hundredth part of what I acquired then? From a child of five to me, as I am now, is but a step. From a new-born child to a child of five the distance is terrific. . . .
“The recollections which follow refer only to my fourth and fifth years, but even of these there are but few, and not one of them refers to life outside the walls of the house. Nature till my fifth year did not exist for me. All that I recollect occurs in my little bed and in my bedroom. . . People must have let me play with flowers, with leaves; they must needs have shielded me from the sun; but till my fifth or sixth year I have not a single recollection of what we call nature. Possibly one has to get away from her in order to see her, and I was nature.
“The next thing after my trough that I recollect is the recollection of Eremeevna. ‘Eremeevna’ was the word with which they used to frighten us children. No doubt they frightened us long before this, but my recollection of it is as follows: I am in my little bed, and very happy and comfortable, as I always was, and I should not have remembered anything about it, if the nurse or someone else who then made part of my life, had not said something or other in a voice new to me and went away, and at once a feeling of terror was added to the feeling of comfort. And I recollect that I was not alone, but someone else was there just like me. (This no doubt was my sister Mashenka, who was a year younger than myself, for our beds were in the same little room.) And I recollect there was a little curtain to my bed, and my sister and I were tremulously delighted at the
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