After a little while I began to recover, and to look with interest at objects which we passed and at the hind-quarters of the led horse which was trotting on my side.  I watched how it would swish its tail, how it would lift one hoof after the other, how the driver’s thong would fall upon its back, and how all its legs would then seem to jump together and the back-band, with the rings on it, to jump too—­the whole covered with the horse’s foam.  Then I would look at the rolling stretches of ripe corn, at the dark ploughed fields where ploughs and peasants and horses with foals were working, at their footprints, and at the box of the carriage to see who was driving us; until, though my face was still wet with tears, my thoughts had strayed far from her with whom I had just parted—­parted, perhaps, for ever.  Yet ever and again something would recall her to my memory.  I remembered too how, the evening before, I had found a mushroom under the birch-trees, how Lubotshka had quarrelled with Katenka as to whose it should be, and how they had both of them wept when taking leave of us.  I felt sorry to be parted from them, and from Natalia Savishna, and from the birch-tree avenue, and from Foka.  Yes, even the horrid Mimi I longed for.  I longed for everything at home.  And poor Mamma!—­The tears rushed to my eyes again.  Yet even this mood passed away before long.

XV —­ CHILDHOOD

Happy, happy, never-returning time of childhood!  How can we help loving and dwelling upon its recollections?  They cheer and elevate the soul, and become to one a source of higher joys.

Sometimes, when dreaming of bygone days, I fancy that, tired out with running about, I have sat down, as of old, in my high arm-chair by the tea-table.  It is late, and I have long since drunk my cup of milk.  My eyes are heavy with sleep as I sit there and listen.  How could I not listen, seeing that Mamma is speaking to somebody, and that the sound of her voice is so melodious and kind?  How much its echoes recall to my heart!  With my eyes veiled with drowsiness I gaze at her wistfully.  Suddenly she seems to grow smaller and smaller, and her face vanishes to a point; yet I can still see it—­can still see her as she looks at me and smiles.  Somehow it pleases me to see her grown so small.  I blink and blink, yet she looks no larger than a boy reflected in the pupil of an eye.  Then I rouse myself, and the picture fades.  Once more I half-close my eyes, and cast about to try and recall the dream, but it has gone.

I rise to my feet, only to fall back comfortably into the armchair.

“There!  You are failing asleep again, little Nicolas,” says Mamma.  “You had better go to by-by.”