"oh, don’t think that i have no sense of my own humiliation! i have suffered already in reading so far. which of you all does not think me a fool at this moment a young fool who knows nothing of life forgetting that to live as i have lived these last six months is to live longer than grey-haired old men. well, let them laugh, and say it is all nonsense, if they please. they may say it is all fairy-tales, if they like; and i have spent whole nights telling myself fairy-tales. i remember them all. but how can i tell fairy-tales now? the time for them is over. they amused me when i found that there was not even time for me to learn the greek grammar, as i wanted to do. ‘i shall die before i get to the syntax,’ i thought at the first page and threw the book under the table. it is there still, for i forbade anyone to pick it up.