Youth by Leo Tolstoy Chapter 12 Page 9

(which signified two marks), “although you do not deserve it. I do so simply out of consideration for your youth, and in the hope that, when you begin your University career, you will learn to be less light-minded.”

The concluding phrase, uttered in the hearing of the other professor (who at once turned his eyes upon me, as though remarking, “There!

You see, young man!”) completed my discomfiture. For a moment, a mist swam before my eyes — a mist in which the terrible professor seemed to be far away, as he sat at his table while for an instant a wild idea danced through my brain. “What if I DID do such a thing?” I thought to myself. “What would come of it?” However, I did not do the thing in question, but, on the