Accessing instance members in constructors

[Mac Sta. Maria]

I read in K&B6 that instance members are accessible only after the super constructor runs.

I stumbled upon the following code:

class Parent {

    Parent() {
        printIt();
    }

    void printIt() {
        System.out.println("I'm in a overridden method. Great.");
    }
}

class Child extends Parent {

    int i = 100;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Parent p = new Child();
        p.printIt();
    }

    void printIt() {
        System.out.print(i + " ");
    }
}

and it prints:

0 100

My question would be:

If instance members are accessible only after the super constructor runs, then why is it that upon execution of the printIt( ) method of class Parent, (which in fact is Child's printIt( ) due to polymorphism), it was able to access the uninitialized instance variable i of Child even though the constructor of Parent has not yet finished executing?

Confused here. What am I missing?

[Don Redd]

rather than using word "Accessing", you can say "initialized", the instance variables are initialized after super constructor finishes and before completion of rest of its own(this) constructor.

[s ravi chandran]

I believe object creation is a two step process. Firstly, the declared variables are processed by the compiler, then the second step involving calling of super constructors up in the hierarchy. after the initialization from all the super classes, the current instance value should be assigned.

[Mac Sta. Maria]

Thank you all for clarifying. Makes sense now.

[Seetharaman Venkatasamy]

Parent() {  
        printIt();  
} 

same as

Parent() {  
       this.printIt();  
} 

in this context this means Child object.