Volodya was sitting in his class. He felt depressed. He listened
inattentively.
He raised his eyes. A shadow was moving along the ceiling near the
front wall. Volodya observed that it came in through the first window.
To begin with it fell from the window toward the centre of the
class-room, but later it started forward rather quickly away from
Volodya—evidently some one was walking in the street, just by the
window. While this shadow was still moving another shadow came through
the second window, falling, as did the first one, toward the back wall,
but later it began to turn quickly toward the front wall. The same
thing happened at the third and the fourth windows; the shadows fell in
the class-room on the ceiling, and in the degree that the passer-by
moved forward they retreated backward.
“This,” thought Volodya, “is not at all the same as in an open place,
where the shadow follows the man; when the man goes forward, the shadow
glides behind, and other shadows again meet him in the front.”
Volodya turned his eyes on the gaunt figure of the tutor. His callous,
yellow face annoyed Volodya. He looked for his shadow and found it on
the wall, just behind the tutor’s chair. The monstrous shape bent over
and rocked from side to side, but it had neither a yellow face nor a
malignant smile, and Volodya looked at it with joy. His thoughts
scampered off somewhere far away, and he heard not a single thing of
what was being said.
“Lovlev!” His tutor called his name.
Volodya rose, as was the custom, and stood looking stupidly at the
tutor. He had such an absent look that his companions tittered, while
the tutor’s face assumed a critical expression.
Volodya heard the tutor attack him with sarcasm and abuse. He trembled
from shame and from weakness. The tutor announced that he would give
Volodya “one” for his ignorance and his inattention, and he asked him
to sit down.
Volodya smiled in a dull way, and tried to think what had happened to
him.