Chapter 3 - Page 2

so sadly, and say that I am the son of a
priest, and that I am happy only when I am there alone, quite
alone. Then she will give me her hand, and say something to me,
and sit down beside me. So every day we shall go to the same
spot, and be friends together, and I shall kiss her. But no! That
would not be right! On the contrary, from this day forward I
never mean to look at a woman again. Never, never again do I mean
to walk with a girl, nor even to go near one if I can help it.
Yet, of course, in three years' time, when I have come of age, I
shall marry. Also, I mean to take as much exercise as ever I can,
and to do gymnastics every day, so that, when I have turned
twenty-five, I shall be stronger even than Rappo. On my first
day's training I mean to hold out half a pood [The Pood = 40
Russian pounds.] at arm's length for five minutes, and the next
day twenty-one pounds, and the third day twenty-two pounds, and
so on, until at last I can hold out four poods in each hand, and
be stronger even than a porter. Then, if ever any one should try
to insult me or should begin to speak disrespectfully of HER, I
shall take him so, by the front of his coat, and lift him up an
arshin [The arshin = 2 feet 3 inches.] or two with one hand, and
just hold him there, so that he may feel my strength and cease
from his conduct. Yet that too would not be right. No, no, it
would not matter; I should not hurt him, merely show him that I--"

Let no one blame me because the dreams of my youth were as
foolish as those of my childhood and boyhood. I am sure that,
even if it be my fate to live to extreme old age and to continue
my story with the years, I, an old man of seventy, shall be found
dreaming dreams just as impossible and childish as those I am
dreaming now. I shall be dreaming of some lovely Maria who loves
me, the toothless old man, as she might love a Mazeppa; of some
imbecile son who, through some extraordinary chance, has suddenly
become a minister of state; of my suddenly receiving a windfall
of a million of roubles. I am sure that there exists no human
being, no human age, to whom or to which that gracious,
consolatory power of dreaming is totally a stranger. Yet, save
for the one general feature of magic and impossibility, the
dreams of each human being, of each age of man, have their own
distinguishing characteristics. At the period upon which I look
as having marked the close of my boyhood and the beginning of my
youth, four leading sentiments formed the basis of my dreams. The
first of those sentiments was love for HER--for an imaginary
woman whom I always pictured the same in my dreams, and whom I
somehow expected to meet some day and somewhere. This she of mine
had a little of Sonetchka in