At length the first examination — on differentials and integrals — drew near, but I continued in a vague state which precluded¹ me from forming any clear idea of what was awaiting me. Every evening, after consorting² with Zuchin and the rest, the thought would occur to me that there was something in my convictions which I must change — something wrong and mistaken; yet every morning the daylight would find me again satisfied to be “comme il faut,” and desirous of no change whatsoever³.

Such was the frame of mind in which I attended for the first examination. I seated myself on the bench where the princes, counts, and barons⁴ always sat, and began talking to them in French, with the not unnatural⁶ result that I never gave another thought to the answers which I was shortly to return to questions in a subject of which I knew nothing. I gazed supinely at other students as they went up to be examined, and even allowed myself to chaff⁷ some of them.

“Well, Grap,” I said to Ilinka (who, from our first entry into the University, had shaken off my influence, had ceased to smile when I spoke⁸ to him, and always remained ill-disposed towards me), “have you survived the ordeal⁹?”

“Yes,” retorted Ilinka. “Let us see if YOU can do so.”

I smiled contemptuously at the answer, notwithstanding that the doubt which he had expressed had given me a momentary¹⁰ shock. Once again, however, indifference¹¹ overlaid that feeling, and I remained so

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