The Collected Works of Benedict de Spinoza

The Melenki relative was a kind, dreamy soul: young girls in general are incomparably more expansive than our own brother; they possess a warmth that always glows, and a sympathy always ready to love. In them, feelings are rarely suppressed by egoism, and there is no masculine, calculating mind. During one of her visits, she favored me and caressed me; she felt sorry that I was so lonely, so devoid of greeting. She began to treat me, a thirteen-year-old boy, as if I were a grown-up; I loved her with all my heart for this. I eagerly offered her my small hand, swore friendship and love, and now, 13 years later, I am ready to reach out my hand again—yet how many circumstances, people, and miles have pushed themselves between us! She arrived like a bright apparition from the banks of the Klyazma and disappeared for long periods afterward. At that time, I wrote epistles to Melenki every week, and in those epistles, all the dreams and beliefs of that time are preserved. She did not remain in my debt; she answered every letter and squandered with extreme generosity nouns and adjectives to describe the surroundings of Melenki, her room with green window frames and purple stocks on the windows. But I was little satisfied with letters and waited with impatience for her herself; it was decided that she would come to us for a full six months; I counted the days on my fingers... And so, one winter evening, I am sitting with Vasily Evdokimovich; he talks about four kinds of poetry and washes down each kind with kvass. Suddenly, noise, kisses, loud talk of joy, her voice... I opened the door; they are dragging bundles and hatboxes through the hall; my cheeks flushed with joy, and I no longer listened to what Vasily Evdokimovich was saying about didactic poetry (perhaps that is why I still do not understand it, although since then I have had the occasion to read Petrozilius's poem "On Porcelain"); a few minutes later, she came into my little room, and after the insulting "Oh, how you have grown!" she asked what we were doing. I answered proudly: "analyzing poetic compositions." I even remember the red merino dress in which she appeared before me then. But, alas! Times have changed: she braided her hair; this offended me, me with my à l'enfant childlike collars—the new hairstyle so