ne subject or another." Yet at this period I often asked myself, "Was I
better and more truthful when I only believed in the power of the
human intellect, or am I more so now, when I am losing the faculty of
developing that power, and am in doubt both as to its potency and as to
its importance?" To this I could return no positive answer.

The sense of freedom, combined with the spring-like feeling of vague
expectation to which I have referred already, so unsettled me that
I could not keep myself in hand--could make none but the sorriest of
preparations for my University ordeal. Thus I was busy in the schoolroom
one morning, and fully aware that I must work hard, seeing that
to-morrow was the day of my examination in a subject of which I had
the two whole questions still to read up; yet no sooner had a breath of
spring come wafted through the window than I felt as though there were
something quite different that I wished to recall to my memory. My hands
laid down my book, my feet began to move of themselves, and to set me
walking up and down the room, and my head felt as though some one
had suddenly touched in it a little spring and set some machine in
motion--so easily and swiftly and naturally did all sorts of pleasing
fancies of which I could catch no more than the radiancy begin coursing
through it. Thus one hour, two hours, elapsed unperceived. Even if I
sat down determinedly to my book, and managed to concentrate my whole
attention upon what I was reading, suddenly there would sound in the
corridor the footsteps of a woman and the rustle of her dress. Instantly
everything would escape my mind, and I would find it impossible to
remain still any longer, however much I knew that the woman could only
be either Gasha or my grandmother's old sewing-maid moving about in the
corridor. "Yet suppose it should be SHE all at once?" I would say to
myself. "Suppose IT is beginning now, and I were to lose it?" and,
darting out into the corridor, I would find, each time, that it was only
Gasha. Yet for long enough afterwards I could not recall my attention to
my studies. A little spring had been touched in my head, and a strange
mental ferment started afresh. Again, that evening I was sitting alone
beside a tallow candle in my room. Suddenly I looked up for a moment--to
snuff the candle, or to straighten myself in my chair--and at once
became aware of nothing but the darkness in the corners and the blank of
the open doorway. Then,