Having experienced mechanical sexual excitements very early,
approximately since nine or nine years and a half, Kolya did not
at all have the least understanding of the significance of that
end of being in love or of courtship, which is so horrible on the
face of it, if it be looked at impartially, or if it be explained
scientifically. Unfortunately, there was at that time near him not
a one of the present progressive and learned ladies who, having
turned away the neck of the classic stork, and torn up by the
roots the cabbage underneath which children are found, recommend
that the great mystery of love and generation be explained to
children in lectures, through comparisons and assimilations,
mercilessly and in a well-nigh graphic manner.
It must be said, that at that remote time of which we are
speaking, the private institutions--male PENSIONS and institutes,
as well as academies for cadets--represented some sort of hot-
house nurseries. The care of the mind and morality they tried to
entrust as much as possible to educators who were bureaucrats-
formalists; and in addition impatient, captious, capricious in
their sympathies and hysterical, just like old maid lady teachers.
Pages:
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465