I had exhausted the books, I began on the old volumes of a
Russian periodical which I found on a shelf in my room. There was a
high stack of these paper volumes, and I was so hungry for books that
I went at them greedily, fearing that I might not get through before I
had to return to Polotzk.

I read every spare minute of the day, and most of the night. I
scarcely ever stopped at night until my lamp burned out. Then I would
creep into bed beside Dinke, but often my head burned so from
excitement that I did not sleep at once. And no wonder. The violent
romances which rushed through the pages of that periodical were fit to
inflame an older, more sophisticated brain than mine. I must believe
that it was a thoroughly respectable magazine, because I found it in
my Uncle Solomon's house; but the novels it printed were certainly
sensational, if I dare judge from my lurid recollections. These
romances, indeed, may have had their literary qualities, which I was
too untrained to appreciate. I remember nothing but startling
adventures of strange heroes and heroines, violent catastrophes in
every chapter, beautiful maidens abducted by cruel Cossacks, inhuman
mothers who poisoned their daughters for jealousy of their lovers; and
all these unheard-of things happening in a strange world, the very
language of which was unnatural to me. I was quick enough to fix
meanings to new words, however, so keen was my interest in what I
read. Indeed, when I recall the zest with which I devoured those
fearful pages, the thrill with which I followed the heartless mother
or the abused maiden in her adventures, my heart beating in my throat
when my little lamp began to flicker; and then, myself, big-eyed and
shivery in the dark, stealing to bed like a guilty ghost,--when I
remember all this, I have an unpleasant feeling, as of one hearing of
another's debauch; and I would be glad to shake the little bony
culprit that I was then.

My uncle was away so much of the time that I doubt if he knew how I
spent my nights. My aunt, poor hard-worked housewife, knew too little
of books to direct my reading. My cousins were not enough older than
myself to play mentors to me. Besides all this, I think it was tacitly
agreed, at my uncle's as at home, that Mashke was best let alone in
such matters. So I burnt my midnight lamp, and filled my mind with a
conglomeration of images entirely unsuited to my mental digestion; and
no one can say what they would have bred i