sorrow were constantly sapping the root of her existence.  This sorrow could not be explained by grief for my father alone, great as that was, passionately as my mother had loved him, sacredly as she cherished his memory....  No! there was something else hidden there which I did not understand, but which I felt,—­felt confusedly and strongly as soon as I looked at those quiet, impassive eyes, at those very beautiful but also impassive lips, which were not bitterly compressed, but seemed to have congealed for good and all.

I have said that my mother loved me; but there were moments when she spurned me, when my presence was burdensome, intolerable to her.  At such times she felt, as it were, an involuntary aversion for me—­and was terrified afterward, reproaching herself with tears and clasping me to her heart.  I attributed these momentary fits of hostility to her shattered health, to her unhappiness....  These hostile sentiments might have been evoked, it is true, in a certain measure, by some strange outbursts, which were incomprehensible even to me myself, of wicked and criminal feelings which occasionally arose in me....

But these outbursts did not coincide with the moments of repulsion.—­My mother constantly wore black, as though she were in mourning.  We lived on a rather grand scale, although we associated with no one.

II

My mother concentrated upon me all her thoughts and cares.  Her life was merged in my life.  Such relations between parents and children are not always good for the children ... they are more apt to be injurious.  Moreover I was my mother’s only child ... and only children generally develop irregularly.  In rearing them the parents do not think of themselves so much as they do of them....  That is not practical.  I did not get spoiled, and did not grow obstinate (both these things happen with only children), but my nerves were unstrung before their time; in addition to which I was of rather feeble health—­I took after my mother, to whom I also bore a great facial resemblance.  I shunned the society of lads of my own age; in general, I was shy of people; I even talked very little with my mother.  I was fonder of reading than of anything else, and of walking alone—­and dreaming, dreaming!  What my dreams were about it would be difficult to say.  It sometimes seemed to me as though I were standing before a half-open door behind which were concealed hidden secrets,—­standing and waiting, and swooning with longing—­yet not crossing the threshold; and always meditating as to what there was yonder ahead of me—­and always waiting and longing ... or falling into slumber.  If the poetic vein had throbbed in me I should, in all probability, have taken to writing verses; if I had felt an inclination to religious devoutness I might have become a monk; but there was nothing of the sort about me, and I continued to dream—­and to wait.

III