"I"--Romashov stood in the middle of the room with his legs straddling and his head hanging down, thinking deeply. "_I, I, I!_" he shouted in a loud voice, in which there lay a certain note of astonishment, as if he now was first beginning to comprehend the meaning of this short word. "Who is standing here and gaping at that black crack in the floor?--Is it really I? How curious--I"--he paused slowly and with emphasis on the monosyllable, just as if it were only by such means that he could grasp its significance. He smiled unnaturally; but, in the next instant, he frowned, and turned pale with emotion and strain of thought. Such small crises had not infrequently happened to him during the last five or six years, as is nearly always the case with young people during that period of life when the mind is in course of development. A simple truth, a saying, a common phrase, with the meaning of which he has long ago been familiar, suddenly, by some mysterious impulse from within, stands in a new light, and so receives a particular philosophical meaning. Romashov could still remember the first time this happened to him. It was at school during a catechism lesson, when the priest tried to explain the parable of the labourers who carried away stones. One of them began with the light stones, and afterwards took the heavier ones, but when at last he came to the very heaviest of all his strength was exhausted. The other worked according to a diametrically different plan, and luckily fulfilled his duty. To Romashov was opened the whole abyss of practical wisdom that lay hidden in this simple picture that he had known and understood ever since he could read a book. Likewise with the old saying: "Seven times shalt thou measure, once shalt thou cut." In a happy moment he suddenly perceived the full, deep import of this maxim; wisdom, understanding, wise economy, calculation. A tremendous experience of life lay concealed in these few words. Such was the case now. All his mental individuality stood suddenly before him with the distinctness of a lightning flash. "My Ego," thought Romashov, "is only that which is within me, the very kernel of my being; all the rest is the non-Ego--that is, only secondary things. This room, street, trees, sky, the commander of my regiment, Lieutenant Andrusevich, the service, the standard, the soldiers--all this is non-Ego. No, no, this is non-Ego--my hands and feet." Romashov lifted up his hands to the level of his face, and looked at them with wonder and curiosity, as if he saw them now for the first time in his life. "No, all this is non-Ego. But look--I pinch my arm--that is the Ego. I see my arm, I lift it up--_this_ is the Ego. And what I am thinking now is also Ego. If I now want to go my way, that is the Ego. And even if I stop, that is the Ego.