to blame for this, and that absence of such apprehension in no way
prevented them from being good and clever girls. Accordingly I looked
down upon them. Moreover, having once lit upon my precious idea of
"frankness," and being bent upon applying it to the full in myself, I
thought the quiet, confiding nature of Lubotshka guilty of secretiveness
and dissimulation simply because she saw no necessity for digging up and
examining all her thoughts and instincts. For instance, the fact that
she always signed the sign of the cross over Papa before going to bed,
that she and Katenka invariably wept in church when attending requiem
masses for Mamma, and that Katenka sighed and rolled her eyes about when
playing the piano--all these things seemed to me sheer make-believe, and
I asked myself: "At what period did they learn to pretend like grown-up
people, and how can they bring themselves to do it?"

XXX. HOW I EMPLOYED MY TIME

Nevertheless, the fact that that summer I developed a passion for music
caused me to become better friends with the ladies of our household
than I had been for years. In the spring, a young fellow came to see us,
armed with a letter of introduction, who, as soon as ever he entered the
drawing-room, fixed his eyes upon the piano, and kept gradually
edging his chair closer to it as he talked to Mimi and Katenka. After
discoursing awhile of the weather and the amenities of country life, he
skilfully directed the conversation to piano-tuners, music, and pianos
generally, and ended by saying that he himself played--and in truth
he did sit down and perform three waltzes, with Mimi, Lubotshka, and
Katenka grouped about the instrument, and watching him as he did so. He
never came to see us again, but his playing, and his attitude when at
the piano, and the way in which he kept shaking his long hair, and, most
of all, the manner in which he was able to execute octaves with his left
hand as he first of all played them rapidly with his thumb and little
finger, and then slowly closed those members, and then played the
octaves afresh, made a great impression upon me. This graceful gesture
of his, together with his easy pose and his shaking of hair and
successful winning of the ladies' applause by his talent, ended by
firing me to take up the piano. Convinced that I possessed both talent
and a passion for music, I set myself to learn, and, in doing so, acted
just as millions of the male--still more, of the female-