'Oh yes, it is good to be your age,' Anna continued. 'I remember and know that blue mist, like the mist on the Swiss mountains... that mist which envelops everything at that blissful time when childhood is just, just coming to an end, and its immense, blissful circle turns into an ever-narrowing path, and you enter the defile gladly yet with dread, though it seems bright and beautiful... Who has not passed through it?'