第2章

SPRINGTIME

Easter of the year when I entered the University fell late in April, so that the examinations were fixed for St.Thomas's Week, [Easter week.] and I had to spend Good Friday in fasting and finally getting myself ready for the ordeal.

Following upon wet snow (the kind of stuff which Karl Ivanitch used to describe as "a child following, its father"), the weather had for three days been bright and mild and still.Not a clot of snow was now to be seen in the streets, and the dirty slush had given place to wet, shining pavements and coursing rivulets.The last icicles on the roofs were fast melting in the sunshine, buds were swelling on the trees in the little garden, the path leading across the courtyard to the stables was soft instead of being a frozen ridge of mud, and mossy grass was showing green between the stones around the entrance-steps.It was just that particular time in spring when the season exercises the strongest influence upon the human soul--when clear sunlight illuminates everything, yet sheds no warmth, when rivulets run trickling under one's feet, when the air is charged with an odorous freshness, and when the bright blue sky is streaked with long, transparent clouds.

For some reason or another the influence of this early stage in the birth of spring always seems to me more perceptible and more impressive in a great town than in the country.One sees less, but one feels more.I was standing near the window--through the double frames of which the morning sun was throwing its mote-

flecked beams upon the floor of what seemed to me my intolerably wearisome schoolroom--and working out a long algebraical equation on the blackboard.In one hand I was holding a ragged, long-

suffering "Algebra" and in the other a small piece of chalk which had already besmeared my hands, my face, and the elbows of my jacket.Nicola, clad in an apron, and with his sleeves rolled up, was picking out the putty from the window-frames with a pair of nippers, and unfastening the screws.The window looked out upon the little garden.At length his occupation and the noise which he was making over it arrested my attention.At the moment I was in a very cross, dissatisfied frame of mind, for nothing seemed to be going right with me.I had made a mistake at the very beginning of my algebra, and so should have to work it out again; twice I had let the chalk drop.I was conscious that my hands and face were whitened all over; the sponge had rolled away into a corner; and the noise of Nicola's operations was fast getting on my nerves.I had a feeling as though I wanted to fly into a temper and grumble at some one, so I threw down chalk and "Algebra" alike, and began to pace the room.Then suddenly I remembered that to-day we were to go to confession, and that therefore I must refrain from doing anything wrong.Next, with equal suddenness I relapsed into an extraordinarily goodhumoured frame of mind, and walked across to Nicola.

"Let me help you, Nicola," I said, trying to speak as pleasantly as I possibly could.The idea that I was performing a meritorious action in thus suppressing my ill-temper and offering to help him increased my good-humour all the more.

By this time the putty had been chipped out, and the screws removed, yet, though Nicola pulled with might and main at the cross-piece, the window-frame refused to budge.

"If it comes out as soon as he and I begin to pull at it together," I thought, "it will be rather a shame, as then I shall have nothing more of the kind to do to-day."