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162
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
iniscences, was characteristic of her throughout her
life. She was apt to overestimate the qualities she
longed to possess, and the lack of which she deplored.
She was also greatly impressed by beauty and charm
of manner. These qualities her sister appears to have
possessed in a far greater degree than herself, and her
day-dream was to surpass that sister in other matters.
From her childhood, Sönya had always been praised
for her intelligence. Her natural love of study, and
her thirst for knowledge, were now seconded by her
ambition, and by the encouragement she received from
her master in mathematics. She showed such
extraordinary keenness and quickness of perception, and
such fertility of origination, that her scientific gifts
were not to be mistaken. Her father had only
permitted this unusual and " unfeminine " study through
the influence of one of his oldest friends (himself
somewhat given to mathematics), who had discovered
S6nya’s uncommon aptitude for this science. But at
the first suspicion that his daughter intended to take
up the study seriously, the father withdrew in concern.
Her first shy hints that she wished to go to a foreign
university were as unwelcome as had been, a few years
previously, the discovery of Aniuta’s authorship. It
was regarded as a reprehensible tendency toward
impropriety. Young girls of good family who had already
carried out similar pla^is were simply regarded as mere
adventuresses, who had brought shame and sorrow
upon their parents. Thus in the homes of the
aristocracy there existed two opposing currents: first, the
hidden, secret, and stifled, but rebellious and intense
striving, which could not be resisted, and which found
its own outlet like a natural force; and, secondly, the
open and genuine conviction, on the parents’ side, of
their right to stem and hold in check, to regulate
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