BEFORE setting off for his examination in Greek, Vanya kissed all
the holy images. His stomach felt as though it were upside down;
there was a chill at his heart, while the heart itself throbbed and
stood still with terror before the unknown. What would he get that
day? A three or a two? Six times he went to his mother for her
blessing, and, as he went out, asked his aunt to pray for him. On
the way to school he gave a beggar two kopecks, in the hope that
those two kopecks would atone for his ignorance, and that, please
God, he would not get the numerals with those awful forties and
eighties.
He came back from the high school late, between four and five. He
came in, and noiselessly lay down on his bed. His thin face was
pale. There were dark rings round his red eyes.
"Well, how did you get on? How were you marked?" asked his mother,
going to his bedside.
Vanya blinked, twisted his mouth, and burst into tears. His mother
turned pale, let her mouth fall open, and clasped her hands. The
breeches she was mending dropped out of her hands.
"What are you crying for? You've failed, then?" she asked.
"I am plucked. . . . I got a two."
"I knew it would be so! I had a presentiment of it," said his mother.
"Merciful God! How is it you have not passed? What is the reason
of it? What subject have you failed in?"
"In Greek. . . . Mother, I . . . They asked me the future of _phero_,
and I . . . instead of saying _oisomai_ said _opsomai_. Then . . .
then there isn't an accent, if the last syllable is long, and I
. . . I got flustered. . . . I forgot that the alpha was long in it
. . . . I went and put in the accent. Then Artaxerxov told me to give
the list of the enclitic particles. . . . I did, and I accidentally
mixed in a pronoun . . . and made a mistake . . . and so he gave
me a two. . . . I am a miserable person. . . . I was working all
night. . . I've been getting up at four o'clock all this
week . . . ."
"No, it's not you but I who am miserable, you wretched boy! It's I
that am miserable! You've worn me to a threadpaper, you Herod, you
torment, you bane of my life! I pay for you, you good-for-nothing
rubbish; I've bent my back toiling for you, I'm worried to death,
and, I may say, I am unhappy, and what do you care? How do you
work?"
"I . . . I do work. All night. . . . You've seen it yourself."
"I prayed to God to take me, but He won't take me, a sinful woman
. . . . You torment! Other people have children like everyone else,
and I've one only and no sense, no comfort out of him. Beat you?
I'd beat you, but where am I to find the strength? Mother of God,
where am I to find the strength?"
The mamma hid her face in the folds of her blouse and broke into
sobs. Vanya wriggled with anguish and pressed his forehead against
the wall. The aunt came in.
"So that's how it is. . . . Just what I expected," she said, at
once guessing what was wrong, turning pale and clasping her hands.
"I've been depressed all the morning. . . . There's trouble coming,
I thought . . . and here it's come. . . ."
"The villain, the torment!"
"Why are you swearing at him?" cried the aunt, nervously pulling
her coffee-coloured kerchief off her head and turning upon the
mother. "It's not his fault! It's your fault! You are to blame! Why
did you send him to that high school? You are a fine lady! You want
to be a lady? A-a-ah! I dare say, as though you'll turn into gentry!
But if you had sent him, as I told you, into business . . . to an
office, like my Kuzya . . . here is Kuzya getting five hundred a
year. . . . Five hundred roubles is worth having, isn't it? And you
are wearing yourself out, and wearing the boy out with this studying,
plague take it! He is thin, he coughs . . . just look at him! He's
thirteen, and he looks no more than ten."
"No, Nastenka, no, my dear! I haven't thrashed him enough, the
torment! He ought to have been thrashed, that's what it is! Ugh
. . . Jesuit, Mahomet, torment!" she shook her fist at her son. "You
want a flogging, but I haven't the strength. They told me years ago
when he was little, 'Whip him, whip him!' I didn't heed them, sinful
woman as I am. And now I am suffering for it. You wait a bit! I'll
flay you! Wait a bit . . . ."
The mamma shook her wet fist, and went weeping into her lodger's
room. The lodger, Yevtihy Kuzmitch Kuporossov, was sitting at his
table, reading "Dancing Self-taught." Yevtihy Kuzmitch was a man
of intelligence and education. He spoke through his nose, washed
with a soap the smell of which made everyone in the house sneeze,
ate meat on fast days, and was on the look-out for a bride of refined
education, and so was considered the cleverest of the lodgers. He
sang tenor.
"My good friend," began the mamma, dissolving into tears. "If you
would have the generosity--thrash my boy for me. . . . Do me the
favour! He's failed in his examination, the nuisance of a boy! Would
you believe it, he's failed! I can't punish him, through the weakness
of my ill-health. . . . Thrash him for me, if you would be so
obliging and considerate, Yevtihy Kuzmitch! Have regard for a sick
woman!"
Kuporossov frowned and heaved a deep sigh through his nose. He
thought a little, drummed on the table with his fingers, and sighing
once more, went to Vanya.
"You are being taught, so to say," he began, "being educated, being
given a chance, you revolting young person! Why have you done it?"
He talked for a long time, made a regular speech. He alluded to
science, to light, and to darkness.
"Yes, young person."
When he had finished his speech, he took off his belt and took Vanya
by the hand.
"It's the only way to deal with you," he said. Vanya knelt down
submissively and thrust his head between the lodger's knees. His
prominent pink ears moved up and down against the lodger's new serge
trousers, with brown stripes on the outer seams.
Vanya did not utter a single sound. At the family council in the
evening, it was decided to send him into business.