gift of sincerity.'
'Yes, I always confess the things of which I am most ashamed--but only
to people in whom I trust,' I said.
'Ah, but to trust a man you must be his friend completely, and we
are not friends yet, Nicolas. Remember how, when we were speaking of
friendship, we agreed that, to be real friends, we ought to trust one
another implicitly.'
'I trust you in so far as that I feel convinced that you would never
repeat a word of what I might tell you,' I said.
'Yet perhaps the most interesting and important thoughts of all are
just those which we never tell one another, while the mean thoughts
