rity. An early marriage seemed to me the best
solution of the difficult question that must harass every thoughtful boy
when he attains to man's estate.

Two or three years later, when I was eighteen and we were living in
Moscow, I fell in love with a young lady I knew, my present wife, and
went almost every Saturday to her father's house.

My father knew, but said nothing. One day when he was going out for a
walk I asked if I might go with him. As I very seldom went for walks
with him in Moscow, he guessed that I wanted to have a serious talk
with him about something, and after walking some distance in silence,
evidently feeling that I was shy about it and did not like to break the
ice, he suddenly began:

"You seem to go pretty often to the F----s'."

I said that I was very fond of the eldest daughter.

"Oh, do you want to marry her?"

"Yes."

"Is she a good girl? Well, mind you don't make a mistake, and don't be
false to her," he said with a curious gentleness and thoughtfulness.

I left him at once and ran back home, delighted, along the Arbat. I was
glad that I had told him the truth, and his affectionate and cautious
way of taking it strengthened my affection both for him, to whom I was
boundlessly grateful for his cordiality, and for her, whom I loved
still more warmly from that moment, and to whom I resolved still more
fervently never to be untrue.

My father's tactfulness toward us amounted almost to timidity. There
were certain questions which he could never bring himself to touch on
for fear of causing us pain. I shall never forget how once in Moscow
I found him sitting writing at the table in my room when I dashed in
suddenly to change my clothes.

My bed stood behind a screen, which hid him from me.

When he heard my footsteps he said, without looking round:

"Is that you, Ilya?"

"Yes, it's I."

"Are you alone? Shut the door. There's no one to hear us, and we can't
see each other, so we shall not feel ashamed. Tell me, did you ever have
anything to do with women?"

When I said no, I suddenly heard him break out sobbing, like a little
child.

I sobbed and cried, too, and for a long time we stayed weeping tears of
joy, with the screen between us, and we were neither of us ashamed, but
both so joyful that I look on that moment as one of the happiest in my
whole life.

No arguments or homilies could ever have effected what the emotion I
experienced at that moment did. Such tears as those