<SYSTEM_TASK:>
Solve the following problem using Python, implementing the functions described below, one line at a time
<END_TASK>
<USER_TASK:>
Description:
 def character_offset_begin(self):
 """ Lazy-loads character offset begin node :getter: Returns the integer value of the beginning offset :type: int """

        if self._character_offset_begin is None:
            offsets = self._element.xpath('CharacterOffsetBegin/text()')
            if len(offsets) > 0:
                self._character_offset_begin = int(offsets[0])
        return self._character_offset_begin