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RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD 41
remarkable vitality and elasticity is left behind all
over my body.
But now it is quite light. We go to the
dining-room. On the table puffs the samovar, the wood in
the stove is crackling, and the bright flame is reflected
and multiplied in the large frozen windows.
Not a trace of my sleepiness remains. On the
contrary I feel very alert, most unaccountably joyful at
heart; as if I wanted noise, laughter, merriment.
Ah, if I only had a companion, a child of my own
age, with whom I could frolic and romp, in whom the
superabundance of healthy young life bubbled up like
a spring, as it did in me. But I have no such
companion, and I drink my tea alone with my governess,
as the other members of the family, including my
brother and my sister, rise much later. I feel such
an uncontrollable desire to make merry and laugh over
something or other that I make a feeble attempt at
sprightliness with the governess. Unfortunately she
is not in a good humor to-day, which is often the case
with her in the morning, as she suffers from liver
disease; consequently she considers it her duty to
repress my ill-timed burst of mirth, with the remark
that this is the time for lessons and not for laughter.
My day always begins with a music lesson. The
temperature in the big hall up-stairs where the piano
stands is very low, so that my fingers become stiff and
swollen, and my nails stand out against the
background they furnish like blue blotches.
An hour and a half of scales and exercises,
accompanied by the monotonous beats of a small stick with
which my governess indicates the time, chills to a
considerable degree that sensation of joy in mere
living with which I began my day. Other lessons follow
the music lesson. I had enjoyed my lessons very
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