AN ACCIDENT
Archag worked at his lessons with enthusiasm, and the days and weeks
passed very quickly. Most of the professors admired his earnestness
and intelligence, and were pleased with the progress he made, but
unfortunately he had failed to win the favor of Mr. Piralian, who
continued to dislike him. It must be confessed that Archag showed
little interest in his English lessons; he had never been willing to
alter his pronunciation, for he considered Miss Dobbie an excellent
teacher, and since she said "auld" and "gir-r-l", of course that
must be right. Therefore, he argued, Professor Piralian was in the
wrong and spoke incorrectly; he did not know how to teach, and it was
not worth while to work very hard. Our friend thus drew a quantity
of false conclusions, with the superb recklessness of youth. In his
Christmas reports he was marked "good," and "very good" in everything
except English, in which he had only "medium"; but this made very
little impression upon him; he knew that he had not done good work,
and did not expect anything better. Garabed stood first in the class,
then came Dikran and Archag. Aram was fifth. Nejib, who had always been
among the first, stood only eighth because of his bad conduct mark.
The advent of the Christmas holidays was, of course, hailed by the
boys with shouts of joy. What great games they would play! What a
jolly time they were going to have during those two weeks! On New
Year's Day, the Sophomores were invited to the house of Hosep Paelian,
one of the day pupils, and they had a delightful time with him.
They were constantly going to the bazaar to do their Christmas
shopping, and returning surrounded with an air of mystery, bringing
big parcels which they hid in their trunks.
At this point I hear my readers exclaim, "What! Christmas after New
Year's Day? The world must certainly be upside-down over there!"
It does indeed seem odd to us to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ
in the month of January. But the Gregorians use the Greek calendar,
which is twelve days later than ours. They keep Christmas on the Feast
of the Three Kings, the sixth day of January, that is, the eighteenth,
New Style.
President Mills had a pine tree brought from Amanus, a mountain to the
west of Aintab. For several days the sun was hidden by snow-storms,
and this Oriental Christmas differed little from the same season in
the North. In the afternoon of Christmas Day, Professor Pagratian
conducted a service in the college chapel, after which masters and
pupils gathered together for dinner in the great dining-room.
The menu consisted of turkey with chestnuts, and a dessert of grapes
and oranges. The boys were little used to delicacies, especially to
meat, and their eyes shone with eagerness in anticipation of this feast
of good things. The professors were seated at different tables; Mihran
hodja and Monsieur Bernier sat with the Sophomores, one at either
end of the table. The young Swiss smiled as he looked at his plate,
on which were large slices of turkey, pilaaf (rice), and chestnuts,
arranged in the form of a tower. Oriental usage requires that the
plates be filled to the extent of their capacity, but it is very
bad form not to leave a considerable part of what has been given,
or one is set down as a gourmand.
Monsieur Bernier was preparing to do justice to his dinner when he
observed that he had neither knife nor fork. Supposing it to be a
mere oversight, he asked Garabed to get him a knife. After quite
five minutes the boy returned in some embarrassment, saying he could
not find one. Aram then offered his pen-knife, which, boy-fashion,
he was in the habit of using for all sorts of purposes; Monsieur
Bernier recalled having seen him digging in the earth with this same
knife a few days before, and considered it more hygienic to decline
the offer. He noticed how his companions rolled up their meat in
the soft, thin bread, using a spoon for the rice and chestnuts,
so he did the same, to the great delight of the boys.
The tree had been lighted in the study hall; the Seniors had decorated
it with cotton-wool, oranges, apples and gilded nuts, and had laid
out the presents on tables. The boys sang a hymn in English; then
they made haste to open their parcels, and before long every one
was engrossed with his own gifts. Archag received one Turkish pound
(about four dollars and a half) from his parents, a book from his
sister and another from Garabed, and Aram's photograph. Dikran was
manipulating a microscope which his brother had sent him from New
York. Boghos had a kodak from America, which he was showing with
pride to his friend Soghomon. No one had been forgotten; for the less
fortunate boys whose parents had not been able to send them anything,
Mrs. Mills had provided remembrances. After all the presents had been
duly admired, the boys put them aside, to play games. At ten o'clock,
tea and caghkés (little cakes) were served, and at length the boys
went off to their dormitories, very happy after their festival.
The next day, the weather was so cold that every one stayed indoors,
and Archag, after reading a little while, took a fancy to go upstairs
to the museum, which contained good specimens of the flora and fauna
of the country.
He spent a long time looking at the different collections of plants,
the stuffed birds and the shells; but when that was finished, he did
not know what to do with himself. What was there to do, all the rest
of the afternoon? As his eyes wandered about the room, they fell on
a cabinet standing partly open. He went up to it, and pushing back
the door, saw that it contained some rare objects: some insects
and Professor Piralian's collection of butterflies. This worthy
man had a mania for collecting; he had hunted for stones, fossils,
butterflies and antique coins, by turns; at present he was asking
every one for postage-stamps, which he carefully pasted in a new
album. His collection of butterflies included some superb specimens
which he had caught himself during a stay in Mexico. On his return
to Aintab he had presented the collection to the college, where it
was highly appreciated.
As the thermometer registered several degrees below zero, the furnace
fire was burning at full blast, and the air in the museum, already
impregnated with camphor and naphtha, was suffocating. Before long,
Archag's head was burning; he threw open one of the windows near the
door, and took a good breath of fresh air. Then he returned to the
cabinet and took out a glass box containing the finest specimen of
the Piralian collection. It was beginning to grow dark, so he took
the box to the window, which he had left open. He stood looking
at the marvelous insects with their iridescent wings of blue and
green and gold, and was amusing himself by trying to decipher the
Latin names, when he felt a smart blow on his arm. The force of the
sudden jar made him let go of the box, and down it fell with a crash,
on the stone pavement of the courtyard. For an instant Archag stood
motionless with fright; then he rushed into the corridor, where he
heard a sound of retreating footsteps. He went back to the museum,
and looking from the window he could see the shapeless fragments of
the box down below. A ray of hope flashed across his mind; could it
be, perhaps, that the precious insects had not been injured?
Running downstairs two steps at a time, the next moment he was in
the courtyard. Alas! the butterflies were ruined; most of them were
reduced to powder. In the face of this disaster Archag felt powerless,
constrained by an agony of fear. He could not bring himself to think
of the thing he ought to do, to go at once to Professor Piralian and
tell him frankly what had happened. His only thought was that he should
be expelled from the college. How dreadful, oh, how very dreadful!
When he entered the schoolroom, he was so pale that Garabed was
frightened:
"Why, what is the matter with you? Are you ill?"
"I have a bad headache."
He took up a book, but the words danced before his eyes, without
conveying the slightest meaning to his mind.
Garabed, seeing that he did not want to talk, asked no more
questions. Every time the door was opened, the culprit trembled: now,
his misdeed had been discovered, he thought, and some one was coming
to question the boys. His heart beat like a trip-hammer, and he felt
as if he must suffocate. The evening passed without any disturbance,
but Archag had a restless night; he kept dreaming that he had been
sent away in disgrace, and his classmates' shouts of derisive laughter
seemed to ring in his ears. Several times he woke up with a start,
to hear Garabed anxiously asking if he were ill, and if he would like
to have Badvili Melikian called. He would reply impatiently that he
did not need anything, and turn over on the other side.
The next morning, Dr. Mills came into the schoolroom before prayers,
looking very grave.
"Now for it!" said Archag to himself.
The president told them what had happened, and made the misdeed appear
very disgraceful. When he called on the guilty one to come forward
and acknowledge his fault, our friend rose mechanically and went to
the desk.
"It was I who did it," he said simply.
"You! you!" repeated Dr. Mills. "A boy whom we have all loved! How
can you have done a thing like that? It can't be possible!"
However, he led the culprit away to his office, and questioned him
closely. Archag confessed to opening the cabinet and taking the box
of butterflies to the window in order to see them better, but when he
said that some one had pushed him, his judge smiled incredulously. He
called Badvili Melikian, who assured him that, with the exception
of Nejib who was in the city, none of the Sophomores had left the
study-hall that afternoon.
Archag had always been on good terms with his classmates, and it seemed
impossible that any one of them should have wanted to play him such
a trick. Dr. Mills questioned the boys again, but each gave the same
reply: not one of them had gone up to the museum that day. Indeed, the
president asked these questions merely to satisfy his own conscience;
he was quite convinced of Archag's guilt. Professor Piralian had
often complained of his bad conduct and lack of application; he had
just given him a "medium" mark in English. It seemed therefore quite
probable that Archag had deliberately taken revenge on his teacher
by destroying his collection.
All the professors assembled in the president's room to talk the
matter over, and Dr. Mills laid Archag's case before them at some
length, and then waited for their counsel. A painful silence followed;
Armenians hate to give an opinion outright; they prefer to evade the
main question, and to prolong their discussions without coming to
any decision.
At last Professor Pagratian rose and addressed the president:
"I must say, that for my part, I have always found Archag loyal and
truthful." A murmur of assent was heard from the other masters. "I
have watched him both in and out of study-hours, and it is my private
opinion that one of his classmates really did give him a push by
way of revenge. I have my own suspicions, too, as to that, which I
shall do my utmost to verify. The lad is diffident and awkward; he
did wrong not to confess his fault at once, but he made up for that
by admitting his guilt before the whole college. You will reply that
he could not do otherwise, since Badvili Melikian knew he was in the
museum that afternoon. I do not admit that argument; if he had meant
to lie about it all, he would have denied the whole or nothing. Let
us punish him for his disobedience in handling the collection; that
was his only fault, and does not deserve expulsion from the college."
The professors discussed the matter at length; Monsieur Bernier and
Badvili Melikian agreed with Professor Pagratian; the others wished
Archag to be expelled.
"I don't believe," said the president, at last, "that we shall ever
come to an agreement. I suggest therefore that we leave the decision
to Professor Piralian, who is better able to judge than we."
The professor had received a grievous blow in the destruction of his
precious collection, and he had none too much sympathy with Archag. But
at the moment of giving his judgment he seemed to see his pupil's
bright face with its frank and straightforward expression, and he
felt that eyes like his could not have lied. His decision was made.
"Gentlemen," said he, "I ask you to keep Archag here; five days on
bounds will be sufficient punishment for him."
Meanwhile our friend was wandering about the campus like a lost
soul. He had gone off by himself, ashamed to let his grief be
seen. Was he really going to be expelled? All his pride revolted at
the thought. He would cheerfully take any punishment if only he might
be spared this disgrace.
After a while he heard someone calling him:
"Archag, Archag!"
"What is it?"
"Dr. Mills is asking for you."
Archag entered the room where all the professors were seated around
the table.
"My friend," said the president to him, "you have committed a serious
fault in touching the collection of butterflies after having been
told not to do so. The loss you have occasioned to our museum is
irreparable. We are willing, however, to take into consideration your
youth and inexperience, as extenuating circumstances, since you are
just at the beginning of your college career. You will have five days
on bounds, and be marked zero for conduct in your next report."
"Then I am not expelled?"
"No; we think you are sufficiently punished in this way."
"Oh! thank you, thank you, Machallah!" cried Archag. He kissed the
president's hand again and again, then fled precipitately to hide
the sobs that stifled him.