Reflections: Various Variations on Old Themes

of "The Children of the Abbey," and entirely occupied by Lord Mortimer, could I willingly study grammar and conjugate the verb aimer to love with its adjutants être to be and avoir to have, after I knew how it was conjugated by life and in life? Furthermore, I understood novels, but not grammar; what now seems to flow so clearly from common sense then appeared to be some kind of fetters, deliberately invented difficulties. Bouchot did not like me and left for Metz with a poor opinion of me. Annoying! When I go to France, I will stop by to see the old man. How can I convince him? He measures a man by his knowledge of French grammar—and not just any grammar, but specifically the eighth edition of Lhomond’s—while I make no mistakes only in the Sanskrit language, and that is because I do not know it at all. How, then? I have proof—well, that is my secret, and the old man will surrender, provided he has not rushed to the other world; however, I will go there too: I very much want to travel.

Having read all the books I found in a chest standing in the storeroom, I began to hunt for others, and the pharmacist on Maroseyka Street, who once brought Zand's portrait and always smelled of rhubarb and rose, sent me greasy and tattered volumes of La Fontaine; these volumes drove me completely mad. I started with the novel "Der Sonderling" The Eccentric and off I went, and off I went! Novels consumed all my attention: while reading, I would forget myself in my camlet jacket and relocate myself successively into young Burgard, Alcibiades, Rinaldo Rinaldini, and so on. But as my mental gluttony knew no bounds, the pharmacy on Maroseyka soon ran out of novels, and I began to dig up all sorts of trash everywhere; among other things, I unearthed "Kurganov's Letter-Writer"—that brilliant predecessor of the well-known moral-satirical school in our literature. Kurganov adorned my memory with a rich supply of truths and anecdotes; even now I have not forgotten some, for example: "A certain Polish nobleman of a frivolous nature, wishing to confuse a learned man, asked him what obolus, parabolus, faribolus meant. The latter answered him..." and so on. You can draw the sharp answer from the source itself.

Useful occupations with Kurganov and La Fontaine were soon