Well, that's nonsense, you can draw whatever you want ... If only there was a nose. Well, you say that your uncle has such a nose ... that's all. This is all nonsense, but if you want, I'll show you a trick, just hold on tight.
Vakhnov thrust some oblong object into Tyoma's hand.
- Hold on tight!
- Are you going to do something?
- Well... just hold on... tighter! - And Vakhnov pulled the cord with force.
At the same instant, Tyoma, with a piercing cry, pricked by two protruding needles, struck Vakhnov in the face with all his might.
The teacher got up from his seat and went to Tyoma.
“Just give it out, we’ll finish it under our overcoats today,” Vakhnov whispered.
The teacher, with a kind of sickly, transparent face, with long whiskers, with glassy eyes, came up and stared at Tyoma.
- What's your last name?
- Kartashev.
- Get up!
Dark got up.
“Well, have you come here to the tavern?”
Dark was silent.
- Your drawing?
Tom stuck out his nose.
- What is it?
- This is my uncle's nose, - answered Tyoma.
- Your uncle? the teacher asked mysteriously. - All right, sir, get out of the classroom!
"I won't do it again," Tyoma whispered.
- All right, sir, get out of the classroom. - And the teacher went to his place.
"Go, it's nothing," whispered Vakhnov. - Stay until the end of the lesson and come back. Well done! You will be the first friend!
Tyoma left the classroom and stood in the dark corridor at the very door. A little later, a figure in a uniform tailcoat appeared at the end of the corridor. The figure moved quickly towards Tyoma.
- Why are you here? - leaning towards Tyoma, the gentleman asked somehow vaguely softly.
Tyoma saw before him a black face with a goat's beard, large black eyes with a mass of thin blue veins around them.
- I... Teacher told me to stand here.
- You were naughty?
- N... no.
- What is your last name?
- Kartashev.
- You little scoundrel, however! - said the gentleman, bringing his face very close, in such a voice that it seemed to Tyoma that this gentleman bared his teeth. Darkness trembled with fear. He was seized with the same feeling of horror as in the barn, when he was left face to face with Abrumka.
- Why was Kartashev expelled from the class? he asked, opening the door.
At the appearance of the gentleman, the whole class stood up noisily and stretched out to attention.
“Fighting,” said the teacher. - I gave him a nose model, and he drew this and says that this is his uncle's nose.
The bright class, the mass of people reassured Tyoma. He realized that he had become a victim of Vakhnov, he realized that it was necessary to explain himself, but, to his misfortune, he also remembered his father's admonition about camaraderie. It seemed especially convenient to him right now, in front of the whole class, to declare himself, so to speak, at once, and he spoke in an excited, but confident and convinced voice:
- Of course, I will never betray my comrades, but I can still say that I am not to blame for anything, because they deceived me very badly and said ...
- Shut up!! roared a gentleman in a uniform tailcoat with a good obscenity. Bad boy!
Tyoma, who was not accustomed to gymnasium discipline, another unfortunate thought came into his head.
“Excuse me...” he began in a trembling, bewildered voice, “do you dare to shout at me like that and scold me?
- Out!! roared the gentleman in the tailcoat and, grabbing Tyoma by the arm, dragged him along the corridor.
“Wait a minute…” Tyoma, completely confused, resisted. - I don't want to go with you... Wait...
But the master continued to drag Tyoma. Having dragged him to the duty room, the gentleman turned to the guard who had jumped out and said, choking with rage:
- Take this impudent tomboy home and tell him that he has been expelled from the gymnasium.
The father, who had just managed to return from the city, passed on his gymnasium impressions to his wife.
Mother sat in the dining room and studied with Zina and Natasha. From the open doors of the nursery came the fuss of Seryozha with Anya.
- Are you still scared?
"I'm afraid," the father chuckled. - The eyes were running. Get used to it.
- Poor boy, - it will be difficult for him! - Mother sighed and, looking at her watch, said: - The second lesson ends. Today it will be necessary for him to make a solemn meeting. All his favorite dishes must be ordered for dinner.
- Mom, - Zina intervened, - he loves compote most of all.
- I'll give him my notebook.
- What, mother, - from ivory? Zina asked.
- Yes.
- Mom, I'll give him my box. You know? Dove.
- And I, mother, what will I give? - asked Natasha. - He loves chocolate... I'll give him chocolate.
- All right, sweet girl. Let's put everything on a silver tray and, when he enters the living room, we solemnly offer it to him.
“Well, I’ll also give him a present: a dagger in a velvet frame,” my father said.
- Well, it will be a complete holiday for him ...
The call interrupted further conversations.
- Who could it be? - asked the mother and, entering the bedroom, looked into the street.
At the gate stood Tyoma with some unfamiliar gentleman in a rumpled hat. The mother's heart skipped a beat.
- What happened to you?! she called to Tyoma, who came in with a kind of agitated, upturned face.
Everything was on this face at that moment: shame, confusion, some kind of dull tension, irritation, an offended feeling - in a word, a mother not only had never seen such a face in her son, but could not even imagine that it could be like that. With her motherly heart, she immediately understood that some great grief had happened to Tyoma.
- What's wrong with you, my boy?
This soft, tender question, having showered Tyoma with the familiar warmth and affection of the family, after all these cold, indifferent faces of the gymnasium, shook him to the finest fibers of his existence.
- Mother! - he could only scream and rushed, convulsively, madly sobbing, to his mother ...
After dinner, the Kartashevs, husband and wife, went to explain themselves to the director.
A gentleman in a tailcoat, who turned out to be the director himself, received them in his living room dryly and restrainedly, but politely, with decency. well-mannered person.
The fervent ardor of the mother was shattered by the nervous, but restrained and dry tone of the director. He delicately, patiently listened to her views on upbringing, what exactly she was pursuing, he listened, hiding the feeling of some kind of involuntary disregard for the words of his mother, and when she had finished, somehow reluctantly began:
“I have more than four hundred children at my disposal. Every mother, of course, educates her children as she thinks best, considers, of course, her own system to be ideal, and resolutely forgets only one thing: about the further, social upbringing of her child, she completely forgets about the leader whose duty it is to unite all this. a scattered mass into something that, speaking of the practical side of the matter, could be mastered. If each child begins to talk from his own point of view about the rights of his boss, hammers into his frivolous, eccentric head the rules of some kind of partnership, the purpose of which is primarily to hide pranks - therefore, at the heart of it is already the desire to free itself from the influence of the leader, - why then these leaders? Let's be consistent - why are you then? It seems to me: once you for some reason recognize the need for public education for your son, once you for some reason refuse his further education and transfer it to us, you are thereby obliged to unquestioningly recognize all our rules, created not for one, but for all. Justice also obliges you to this; we did not interfere in the upbringing of your son until he entered the gymnasium ...
"But he's still my son, isn't he?"
- In everything else, except for the gymnasium. From the moment of his admission, the child must understand and know that all power over him in the sphere of his occupation passes to his new leaders. If this consciousness will sit deep in him, this will enable him to successfully make his career; otherwise, sooner or later it will be necessary to sacrifice it to maintain the order of the existing gymnasium. I ask you to accept this as my final ultimatum as the director of the gymnasium, and as a private person - I can only add that even if I wanted to change something in this, then there would be nothing left for me to do but to resign. I tell you this in order to describe the state of things more clearly. Your son, of course, will not be expelled, and I had to resort to such a drastic measure only in order to stop an impossible, frankly, outrageous scene. His deed cannot be left unpunished either ... for others. I believe in his innocence and in the very near future I will try to remove this ulcer, Vakhnov, whom we are keeping because of his wounded father, who rendered great services to the city in the Sevastopol campaign ... But there is a limit to every patience. The pedagogical council will determine the punishment for your son today, and today I will notify you. Unfortunately, there is nothing more I can do for you.
Kartashev's mother silently, excitedly got up. Everything in her was seething and agitated, but somehow she completely lost the ground under her. She felt her complete impotence and at the same time she felt that she was more and more seized by the desire to do something to offend the invulnerable director. But she was afraid to hurt her son and preferred to leave as soon as possible.
“I just wanted to say,” Kartashev said, standing up behind his wife, “I fully share all your views ... I myself am a military man, and it would be strange not to sympathize with you ... Discipline ... of course ... But I wanted only to tell you about partnership... All the same, it seems to me, its usefulness cannot be denied...
The wife waited impatiently with displeasure for the end of the completely useless conversation begun by her husband.
- I completely deny it in the form in which it is generally understood, - the director replied, - namely, to hide scoundrels who deserve punishment.
- My God, - whispered Kartasheva, - a naughty child is a scoundrel!
And suddenly what she was afraid of, what she still kept in herself, flew out somehow by itself:
“But this scoundrel still deserves to be listened to before being heaped with abuse?”
The director flushed to the root of his hair.
- Madame, if I dare to tell you in my house ... I would say ... I would say that I do not consider myself responsible in my actions to you.
Kartasheva caught herself.
- I beg your pardon for my involuntary vehemence... This is all so new... please excuse... Does your wife have children? - she turned with an unexpected question to the director.
"Yes," he replied, puzzled.
“Tell her,” Kartasheva said in a trembling voice, “that with all my heart I wish her and her children never to experience what my son and I experienced today.
And, barely holding back her tears, she went out onto the stairs and hurried down to the carriage.
Sitting in the carriage, she waited for her husband, who remained still, in order to soften the impression made by his wife on the director with some farewell phrase ... Thoughts randomly, nervously raced through her head. Alien ... Completely alien ... Everything experienced, felt, suffered - does not give any rights. This is an assessment of the one to whom you give your ten-year, painfully intense work directly from hand to hand. Killer indifference... General considerations?! It is as if this general exists abstractly, somewhere for itself, and not for the same individual subjects ... It is as if this general, and not they themselves, will eventually become for them in the ranks of honest, selfless workers of their homeland ... It is definitely impossible without violating this general, do not trample the child's pride in the dirt.
“Let’s go,” she said to her husband, sitting up nervously, “we’re going rather from these invulnerable people who think only about their own comforts and are not even able to remember that they themselves were once children.
In the evening the definition was sent pedagogical council. Tyoma had to stay at the gymnasium for an extra hour after school for an extra hour.
The next day, Tyoma, with the proper instructions, was sent to the gymnasium alone.
Climbing the stairs, Tyoma came face to face with the director. At first, he did not notice the director, who, standing upstairs, silently, attentively observed a small figure, diligently striding through two steps. When, having risen, he saw the director, the latter's black eyes looked sternly and coldly at him.
Tyoma frightened, awkwardly pulled off his hat and bowed.
The director barely perceptibly nodded his head and averted his eyes.
VII
WEEKDAYS
A fine November rain drummed monotonously on the windows.
On the big clock in the dining room, seven o'clock in the morning slowly, hoarsely struck.
Zina, who had entered the gymnasium the same year, was wearing a uniform brown dress and a white cape, sitting at the tea table, drinking milk and muttering quietly under her breath, constantly looking into the open book lying in front of her.
When the clock struck, Zina quickly got up and, going up to Tyoma's room, spoke through the door:
- Tyoma, it's already a quarter past seven.
Some indefinite lowing was heard from Tyoma's room.
Zina returned to the book, and again the quiet, even rumble of her voice was heard in the dining room.
Dead silence reigned in Tim's room.
Zina again went to the door and said energetically:
- Darkness, get up!
This time, in a displeased, sleepy voice, Tyoma answered:
- And I'll get up without you!
- Only fifteen minutes left, I won't wait for you for a single minute. I don't want to be late every time because of you.
Dark reluctantly got up.
Putting on his boots, he went to the washstand, splashed water twice in his face, wiped himself off somehow, grabbed a comb, made a careless section on the side of the curve and uneven, several times combed his thick hair; not having finished, he smoothed them impatiently with his hands, and, having dressed, buttoning his frock-coat as he went, he went into the dining-room.
“Mom ordered that you definitely drink a glass of milk,” Zina said.
Tyoma just moved his eyebrows silently.
- I won't drink such a vodka... Drink it yourself! - answered Tyoma, pushing the glass of tea served by Tanya.
- Artemy Nikolaevich, my mother is strong, but they don’t allow it.
Tyoma sat for a few moments, then resolutely jumped up, took the kettle and poured some strong tea into his glass.
Tanya looked at Zina, Zina at Tyoma; and Tyoma, pleased that he had achieved his goal, dipped bread in tea and ate it, not looking at anyone.
- Will you drink milk? Tanya asked.
- Half a cup!
After the milk, Zina got up and, saying resolutely: "I don't wait another minute," she began to hurriedly collect her notebooks and books.
Tom slowly followed suit.
The brother and sister went out to the entrance, where for a long time a closed, as if doused with water, carriage, a wet Bulanka and the same wet, hunched over, one-eyed Yeremey, had been waiting for them for a long time.
Zina first disappeared in the carriage, followed by Tyoma.
Yeremey buttoned up his apron and drove off.
The rain drummed dully on the roof of the carriage. It suddenly seemed to Tyoma that Zina occupied more than half of the seat, and therefore he began to lightly push Zina.
- Darkness, what do you want? - Zina asked as if she did not understand anything.
- Well, yes, you sat down so that it’s cramped for me!
And Tyoma pressed even harder on Zina.
“Tyoma, if you don’t stop now,” Zina said, pushing her legs with all her might, “I’ll go back to dad! ..
Tom silently continued his work. The Force was on his side.
- Eremey, go back! - Zina shouted out of patience.
- Yeremey, go ahead! - shouted at the same time Tyoma.
- Yeremey - back!
- Yeremey - go ahead!
Completely bewildered, Yeremey stopped and, looking through the crack with his only eye at his quarrelsome riders, said:
- Well, by God, I'm going to get off the goat, and go, like you want, because I don’t know who they are listening to!
All was quiet inside the crew. Yeremey went on. He safely reached the women's gymnasium, where Zina got off. Tyoma went on alone.
Fantasy imperceptibly took him away from reality, to desert island, where he, having fought to his heart's content with the savages and with all sorts of monsters of the world, finally decided to die.
Tyoma loved to die. Everyone will pity him, cry; and he will cry... And tears are just about ready to splash from Tyoma's eyes... And Yeremey has long been standing at the gates of the gymnasium and looking through the crack with a surprised eye. Tyoma comes to his senses frightened, looks around, in the prevailing silence in the yard he realizes that he was late, and his heart sank sadly. He quickly runs through the yard, up the stairs, quickly takes off his coat and tries to slip down the corridor unnoticed.
But the tall Ivan Ivanovich, waving his long arms, is already coming towards them. He somehow casually catches Tyoma by the shoulder, looks into his face and lazily asks:
- Kartashev?
- Ivan Ivanovich, - do not write down, - Tyoma asks.
- The teacher will write it down anyway, - Ivan Ivanovich answers phlegmatically, who does not have the courage to refuse directly.
- We have a father ... I will ask ...
Ivan Ivanovich hesitantly, reluctantly says:
- Fine...
Tyoma opens a large door and somehow sideways enters his classroom. Stale, warm air pours over him, he hurriedly bows to the priest and hurries anxiously to his place.
At the end of the lesson, a small figure runs after the priest:
- Father, erase my abs *.
______________
* Abs - absent (from lat. absens).
Batiushka walks, waddling from side to side, slowly throws back his silk cassock, takes out a handkerchief, blows his nose and asks Tyoma:
- Why are you late?
Behind Tyoma and the priest, pushing, a whole tail of curious students runs. Everyone is interested in hearing with at least one ear what the matter is.
“Our clock is behind us,” Tyoma replies, lowering his voice so that others do not hear. - I now put them a quarter of an hour ahead.
“You don’t spoil the clock, but it’s better to get up a quarter of an hour earlier yourself,” says the priest and disappears at the door of the teacher’s room.
The tail snorts.
Tyoma suppresses his bewilderment, makes a nonchalant face in front of the students who look at him mockingly, and hurries to the classroom. There he sits down in his place, raises both knees, rests them on the bench and, trying to look indifferently, ponders the meaning of the father's words.
Vakhnov folded the paper and, after wetting it with saliva, runs it around Tyoma's neck and face. Darkness says:
- Well, back off!
But Vakhnov is not far behind.
- Nu, that you for pig! Tim says.
In response, Vakhnov grabs Tyoma by the arm and twists it behind his back. Tyoma's impotent anger boils, he wants to "crack" Vakhnov, and he embarks on a trick.
- Well, leave it, - Tyoma repeats already affectionately.
Vakhnov softens, condescendingly gives Tyoma a click and releases his hand. Tyoma quickly jumps up on the bench and, "cracking" Vakhnov, rushes from him along the benches. Verzila Vakhnov rushes after him. Tyoma jumps to the floor and rushes to the door. Vakhnov overtakes him, crushes him and with all his might strikes his shoulder blades with his palm.
- Well, what kind of pig are you?! - Tom says sadly.
Vakhnov answers with heavy spanks.
- Leave it, - Tyoma pleads plaintively. - Well, why are you torturing me?
Vakhnov hears tears in Tyoma's voice. He feels sorry for Tim.
- Moo-lobe! - says Vakhnov, and again, already from an excess of feelings, he squeezes Tyoma.
A young, bespectacled teacher is walking along the corridor Latin Khlopov. When the teacher enters, everything is already in place. Khlopov carefully examines the class, quickly makes a roll call, then leaves his platform and walks around the class for the whole lesson, not losing sight of anyone for a moment. Passing by a bench where little Gerberg with a curly head and a funny birdlike face sits, the teacher stops, sniffs the air and says:
- Smells like garlic again?
Gerberg blushes as the aroma wafts from his drawer, which contains a mouth-watering piece of stuffed pike he brought for breakfast.
I won't let you into class! What is this nonsense?! Get it out now! - And, after a pause, he says after Gerberg, who takes away his delicacy:
- You can enjoy yourself, when you really like it, at home.
The students snort, look at Gerberg, but on the face of the latter, except for incomprehension: how can one not like such a tasty thing as stuffed pike, nothing else is reflected. Tyoma looks at Gerberg with curiosity, because he is Leiba's son, and Tyoma, who constantly saw Moshka at his father's counter, cannot get used to his figure in a gymnasium frock coat.
- Kornev, incline, - says the teacher.
Kornev gets up, twists his already ugly, swollen face, and begins sourly in a hoarse, low voice.
The teacher listens and winces in annoyance.
- Why are you creaking like an unoiled cart? After all, you probably know how to speak in a different voice during recreation *.
______________
* Change (from lat. recreatio).
Kornev clears his throat and starts on a higher note.
- Ivanov, go on...
Tyoma's neighbor, Ivanov, gets up, looks at the teacher with his sidelong eyes, and continues.
- Wrong! Vakhnov, fix it!
Vakhnov jumps up in a flurry and is silent.
- Kartashev!
Darkness jumps up and corrects.
- Well? Further!
"I don't know," Ivanov replies sullenly.
- Vakhnov!
- I was sick yesterday.
- Sick, - the teacher nods his head. - Kartashev!
Tyoma gets up and sighs: it was not for nothing that he wanted to repeat it before the lesson - everything jumped out of his head.
- Well, you don't know, speak directly!
- I studied yesterday.
- Well, so say the same!
Tyoma raises her eyebrows and looks forward intensely.
- Sit down!
The teacher examines Vakhnov, Kartashev and Ivanov point-blank.
Vakhnov smugly moves his eyes from side to side. Ivanov, knitting his eyebrows, looks sullenly into the bench. The tightened, pale Tyoma sadly, inquisitively peers with his frightened blue eyes at the teacher and says:
- I knew yesterday. I was afraid...
The teacher snorts dismissively and turns away.
- Yakovlev, phrases!
The first student, Yakovlev, gets up and confidently and calmly says:
- Asinus excitatur baculo.
- Schwander! Translate.
An abnormally fat, well-fed, clean boy gets up. He makes painful faces and licks his lips.
- I went to lick my lips! What are you going to eat me, or what?!
The students laugh.
Schwander convulsively presses his thumb on the bench, makes an effort and says:
- Donkey...
- Well?
- Chasing...
Schwander makes another painful grimace and cums:
- Stick.
- Thank God, gave birth.
The second half of the lesson is devoted to the written answer.
The teacher walks and carefully monitors that they do not cheat. His eyes meet Danilov's, in which the astute teacher suddenly noticed something.
- Danilov, give me your book.
“I don’t have a book,” Danilov says, blushing, and awkwardly gets up from his seat, at the same time clutching the Latin grammar with his knees.
The teacher looks in and pulls out the ill-fated book with his own hand.
Danilov looks in embarrassment at the bench.
- Quiet, quiet, but already learned to cheat. Ashamed! Stand without a seat!
Danilov's handsome, round-shouldered figure somehow resolutely goes to the teacher's place and stands facing the class. His embarrassed beautiful eyes look good-naturedly and openly straight into the eyes of the teacher.
The long-awaited, gratifying bell for the student's hearing is heard.
- To the next class...
The teacher asks for grammar, then phrases from Latin to Russian, then he dictates from Russian to Latin, and, having taken another five minutes from recreational, finally leaves.
What upsets students the most is the extra five minutes.
After Khlopov's lesson, there is somehow little revival. Most sit in their favorite position - with their knees resting on the bench, and wearily, aimlessly stare.
An old, fat teacher of the Russian language suddenly appears on the teacher's elevation.
- The parrot on the pole had fun! - monotonously, in a singsong voice, he draws and scratches his bald head on the ruler attached to it.
Tyoma and Vakhnov are also having fun, and they don’t care about the parrot, or the teacher, or his system, by virtue of which the teacher considered it necessary first of all to acquaint the children with syntax.
- Gerberg, where is the subject?
- On a pole, - Gerberg jumps up and glares at the teacher with his bird's face.
“Fool,” the teacher says in the same tone, “you yourself are on the pole ... Kartashev! ..
Tyoma, who had just received a click in the very nose, jumped up in a disorderly manner and at the same moment completely disappeared, because Vakhnov, with a deft movement of his foot, pushed him to the floor.
- Kartashev, where did you go? the teacher screams.
Darkness, red, appears and explains that he failed.
- How could you fail when you have a hard floor under you?
- I slipped...
- How could you slip when you were standing?
Instead of answering, Tyoma again rides under the bench. He reappears and looks furtively at Vakhnov with fierce despair. Vakhnov, resting his elbow on the bench, presses his hand to his mouth so as not to burst out laughing, and does not look at Tyoma. Tyoma breaks his heart with an imperceptible kick to Vakhnov in the shoulder, but the teacher saw this and was offended.
- Kartashev unit for behavior.
Bald as a knee, the head of the teacher bends down and looks for the name of Kartashev. Tyoma, while the teacher does not see, once again vents his anger and pulls Vakhnov by the hair.
- Kartashev, where is the subject?
Tyoma instantly abandons Vakhnov and looks for the subject with his eyes.
Yakovlev, having fallen off the front bench, looks at Tyoma. "Hint!" - the eyes of Tyoma pray.
- At the parrot, - Yakovlev whispers, and his nostrils swell from the upcoming pleasure.
- At the parrot, - Tyoma picks up joyfully.
General laughter.
- Fool, you're a parrot. Since then, Kartashev is not Kartashev, but a parrot. Gerberg is not Gerberg, but a pole. Parrot on a pole - Kartashev on Gerberg.
The class is laughing. Yakovlev groans with delight.
The thick, huge figure of the teacher begins to sway slightly. Good-natured little gray eyes squint, and for a while an old "he-he-he" rushes around the classroom.
But suddenly the teacher's face becomes serious again, the class subsides, and the same monotonous voice continues in a singsong voice:
- In the classroom - where is the subject?
Gross silence.
- Fool, - the teacher says good-naturedly, in a singsong voice. - All parrots and poles. Parrots sit on poles.
Meanwhile, Tyoma does not take his eyes off Yakovlev.
- Does he dare to suggest nonsense? - either advises, or protests Tyoma, turning to Vakhnov.
As soon as the bell rings, he rushes to Yakovlev:
- You dare to tell nonsense?!
- And you are free to repeat, - Yakovlev snorts dismissively.
- So here's to you! - Tyoma says and punches him in the face with all his might. - Now tell me!
Yakovlev looks confused for the first moment and then impetuously, without deigning to look at anyone, quickly leaves the classroom. A little later, the broad-shaven face of the inspector appears in the doorway, and behind him, all in tears, Yakovlev.
- Kartashev, come here! - dry and sharply heard in the classroom.
Tyoma rises, walks and looks frightened into the inspector's bulging blue eyes.
- You hit Yakovlev?
- He...
- I ask you: did you hit Yakovlev?
And the voice of the inspector turns into a dry crackle.
- Hit, - Tyoma replies quietly.
- Tomorrow for two hours without lunch.
The inspector leaves. Tyoma, having risen from the merciful punishment, victoriously turns to Yakovlev and says:
- Yabed!
- And what do you think, you will beat in the face, and kiss your hands for it? biting his nails and glaring at Tyoma with his small eyes, Kornev asked venomously calmly.
A new teacher has entered - German language, Boris Borisovich Knop. It was a small, frail figure. Such figurines often come across among porcelain figurines: in checkered trousers and blue, with long narrow sleeves, tailcoat. He walked quietly, with a slow gait, which the disciples called "raskoryak".
In Boris Borisovich there was nothing of a teacher. Meeting him on the street, one could take him for a tailor, a gardener, a petty official, but not for a teacher.
The students did not know anything about a single teacher from his home life, but they knew everything about Boris Borisovich. They knew that he had an evil wife, two daughters of old maids, a mother - a blind old woman, a hunchbacked aunt. They knew that Boris Borisovich was poor, that he trembled before his superiors no worse than any of them. They also knew that Boris Borisovich could grease his pen with bacon, pour sand into the inkwell, and, after chewing papers, let paper devils fly into the ceiling.
IN Lately Boris Borisovich began to move noticeably.
Having done the roll call, he with difficulty stepped down from the platform on which his desk stood, and relaxed, in an old man's way, stopping in front of the class, slowly began to take a handkerchief out of the back pocket of his tailcoat.
Having blown his nose, Boris Borisovich raised his head and turned to the students with a complacent speech, in which he suggested that they should not make noise, listen quietly to the lesson and be good, kind children.
“Please,” finished Boris Borisovich, and the request of a tired, sick man sounded in his voice.
But Boris Borisovich immediately caught himself and added more sternly:
- And whoever does not want to sit quietly, I will punish him without pity very severely.
For a few minutes everything went well. The pained appearance of the teacher humbled the students. But Vakhnov, having already adjusted the pen with an experienced hand, gave them a thin, disturbing sound, well known to the teacher.
Boris Borisovich boiled up.
- You are pigs, and you cannot speak like a human being ... You only feel respect for a person when he will choke you like this.
And, trembling with rage, Boris Borisovich raised his fist and showed how he would choke.
- Oh, you German herring! - someone whispered and, having chewed the paper, skillfully stuck it into the side of Boris Borisovich's tailcoat.
I put up this picture: the teacher calls "Kornev!" Korneva comes out. "Answer!" - "I don't know the lesson." Korneva goes to the place. Her face is beaming. In any case, probably contented, vulgar. No dignity!
Aglaida Vasilievna speaks expressively, and it is unpleasant and hard for Kartashev: his mother managed to humiliate Korneva in his eyes.
She read a lot? - continues the mother.
She doesn't read anything.
He doesn't even read...
Aglaida Vasilievna sighed.
In my opinion, - she says sadly, - your Korneva is an empty girl, who cannot be treated strictly only because there is no one to point out her emptiness to her.
Kartashev understands what his mother is hinting at, and reluctantly accepts the challenge:
She has a mother.
Stop, Tyoma, talking nonsense, - authoritatively stops the mother. - Her mother is as illiterate as our Tanya. Today I will dress Tanya for you, and she will be the same as Kornev's mother. She may be a very good woman, but this same Tanya, with all her virtues, still has the shortcomings of her environment, and her influence on her daughter cannot be without trace. One must be able to distinguish a decent, educated family from another. Education is not given in order to finally mix into mush everything that has been invested in you by generations.
What generations? All from Adam.
No, you deliberately deceive yourself; your concept of honor is thinner than that of Yeremey. It is not available to him, what is clear to you.
Because I am more educated.
Because you are more educated... Education is one thing, but upbringing is another.
While Kartashev was pondering these new barriers, Aglaida Vasilievna continued:
Tyoma, you are on a slippery slope, and if your brains do not work on their own, then no one will help you. You can come out as an empty flower, you can give people a plentiful harvest ... Only you yourself can help yourself, and it’s a sin for you more than anyone else: you have a family that you won’t find another. If in it you do not draw strength for intelligent life, then nowhere and no one will give them to you.
There is something higher than the family: social life.
Public life, my dear, this is the hall, and the family are the stones of which this hall is composed.
Kartashev listened to such conversations of his mother as a departing traveler listens to the ringing of his native bell. It rings and awakens the soul, but the traveler goes his own way.
Kartashev himself was now pleased that it was not with him that the company was going. He loved his mother and sisters, recognized all their virtues, but his soul yearned for a place where a cheerfully and carelessly authoritative company lived the life it wanted to live. Gymnasium in the morning, lessons in the afternoon, and meetings in the evening. Not for drunkenness, not for revelry, but for reading. Aglaida Vasilievna reluctantly let her son go.
Kartashev has won this right once and for all.
I cannot live feeling inferior to others,” he said to his mother with force and expressiveness, “and if they force me to live a different life, then I will become a scoundrel: I will ruin my life ...
Please don't be intimidating because I'm not the type to be intimidated.
Nevertheless, since then, Kartashev, leaving home, only stated:
Mom, I'm going to Kornev.
And Aglaida Vassilyevna usually only nodded her head with an unpleasant sensation.
GYMNASIUM
It was more fun at the gymnasium than at home, although the oppression and demands of the gymnasium were harder than those of the family. But there life was on the people. In the family of each, the interest was only his, and there the gymnasium connected the interests of everyone. At home, the struggle went on eye to eye, and there was little interest in it: all the innovators, each separately in their family, felt their powerlessness, in the gymnasium one felt the same powerlessness, but here the work went on together, there was full scope for criticism, and no one was dear to anyone. those who were taken apart. Here it was possible without looking back, so as not to hurt the sick feelings of one or another of the company, to try on the theoretical scale that the company gradually worked out for itself.
From the point of view of this scale, the company related to all the phenomena of gymnasium life and to all those who represented the administration of the gymnasium.
From this point of view, some deserved attention, others - respect, others - hatred, and the fourth, finally, did not deserve anything but neglect. The latter included all those who, in addition to their mechanical duties, had nothing else in their heads. They were called "amphibians". The kind amphibian is the overseer Ivan Ivanovich, the vengeful amphibian is the teacher of mathematics; not good and not evil: inspector, teachers foreign languages, thoughtful and dreamy, in colored ties, neatly combed. They themselves seemed to be aware of their wretchedness, and only at examinations did their figures become outlined for a moment more clearly, only to disappear again from the horizon until the next examination. Everyone loved and respected the same director, although they considered him a fever, capable of doing many faux pas in the heat of the moment. But somehow they did not take offense at such moments and willingly forgot his harshness. The focus of the company was four: a Latin teacher in the lower grades Khlopov, a Latin teacher in their class Dmitry Petrovich Vozdvizhensky, a literature teacher Mitrofan Semenovich Kozarsky and a history teacher Leonid Nikolaevich Shatrov.
The young teacher of the Latin language Khlopov, who taught in the lower grades, was disliked by everyone in the gymnasium. There was no greater pleasure for high school students than to accidentally push this teacher and throw him a contemptuous "guilty" or give him a corresponding look. And when he ran hurriedly along the corridor, red-faced, in blue glasses, with his gaze fixed forward, then everyone, standing at the door of his class, tried to look at him as insolently as possible, and even the quietest, first student Yakovlev, flaring his nostrils, said, not embarrassed whether they hear it or not:
He is red because he sucked on the blood of his victims.
And the little victims, crying and overtaking each other, after each lesson poured out into the corridor after him and begged in vain for mercy.
Satiated with ones and twos, the teacher only moved his intoxicated eyes and hurried, without saying a single word, to hide in the teacher's room.
It cannot be said that this was an evil person, but only the dumbfounded ones used his attention, and as these victims under his care became more and more frightened, Khlopov became more and more tender towards them. And they, in turn, were in awe of him and, in a fit of ecstasy, kissed his hands. Khlopov did not enjoy sympathy between teachers either, and which of the students looked into the crack of the teacher's room during recreation always saw him running lonely from corner to corner, with a red, excited face, with the air of an offended person.
He spoke quickly and stuttered slightly. Despite his youth, he already had a fairly pendulous belly.
The little victims, who knew how to cry in front of him and kiss his hands, behind their eyes, probably struck by the inadequacy of his abdomen, called him a "pregnant bitch."
In general, he was a tyrant - convinced and proud, about whom they said that at the anniversary of Katkov, when they rocked him, he turned up so that Katkov found himself sitting on his back. That's why they called him in high school: Katkovsky donkey.
The teacher of literature, Mitrofan Semyonovich Kozarsky, was a small, gloomy man with all the signs of an evil consumption. On his head was a whole heap of unkempt, tangled, curly hair, into which he now and then ran his small hand, with fingers apart, biliously. He always wore dark, smoky glasses, and only occasionally, when he took them off to wipe them, did the students see small gray, angry eyes, like those of a chained dog. He growled like a dog. It was difficult to make him smile, but when he smiled, it was even more difficult to recognize it as a smile, as if someone were forcibly stretching his mouth, and he resisted it with all his might. Although the students were afraid of him, and regularly crammed various ancient Slavic beauties, they also tried to flirt with him.
Such flirting rarely went in vain.
Once, as soon as the roll call was over, Kartashev, who considered it his duty to doubt everything, which, however, came out of him a little violently, got up and turned to the teacher in a resolute, excited voice:
Mitrofan Semyonovich! One circumstance in the life of Anthony and Theodosius is incomprehensible to me.
What-with? - the teacher was dryly wary.
I'm afraid to ask you, it's so incongruous.
Speak!
Kozarsky nervously propped his chin on his hand and glared at Kartashev.
Kartashev turned pale and, not taking his eyes off him, expressed, albeit confusingly, but in one volley, his suspicions that there was partiality in the appointment of the boyar Fyodor.
As he spoke, the teacher's eyebrows rose higher and higher. It seemed to Kartashev that it was not the glasses that were looking at him, but the dark hollows of someone's eyes, terrible and mysterious. He suddenly became terrified at his own words. He would have been too glad not to say them, but everything was said, and Kartashev fell silent, depressed, bewildered, with a stupid, frightened look, continued to look into terrible glasses. And the teacher kept silent, kept looking, and only a venomous grimace twisted his lips more strongly.
A thick blush flooded Kartashev's cheeks, and agonizing shame seized him. Finally Mitrofan Semyonovich spoke quietly, measuredly, and his words dripped like boiling water onto Kartashev's head:
The desire to always be original can bring a person to such disgusting ... to such vulgarity ...
The class spun in the eyes of Kartashev. Half of the words flew past, but there were enough of those that fell into his ears. His legs buckled, and he sat up, half unconscious of himself. The teacher coughed nervously, biliously, and clutched his sunken chest with his small, outstretched hand. When the seizure had passed, he walked silently around the classroom for a long time.
In due time at the university you will touch upon in detail that sad phenomenon in our literature that has caused and continues to cause such a clownish attitude to life.
The hint was too clear and seemed too offensive to Kornev.
History tells us, - he could not resist, turning pale and getting up with a twisted face, - that much of what seemed to his contemporaries to be clownish and not noteworthy actually turned out to be quite different.
Well, it won't turn out, - the teacher turned his dark glasses to him abruptly. - And it won't turn out for the very reason that this is a story, and not an overexposure. Well, anyway, it's not contemporary theme. What is given?
The teacher immersed himself in the book, but immediately pulled himself away and spoke again:
Boyishness has no place in history. Fifty years ago, a poet who lived for understanding requires knowledge of the era, and not pulling him out of it and bringing him as a defendant on the bench of modernity.
But we, contemporaries, learn the poems of this poet "Go away" by heart ...
Mitrofan Semyonovich raised his eyebrows high, bared his teeth, and silently looked at Kornev like a skeleton in blue glasses.
Yes, teach ... you must teach ... and if you don’t know, you will get a unit ... And this is not your business, with competence.
Maybe, - Dolba intervened, - we are not competent, but we want to be competent.
Well, Darcier! called the teacher.
Dolba met Rylsky's eyes and looked down dismissively.
When the lesson was over, Kartashev rose embarrassedly and stretched out.
What, brother, shaved you off? - Good-naturedly slapped him on the shoulder Dolba.
He shaved it off, - Kartashev chuckled awkwardly, - to hell with him.
Yes, you should not argue with him, ”Kornev agreed. - What are these tricks? illiterate boys... And if only they were limited to his literacy, would they be literate?
Please don’t put it down,” Rylsky interrupted him cheerfully, “because if you put it down, you won’t be able to lift it up.”
History teacher Leonid Nikolaevich Shatrov has long won popularity among his students.
He became a teacher at the gymnasium just in the year when the described company moved into the third grade.
And with his youth, and gentle receptions, and that spirituality that so attracts young, untouched hearts, Leonid Nikolayevich gradually attracted everyone to him, so that in the senior classes the students treated him with respect and love. One thing upset them that Leonid Nikolaevich was a Slavophile, although not "leavened", as Kornev explained, but with a confederation of Slavic tribes, with Constantinople at the head. This somewhat mitigated the severity of his guilt, but all the same, the company became at a dead end: he couldn’t help but read Pisarev, and if he did, was he really so limited that he didn’t understand him? Be that as it may, even Slavophilism was excused for him, and his lesson was always expected with particular pleasure.
The appearance of his unsightly figure, with a large broad forehead, long straight hair, which he now and then pawned behind his ear, with intelligent, soft, brown eyes, always somehow especially excited the students.
And he was "tortured". Either Pisarev's book will be accidentally forgotten on the table, or someone will drop it casually on a topic from the field of general questions, or else he will express a coherent consideration. The teacher will listen, smile, shrug his shoulders and say:
Reduce, dear one!
And then he notices:
What more guys!
And he will say so mysteriously that the students do not know whether to rejoice at them or be sad that they are still children.
Leonid Nikolayevich loved his subject very much. Loving, he forced those who came into contact with him to love what he himself loved.
In that lesson, when, having called the roll, he modestly rose and, laying a lock of hair behind his ear, said, descending from his dais: “Today I will tell,” the class turned into hearing and was ready to listen to him all five lessons in a row. And they not only listened, but also carefully wrote down all his conclusions and generalizations.
Leonid Nikolaevich's manner of speaking was somehow special, captivating. Now, pacing around the class, carried away, he grouped the facts, for greater clarity, as if grabbing them with his hand into the fist of his other hand, then he moved on to conclusions and, as if taking them out of his clenched fist, instead of the facts that he put there. And always a clear and logical conclusion, strictly justified, was obtained.
Within the framework of a scientific formulation of the question, wider than the program of the gymnasium course, the students felt both satisfied and flattered. Leonid Nikolaevich took advantage of this and organized voluntary work. He proposed topics, and those who wished were taken, guided by the sources indicated by him and his own, if they were afraid of one-sided coverage of the issue.
So, in the sixth grade, one topic - "The Confederation of Slavic Tribes in the specific period" - no one wanted to take for a long time. Berendya finally made up his mind, saying to himself the right that if, after getting to know the main source indicated by the teacher, Kostomarov, he did not like the posing of the question, then he was free to come to another conclusion.
Justified? - asked Leonid Nikolaevich.
Of course, - Berendya pressed his fingers to his chest and rose, as usual, on his toes.
One day Leonid Nikolayevich came to class upset and upset as usual.
The new trustee, having examined the gymnasium, was dissatisfied with some dissoluteness of the students and the lack of factual knowledge.
Among the others, Leonid Nikolayevich was also summoned to the trustee, and straight from the explanation, obviously unfavorable for him, he came to class.
The students did not immediately notice the bad mood of the teacher.
Having made a roll call, Leonid Nikolaevich called Semenov.
The students hoped that today lesson will pass in the story.
The disappointment was unpleasant, and everyone listened to Semyonov's answer with dull faces.
Semyonov pulled and tried to leave in common places.
Leonid Nikolaevich, bowing his head, listened, bored, with a sickly face.
Year? he asked, noticing that Semyonov had evaded giving the year.
Semyonov said the first one that came up on his tongue, and he lied, of course.
Bravely, but you won’t get the St. George Cross, ”Leonid Nikolayevich remarked half-irritatedly, half-jokingly.
He will receive it when Constantinople is taken, - Rylsky inserted.
Leonid Nikolayevich frowned and lowered his eyes.
He will never get it, - Kartashev answered fervently from his place, - because the federation of Slavic tribes with Constantinople at the head is an impracticable nonsense.
You, most respected one, will be reduced,” said Leonid Nikolaevich, raising his burning eyes to Kartashev.
Kartashev became embarrassed and fell silent, but Kornev stood up for Kartashev. He spoke sarcastically and caustically:
Good way argue!
Leonid Nikolaevich turned purple, and the veins poured on his temples. There was silence for some time.
Kornev, stand without a seat.
Since the third grade, Leonid Nikolaevich has not subjected anyone to such a humiliating punishment.
Kornev turned pale and his face contorted.
Deathly silence reigned in the classroom.
Again everything was silent. Something terrible approached and was about to be embodied in some irreparable fact. Everyone was waiting tensely. Leonid Nikolaevich was silent.
In that case, I ask you to leave the class,” he said without looking up.
It was like a stone fell off everyone's shoulders.
I do not consider myself guilty, - Kornev spoke. “Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that I have not said anything that you would not have allowed me to say at another time. But if you find me guilty, then I'll go...
Kornev began to make his way to the exit.
Draw a map of ancient Greece, - Leonid Nikolayevich suddenly told him, pointing to the board when Kornev passed him.
Instead of punishment, Kornev began to draw the assignment on the board.
Kartashev! Causes and Reasons for the Crusades.
It was a grateful topic.
Kartashev, according to Guizot, outlined in detail the causes and reason for the crusades.
Leonid Nikolaevich listened, and as Kartashev spoke, a tense, unsatisfied feeling fled from his face.
Kartashev spoke well and painted a vivid picture of the hopeless economic situation in Europe as a result of arbitrariness, violence and unwillingness of self-willed vassals to reckon with the urgent needs of the people ... Having cited several examples of relations between the upper and lower classes that have become aggravated to the extreme, he moved on to the practical side of the matter: to about and further presentation of events.
Leonid Nikolaevich listened to Kartashev's lively speech, looked into his excitedly burning eyes from the proud awareness of the meaningfulness and sensibility of his answer - he listened, and he was overcome by a feeling, perhaps similar to that experienced by a good rider, teaching a hot young horse and smelling in it a move that will glorify both the horse and him in the future.
Well, fine, - Leonid Nikolaevich remarked with feeling, - that's enough.
Rylsky, the economic state of France under Louis the Fourteenth.
Rylsky's speech did not have those bright colors and overflows, with which Kartashev's speech sparkled beautifully. He spoke dryly, concisely, often interrupting his periods with the sound "e", generally spoke with some effort. But in the grouping of facts, in their stratification, some serious businesslikeness was felt, and the impression of the picture was not as artistic, perhaps, as Kartashev's, but stronger, beating with facts and figures.
Leonid Nikolayevich listened, and a feeling of satisfaction and, at the same time, a kind of melancholy shone in his eyes.
Finished, - said Kornev.
Leonid Nikolaevich turned around, quickly examined the board he had written on and said:
Thank you... sit down.
A very special kind of relationship existed between the students and the teacher of the Latin language, Dmitry Petrovich Vozdvizhensky.
He was no longer young, with a strong gray hair, a red-nosed man, round-shouldered and hunched, with blue eyes the color of a tender spring sky, which contrasted sharply with a pimply face and bristly hair cut short on his cheeks and beard. This hair stood out in dirty greyish stubble, and the big mustache moved like a cockroach. In general, "Mitya" was unsightly in appearance, often came to class drunk and had the ability to influence his students in such a way that they immediately turned into first-graders boys. And Pisarev, and Shelgunov, and Shchapov, and Buckle, and Darwin were immediately forgotten for those hours when there were Latin lessons.
No one cared about Mitya's political convictions, but much was about his big red nose, his small gray eyes, which at times suddenly became very large, and his stooped figure.
Even from a distance, who noticed him walking along the corridor, flew into the classroom with a joyful cry:
In response, there was a united roar of forty voices. Babylonian pandemonium arose: each in his own way, as he wanted, hastened to express his joy. They roared like a bear, barked like a dog, crowed like roosters, beat a drum. From an excess of feelings, they jumped up on the benches, stood on their heads, thrashed each other on the backs, reaped oil.
The figure of the teacher appeared at the door, and everything instantly calmed down, and then, to the beat of his gait, everyone quietly, in unison, said:
They go, they go, they go...
When he ascended the pulpit and suddenly stopped at the table, all at once fragmentarily cried out:
And when he sank into a chair, everyone shouted in unison:
There was an expectant silence. It was necessary to find out the question: is Mitya drunk or not?
The teacher assumed a stern physiognomy and began to squint. It was a good sign, and the class whispered happily but hesitantly:
Squints.
Suddenly he opened his eyes wide. There was no doubt.
Rolled out!! - there was a volley of the whole class.
The fun began.
But the teacher was not always drunk, and then at the entrance he immediately interrupted the students, saying in a dull and disappointed voice:
Enough.
That's enough, - the class answered him and, just like him, waved his pen.
This was followed by relative calm, since the teacher, although short-sighted, knew the voices so well that, no matter how the students changed them, he always accurately guessed the culprit.
Semenov, I'll write it down, - he usually answered some cry of an owl.
If Semyonov did not let up, then the teacher wrote it down on a piece of paper, and said:
And the class repeated in every way:
Give me a piece of paper and I'll write you down.
And everyone vied with each other in a hurry to give him what he required, with the difference that if he was sober, they gave paper, and if he was drunk, they carried what they could: books, hats, feathers - in a word, everything, but not paper.
The students heard that the teacher had received the rank of state councillor. IN next lesson no one called him otherwise than "your excellency" ... And every time he was about to say something, the duty officer turned to the class and said in a frightened whisper:
Shh!.. His Excellency wants to speak.
The news that Mitya was the groom aroused even greater delight in the students. This news came just before his lesson. Even the imperturbable Yakovlev, the first student, and he succumbed.
Rylsky bent his knees a little, hunched over, puffed out his face and, putting his finger to his lips, quietly, slowly, like a pouting turkey, began to walk, imitating Mitya and saying in a low bass:
Gentlemen, we must honor Mitya, - suggested Dolba.
Need, Need!
Honor Mitya!
Honor! - picked up from all sides and heatedly began to discuss the program of the festival.
It was decided to elect a deputation that would convey to the teacher the congratulations of the class. They chose Yakovlev, Dolba, Rylsky and Berendya. Kartashev was rejected for the reason that he would not stand it and spoil the whole thing. Everything was ready when the familiar, round-shouldered figure of the teacher appeared at the end of the corridor.
A long-brimmed uniform frock coat below the knees, some kind of Cossack trousers cone down, a bundle under the arm, thick hair, stubble on the cheeks, a spiky beard, protruding mustaches and the whole ruffled figure of the teacher gave the impression of a rooster rumpled after a fight. When he entered, everyone rose to their feet, and the classroom fell into a dead silence.
Everyone was tempted to bark, because Mitya was more interesting than usual. He walked, aiming straight for the table, unevenly, quickly, trying to maintain both dignity and swiftness in achieving the goal, he walked as if he was struggling with invisible obstacles, he fought, overcome and victoriously moved forward.
It was obvious that at breakfast they had time to zealously congratulate the groom.
His face was redder than usual: blackheads, a full red nose, shone.
Just drink some water, - Dolba remarked cheerfully, shrugging his shoulders.
The teacher blinked hard, thought for a moment, staring out the window, and said:
Sit down.
We can't, the class answered him in a respectful whisper.
Mitya thought again, rolled his eyes, blinked and repeated:
Empty, sit down.
The quiet moan of forty people dying from unbearable convulsions of laughter swept through the classroom.
Four elected representatives rose from the back benches to congratulate the deputy. They all walked, each separately, along the four aisles to the teacher's place, decorously and solemnly.
The teacher squinted, they walked, and the class, fading, watched.
Better than others was Yakovlev. He was a priest. Such majestic, indestructible dignity was written on his face, such a serious penetration of his role, and at the same time his nostrils flared so insidiously that it was impossible to look at him without laughter.
Dolba got something unnatural, strained, a desire to extend it. Rylsky wanted to be both an actor and a spectator, he did not take his role seriously enough. The lanky Berendya walked too uninspired with his usual gait of a man who is now and then pushed in the neck.
When the deputies stepped forward of the benches, they stopped, lined up in one line, and all at once, turning sharply to face the class, bowed low to their comrades. The class dignifiedly and solemnly answered their commissioners with the same bow.
Mitya, as before, only squinted at all these mysterious actions and attentively watched the deputies bowing, then the comrades answering them.
Bowing to the class, the deputies, two in a row facing each other, bowed to one another, first directly and then crosswise.
With a new maneuver, the deputies, four in a row, were already standing in front of the teacher and bowing low, respectfully to his waist. Willy-nilly, I had to step out of the role of an observer.
The teacher made some kind of movement, a cross between a bow and a nod of the head, as if to say: "Well, let's put it ... what's next?"
Yakovlev, clearing his throat slightly, flaring his nostrils, began:
Dmitry Petrovich! comrades instructed us to thank you for the honor you have shown one of our comrades by entering into kinship with him. The class is happy to hear of your marriage and extends their sincere congratulations to you.
Oh yes, sincere and most heartfelt congratulations, - someone boomed.
Qui-qui! - swept through the class.
Dmitry Petrovich! said Yakovlev, leaning respectfully towards the teacher and flaring his nostrils.
The teacher, who had time to both roll out and squint, thought for a moment and, waving his hand as usual, said in his usual voice:
What exactly is empty? asked Yakovlev respectfully.
Everything is empty.
So how? It's about marriage ... about the happiness of two tenderly loving friend friend...
The class howled.
Gentlemen, I can't ... - said Yakovlev, already choking with laughter. - You are disturbing me...
He covered his mouth and half cried, half laughed.
Something quite out of the ordinary began. Like a mad whirlwind, saturated with drunken fumes, burst into the classroom. They jumped up, squealed, beat each other. The crowd went wild. Kartashev, as if mad, took off from his seat and flew up to the teacher.
The teacher squinted at him.
What do you want?
Least of all could Kartashev answer, whatever he pleased. Something propped up his sides; his throat convulsively constricted, he wanted to throw out something so that he and the others would immediately burst with laughter.
What the gymnasium authorities did not do in order to establish proper order in Dmitri Petrovich's lessons: they left him without lunch both at retail and with the whole class, gave marks for behavior and even temporarily expelled one, but nothing helped.
There was only one way to stop the mess in Dmitri Petrovich's lessons: to remove it. But Dmitry Petrovich was only two years away from retirement, and there were reasons why everyone wanted to help this man somehow make it to the end of his service. When one of Dmitri Petrovich's comrades happened to listen to the enthusiastic stories of the pupils about tricks in his lessons, instead of merry laughter, the teacher would say bitterly:
Oh, gentlemen, if you knew this man... It was a star between us.
Dmitry Petrovich's life began under happy conditions. He was already a master, he was going to get married, when he suddenly ended up in a fortress for something. Three years later he left. His bride was already married to another; he could not get any occupation for a long time. His former patrons turned away from him. He began to drink and accepted the only job they agreed to give him: that of a Latin teacher.
A weak man, - everyone spoke of him with one voice, - but a beautiful soul and excellent rules.
In the circle of those who liked him, Dmitry Petrovich was a different person, with a huge store of knowledge, witty, mild-mannered, with a clear outlook on European life. educated person. But for the students, he was only Mitya, old, drunken Mitya, who patiently and cheerfully allowed himself to be mocked as much as anyone liked.
MAGAZINE
When classes were just starting after the vacations, Christmas seemed like such a distant beacon in the monotonous, gray sea of gymnasium life.
But here is Christmas: tomorrow is Christmas Eve and the Christmas tree. The wind drives cold snow through the deserted streets and opens the cold uniform coat of Kartashev, who, alone, not in the usual company, hurries home from the last lesson. How quickly time has flown by. Where are Danilov and Kasitsky now? The sea is probably frozen. For a long time, since his friends left, Kartashev did not see him.
How things have changed since then. A completely different life, a different environment. And Korneva? Is he in love? Yes, madly in love, and what would he not give to be always with her, to have the right to look boldly into her eyes and tell her about his love. No, he will never offend her with his confession, but he knows that he loves, loves and loves her. Maybe she loves him too? Sometimes she looks into her eyes so much that you just want to grab, hug ... It's hot for Kartashev in the middle of a snow blizzard: his coat is half unbuttoned, and, as in a dream, he walks along the familiar streets. He has been following them for a long time. And summer and winter walks. Some joyful thought in the head will contact the house on which his gaze falls, and this house and then wakes up the memory. And this thought will be forgotten, and the house somehow attracts everything to itself. It was on this corner that he somehow met her, and she nodded to him and smiled as if suddenly delighted. Why didn't he come to her then? She glanced back once more from a distance, and his heart sank and ached, and rushed towards her, but he was afraid that she would suddenly guess why he was standing, and he quickly walked away with a preoccupied face. Well, what if she had guessed that he loved her? Oh, it would be, of course, such impudence that neither she nor anyone would forgive him. Would everyone find out, would they refuse the house, and with what eyes would Kornev look at him? No, don't! And it's so good: to love in your heart Kartashev looked around. Yes, here is Christmas, two weeks of no lessons, the soul is empty and the pleasure of the holiday. He always loved Christmas, and his memory connected the Christmas tree, and gifts, and the aroma of oranges, and kutya, and a quiet evening, and a pile of delicacies into one. And there, in the kitchen, caroling. They come from there with their unpretentious delicacies: nuts, horns, wine berries, they are given dresses, things.
This has been the case for as long as he can remember. In the bright lights of the Christmas tree and the fireplace, immediately after dinner, his favorite kutya suddenly comes to mind again, and he runs merrily and returns with a full plate, sits down against the fireplace and eats. Natasha, his admirer, will shout: "Me too." Behind her is Seryozha, Manya, Asya, and everyone is here again with plates of kutya. Zina will not survive either. Everyone is cheerful and funny, and the mother, dressed up, pleased, looks at them affectionately. What will they give him this year? thought Kartashev, calling at the entrance.
The next day in the evening they gave him a pound of tobacco and a tobacconist. And although he had been smoking on the sly for a long time, but now, having received a gift, for a long time he did not dare to smoke in front of his mother. And when he lit a cigarette, with a serious, preoccupied face, he immediately sat down at the fairy tales presented to Serezha and began to carefully read them. His mother smiled, looked at him, and, getting up, silently approached him and kissed him on the head. He kissed her hand in embarrassment, and again hurriedly buried himself in the book. All around there was the usual excitement and joy of everyone, and he thought: "What is the company doing now?"
Kartashev understands what his mother is hinting at, and reluctantly accepts the challenge:
She has a mother.
Stop, Tyoma, talking nonsense, - authoritatively stops the mother. - Her mother is as illiterate as our Tanya. Today I will dress Tanya for you, and she will be the same as Kornev's mother. She may be a very good woman, but this same Tanya, with all her virtues, still has the shortcomings of her environment, and her influence on her daughter cannot be without trace. One must be able to distinguish a decent, educated family from another. Education is not given in order to finally mix into mush everything that has been invested in you by generations.
What generations? All from Adam.
No, you deliberately deceive yourself; your concept of honor is thinner than that of Yeremey. For him, what is clear to you is not available.
Because I am more educated.
Because you are more educated... Education is one thing, but upbringing is another.
While Kartashev was pondering these new barriers, Aglaida Vasilievna continued:
Tyoma, you are on a slippery slope, and if your brains do not work on their own, then no one will help you. You can come out as an empty flower, you can give people a plentiful harvest ... Only you yourself can help yourself, and it’s a sin for you more than anyone else: you have a family that you won’t find another. If in it you do not draw strength for a rational life, then nowhere and no one will give it to you.
There is something higher than the family: social life.
Public life, my dear, is the hall, and the family are the stones of which this hall is composed.
Kartashev listened to such conversations of his mother as a departing traveler listens to the ringing of his native bell. It rings and awakens the soul, but the traveler goes his own way.
Kartashev himself was now pleased that it was not with him that the company was going. He loved his mother and sisters, recognized all their virtues, but his soul yearned for a place where a cheerfully and carelessly authoritative company lived the life it wanted to live. Gymnasium in the morning, lessons in the afternoon, and meetings in the evening. Not for drunkenness, not for revelry, but for reading. Aglaida Vasilievna reluctantly let her son go.
Kartashev has won this right once and for all.
I cannot live feeling inferior to others,” he said to his mother with force and expressiveness, “and if they force me to live a different life, then I will become a scoundrel: I will ruin my life ...
Please don't be intimidating because I'm not the type to be intimidated.
Nevertheless, since then, Kartashev, leaving home, only stated:
Mom, I'm going to Kornev.
And Aglaida Vassilyevna usually only nodded her head with an unpleasant sensation.
IV
Gymnasium
It was more fun at the gymnasium than at home, although the oppression and demands of the gymnasium were harder than those of the family. But there life was on the people. In the family of each, the interest was only his, and there the gymnasium connected the interests of everyone. At home, the struggle went on eye to eye, and there was little interest in it: all the innovators, each separately in their family, felt their powerlessness, in the gymnasium one felt the same powerlessness, but here the work went on together, there was full scope for criticism, and no one was dear to anyone. those who were taken apart. Here it was possible without looking back, so as not to hurt the sick feelings of one or another of the company, to try on the theoretical scale that the company gradually worked out for itself.
From the point of view of this scale, the company related to all the phenomena of gymnasium life and to all those who represented the administration of the gymnasium.
From this point of view, some deserved attention, others - respect, others - hatred, and the fourth, finally, did not deserve anything but neglect. The latter included all those who, in addition to their mechanical duties, had nothing else in their heads. They were called "amphibians". The kind amphibian is the overseer Ivan Ivanovich, the vengeful amphibian is the teacher of mathematics; not good and not evil: the inspector, teachers of foreign languages, pensive and dreamy, in colored ties, smoothly combed. They themselves seemed to be aware of their wretchedness, and only at examinations did their figures become outlined for a moment more clearly, only to disappear again from the horizon until the next examination. Everyone loved and respected the same director, although they considered him a fever, capable of doing many faux pas in the heat of the moment. But somehow they did not take offense at such moments and willingly forgot his harshness. The focus of the company was four: a Latin teacher in the lower grades Khlopov, a Latin teacher in their class Dmitry Petrovich Vozdvizhensky, a literature teacher Mitrofan Semenovich Kozarsky and a history teacher Leonid Nikolaevich Shatrov.
The young teacher of the Latin language Khlopov, who taught in the lower grades, was disliked by everyone in the gymnasium. There was no greater pleasure for high school students than to accidentally push this teacher and throw him a contemptuous “guilty” or give him an appropriate look. And when he ran hurriedly along the corridor, red-faced, in blue glasses, with his gaze fixed forward, then everyone, standing at the door of his class, tried to look at him as insolently as possible, and even the quietest, first student Yakovlev, flaring his nostrils, said, not embarrassed whether they hear it or not:
He is red because he sucked on the blood of his victims.
And the little victims, crying and overtaking each other, after each lesson poured out into the corridor after him and begged in vain for mercy.
Satiated with ones and twos, the teacher only moved his intoxicated eyes and hurried, without saying a single word, to hide in the teacher's room.
It cannot be said that this was an evil person, but only the dumbfounded ones used his attention, and as these victims under his care became more and more frightened, Khlopov became more and more tender towards them. And they, in turn, were in awe of him and, in a fit of ecstasy, kissed his hands. Khlopov did not enjoy sympathy between teachers either, and which of the students looked into the crack of the teacher's room during recreation always saw him running lonely from corner to corner, with a red, excited face, with the air of an offended person.
- Lidia Vasilievna, you probably know about what is happening in modern school what reforms are taking place, what is changing. What is your opinion on this?
- Everything is very bad. I am by no means saying: “Oh, how lovely it used to be,” no. There were very strict boundaries. For example, you had to "pass" some writer, say, eight hours, and that's it. I got a few reprimands for giving someone more time, someone less, but then I learned to get out.
Just like, for example, I realized that in literature I will not be called to the blackboard and put a mark on it, because it is not necessary. I started a notebook, and for each lesson I gave about fifteen marks - sometimes for two words, because they were very interesting and revealed the essence of the question, sometimes for some kind of detailed answer, sometimes for a well-chosen text, something else , and by the end of the topic, I accumulated marks for each student.
We finished, say, Pushkin, and I put out the average mark from all the earned ones. Sometimes it was possible to fix it, sometimes not. But it was impossible to put one mark per month in any case, I had to put marks in the magazine every day!
I've been lucky with directors. Not immediately, but gradually, I got some kind of freedom, and the director went to meet me: “Okay, just don’t put marks in the magazine in one column, but scatter them as if they were answering you, on different lessons". But the children knew, I told them: from this date to this - for such and such a topic. And the inspectors were satisfied: everything is in order.
- What else was bad, annoying in the Soviet school system?
- There were a lot of such things, for example, endless stupid inspectors. Some lady from the district committee came to me, wrote some reports ... Of course, this was terribly disturbing, annoying. Still irritated all sorts of meetings, party meetings. On the one hand, I was not obliged to attend them, since I was non-partisan, and on the other hand, I was obliged, because issues were discussed there that were not discussed anywhere else. It was a terrible waste of time.
Irritated by political information, the obligatory writing out of Pravda. My husband wrote out for me - he was obliged, but no - I had to too. That is, we had to write out two "Truths" for the family. She asked: give me Komsomolskaya Pravda, maybe there is at least something else ... No. With great difficulty, then fought back.
It was very hard to get books, magazines - at the same time there were many literary magazines, but it was impossible to subscribe to them. But I was lucky with the leadership. When I came after the first year to a new school, we had an important party lady as the director. But she liked something about me as a class teacher - my children led meetings, we always went on excursions with them a lot, I arranged literary evenings… And she turned a blind eye to many things.
- For what, for example?
- The fact that it was supposed to have a summary of each lesson designed in a certain way, where everything is described in detail; and I always had notes, but I wrote them the way I needed, and not the inspectors, the other person would not have understood at all what I was doing there: half a phrase, half a word, something else. And the director covered for me.
When the inspectors demanded a summary of the lessons, she told me: “Please write a separate summary on a piece of paper, I will say that I have a notebook.” So I had a good life with her. When I later started working in Cheryomushki, it was worse there, they didn’t cover me much. Although there was a good atmosphere, a team, strong philologists, all these endless commissions, checks were very tiring ...
But then I already learned to present to the commissions what they need. And then I went to English school on Leninsky. There, the director was also a very domineering woman, but she had this: if you work well, then a lot is allowed to you, if it’s bad, then she will find fault with you.
The school must deliver written speech
What determines the quality of a teacher's work?
- The results of exams, admission, the way essays are written. Writing is a very important thing. Now they were completely thrown out, and now the new minister wants to bring them back. This is necessary because a person, whoever he may be, must be able to coherently express his thoughts.
– For me, this is a moot point, because I still managed to check the entrance essays at the university, and I was frankly sorry for the applicants at some faculty of soil science, whom we “cut” on essays. I know the sad story of a brilliant mathematician who did not enter the Mekhmat due to mistakes in dictation. Isn't that right too?
- No, I'm not even talking about introductory essays - naturally, they should be completely different in soil science and in philology. But I'm talking about what the school should "deliver" written language.
I have always tried to explain to children that the composition should not be such an emotional "ah" - it is rather treatise: you have to prove something according to a certain structure: first the introduction, then the evidence, then the conclusion. This, in my opinion, is absolutely necessary, but it is precisely for this that the philologist never had hours. And now there are almost no writings at all.
– What else was good in the Soviet system school education?
– Firstly, the fact that at that time there was the history of Russian literature, the knowledge of which, I believe, is necessary for every person. Russian literature is such a wealth! Now they are talking about patriotism, about How educate him. Our literature, our history - that's what you need to know, to feel in childhood, adolescence - and then there will be no need to conduct any empty talk about patriotism.
From the moment the tests began to be introduced, there was no history of literature left - some individual works remained. Tests are terrible. Even my son, when he studied at Baumansky, told the algorithm for solving them: four possible answers are given: one is obvious nonsense, you immediately cross it out; the other, if you think about it, is also stupid; two remain: close your eyes, poke your finger - in most cases you will hit, sometimes you will miss, but since there are a lot of questions, then, in general, you hit.
In addition, there are some wild questions on these tests - I'm not talking about those where they ask what color Natasha Rostova's dress was, but there are questions, the correct answers to which are counted as incorrect. And their mass.
We have lost the system
- What else at school has changed for the worse since Soviet times?
- I think that endless mergers are a disgrace. Transforming schools is not a process where you can do one thing today, another way tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow wrong.
Imagine what will happen if a settled life goes on in a family today, and tomorrow we suddenly decide to change everything, and the day after tomorrow do it even differently. And what happens? There will simply be no family, it will fall apart, disappear. Why, by combining a bad school with a good one, you get a good one? Where did you get it from?
My friend graduated from the Moscow Aviation Institute, went to school, taught computer science, became the head teacher, gradually received Teacher Education and everything was fine. Then they were merged with other schools, and she was made head teacher lower grades about which she has no idea...
In addition, there were still 30 children in the class, but now some of them are strong, some are average, some do not know Russian at all, some are those who previously fell into the system of corrective education. And the teacher must work with everyone, and he must have an individual approach to each.
- But different children probably came to your school.
- Right. But I have never had either those who do not know Russian, or those who are mentally retarded. I once gave private lessons to children with developmental defects. I learned to work with them, wrote some endless reports, studied - but, of course, individually. Children are cruel creatures. When there is just an eccentric in the class, it takes a tremendous effort for the teacher to make others not perceive him as an outcast who can be given a cuff.
Therefore, when I read about the new approach to teaching children at school, I was surprised and upset. Of course, children with some kind of physical disabilities can and should study together with healthy children, this is correct, but this will place an additional (and not always feasible) burden on teachers. And children from correctional schools cannot be taken and put in a regular class. These schools cannot be closed.
But children, not those who know the language? For some time I worked at the Timiryazev Academy with foreigners, so this is a completely different thing - teaching Russian as a foreign language. My friends, who graduated from the philological faculty of Moscow State University, then went to study specifically in order to teach at the Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University.
- I have a feeling that today's children are very overloaded. Was there a more balanced program in the Soviet school? Or maybe they didn’t send children to ten circles at the same time, they didn’t hire tutors for all school subjects?
- The program was overloaded - in any case, they talked about it all the time, worried that the children were studying for a very long time, and in high school they really studied a lot. And there have always been tutors. But then tutors taught, but when the Unified State Examination was introduced, other tutors appeared who teach where to tick the answers, what questions will be, what you need to know, and what you don’t give a damn about, and do not give systematic knowledge.
Previously, there were electives, there were free circles, but now most of them have become paid. For me, it's kind of wild. And then, it still surprises me that some previously programmatic things are given in the form of additional classes.
"Teaching with passion" did not work
What else good have we lost?
We have lost the system.
Even if not entirely successful, even if it had many shortcomings - then, by the way, they struggled with these shortcomings, came up with something new. But if you have a wind blowing from your window, you will not demolish the house, right? - you will change the window. And then they decided to demolish the house, and in its place it turned out to be a complete mess.
- I still have a question when I look at how in the first grades different schools they constantly introduce new programs for studying the Russian language: the old system, according to which they taught in the Soviet school, was something bad, did the children leave school illiterate?
- Of course not. When I was at school, we had a teacher who explained the rule, gave daily dictation and conscientiously checked it. All. And he raised literate students. But if you dance and dance instead, as young teachers often do, there will be nothing left.
- We had, from which it followed that one of her main tasks in the classroom is to captivate the children so that they sit and argue about something. Is this passionate argument always effective from the point of view of educational process?
– I was still working when this movement started, it was called “teaching with passion”. I don’t think at all that you need to teach in such a way that flies die in your lessons - no one will learn anything, the children will yawn, and that’s it.
So arguing is good. But I am sure that the school should develop in children the habit of work. And work is not always delight and inspiration, it has a lot of tedious, everyday, but necessary work.
“Teaching with passion” resulted in the fact that in the lesson they sang, danced, gave some dramatic excerpts from the works, but there was no result. Children look, they are even interested, but what do they know after that?
Once I was on open lesson one teacher, already very middle-aged. A wonderful and ordinary lesson: he just talked to the children, asked them, and they answered him. And our methodologist said: “Of course, this is all fine, but you don’t have any visual material, there are no stands” - and by that time stands were obligatory. He grinned and said: “Here is my bookcase. These are the books of my students, which I am proud of.”
Same kids
- Do you think the children you taught from 1954 to 1989 were somehow different from their current peers?
– I don’t teach now, but from what I see, it seems to me that they are not so different. Of course, new wonderful words have appeared that make me cringe, but I understand that when my mother heard “iron” in my youth, she also twisted all over, because it seemed to her that it was something completely indecent.
– Modern teachers sometimes they try to speak the same language with children, in particular, they use slang. Could you say "iron" in class?
- Of course not. It seems wrong to me when a teacher says this in class and thinks that it connects him with the children. It is necessary to calmly harass this language in children. My Varia kept saying "hang out". I understand the word "hang out", and it does not hurt my ear, and "hang out" irritated me terribly.
And we began to analyze where it came from, what are the synonyms. We even found some funny and stupid word that could replace him, and after that Varya stopped saying “hang out”, although I didn’t force her in any way.
- But, on the other hand, in order for her to be accepted as her own in some circle of her peers, she needs to say so.
“Of course, no one objects to this.
“You want to teach, and they sit and giggle in your eyes”
- Has the attitude towards the teacher changed today? When I entered the university, many went to pedagogical institutes if they did not enter a “normal” university. How was it in your time?
- It was the same. Therefore, when I went to work at a school for one year, I went there with the feeling that I would not stay there. It was not what I dreamed of. But when I met these people at school, there were a lot of quite worthy and smart people among them. This is a profession that weeds out people very harshly, and many, after a little work, went to the theorists: to the city department, to the Ministry of Education, to methodologists.
Why did they leave? Imagine: you come to the class, perhaps you are even a knowledgeable person, you want to teach them, you are directly overwhelmed with this desire, now you will tell them everything you know. And they sit, giggle in your eyes, ask: “Can I come out?” - or something else. The person is lost, does not know what to do. Sometimes he starts screaming, stamping his feet, punishing. It is fruitless, it does not give anything, but he works like this for a day, two, three, four, five, six. Sometimes he gets used to it.
I saw such unfortunate ones - they sometimes teach for thirty years, and all thirty years they exist in this horror. We had such a math teacher - her trumpet voice was heard throughout the corridor, but what was done in the classroom cannot be described. And it was impossible to kick her out.
A young man once came to me, the son of successful actors. He first graduated from technical educational institution, and then decided that he wanted to be a “literature teacher,” as he importantly said. And they gave me custody. He read a lot, knew a lot, he was a very nice boy, I can’t say anything bad about him, but when you come to his lesson ... The children are silent, because I’m sitting there, but I see that someone has an open book, someone has a magazine, they are not interested.
Why are they not interested? I myself do not know - he knows a lot, he can teach a lot. He went on hikes with them, rode bicycles, whatever he did. Then he went to a sports school ... He thought that it would be better there. It didn't work out. And so the man dreamed ...
What did he miss?
- I don't know. This is a creative profession. If you want to be, for example, an artist, if you are not given talent, you will not start drawing, and if you do not have a voice, you will not sing, even die, even if you know the notes.
– That is, a teacher is a profession that requires some kind of God's spark?
- Yes. And at the same time, as a rule, at first, few people want to go to work as a teacher, and then they get involved. Somewhere I have a book published in our area, it is called “Teacher's Dynasties”. We also got there: my grandmother, my mother, me and my daughter.
And I remember that in our family all the youth said that we would never teach, this is such a green melancholy. At the same time, my niece, who, by the will of fate, taught at school in the 90s, now recalls this with pleasure. My mother, an agricultural chemist by profession, worked all her life in research institutes, taught during the war, and later recalled this as the best year of her life.
My granddaughter, a designer by profession, taught at a branch of the British Academy of Arts in Moscow, she said that she was very interested, her students received international awards. My sister's grandson graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Technology and went to teach at a school at the Kurchatov Institute, this year he had to leave - he left for America for six months, and he misses school very much. My other granddaughter also teaches now, she likes it very much. My daughter teaches at MGIMO. Why is that? I don't know. You must have some special talent.
The teacher teaches and torments
What was your first year at school like as a teacher?
- I suffered a lot. There was a joke in my youth: a teacher suffers for five years - studies for five years, teaches for five years - torments for five years ... I came to school in 1954, the year when male and female schools were merged. And in the process of unification, all schools tried to keep good children for themselves, and send repeaters and those who were worse to others.
The school I graduated from was, of course, female; can you imagine who was transferred to us from boys' schools? First they gave me the eighth grades, and in the eighth everything went well for me right away, but the administration thought: why is this young teacher only eighth? Let's give her four more! And it was a nightmare. I just didn't know what to do with them.
Let's say Ivanov was sitting on the first desk, I turn my back to the board, and when I turn back, Ivanov is sitting on the last one ... But gradually it got better with them and became tolerable. And the next year, part of our school was transferred to a new building, and I happily said that I would go there. Not because of the children, but because I had a student's idea of the school where I worked - after all, I graduated from it, I knew these teachers - and when I got into a completely different position, I was shocked by intrigues, denunciations to the director and etc.
I was still too naive, I didn’t imagine that it was possible to go to someone, complain, inform, although I can’t say that I was an idealist. I went to a new building, there were mostly young people in the team, and in the new school things immediately went well for me.
No, I got curious. I saw not so much a class as individual people. I realized that the main thing is attention and respect for everyone, then they will treat you the same way. There should be no familiarity, but one should never humiliate anyone. And, of course, you need to know perfectly what you teach and love your subject.
Of course, I also taught the language, and tried to do it well, but literature is mine. We had one amazing teacher at the university, he did not have any special degrees, Nikolai Ivanovich Belkin. And he analyzed the works with us and said that there was no need to give lectures, but just to delve into the text: together with the students to talk, argue, think. I endured many difficulties along the way, but then it became interesting for both me and them.
- For me main riddle in the profession of a teacher - that a person repeats, in fact, the same thing from year to year ...
- No, that's not true, even if you have two classes in the same parallel. Some learn a lecture and then read it - then, of course, it turns out the same thing, and for everyone this is a green melancholy. And if you talk with children, the same thing will never work out, because people are different, the conclusions are different and I am different.
And I, despite the fact that I know almost by heart the novels that I went through a hundred times with my students, I still look through them every time, look through them, read them, and always find something new, so every time I say something different. Due to various family circumstances, I several times did other work: I taught Russian to foreigners, I worked in the Krestyanka magazine. That was boring.
“I quickly realized that I couldn’t scream”
- How did you ensure that the children in the lesson all behave appropriately?
- I realized very quickly that I couldn’t scream, although my voice was strong enough, but I didn’t like it. And I realized that I need to act in some other way. I am trying to understand what, in fact, I did, what my method was, and I find it difficult to answer. I only know that there must be a distance between the student and the teacher, familiarity does not go away, it will inevitably fail sooner or later, I have seen this.
I myself was quite young when I came to school, I was 23, and my students were repeaters for 18 years, but I somehow managed to set myself up, to mark the distance. IN last years my only means of disciplinary action was ... a wedding ring. For example, I tell something in a literature lesson, but I can’t talk about Dostoevsky and make comments at the same time, so I banged the ring on the table, if that. But this comes gradually, of course, it is not given immediately.
- What did you most severely punish both as a teacher and as a teacher? classroom teacher?
Probably for cruelty. For an ugly lie. Everyone is lying, that's fine, but if it's to the detriment of someone ...
- And in terms of attitude to the subject?
“I didn’t think everyone had to be madly in love with literature. He loves math - so what can you do with him? But he must learn a minimum, I am obliged to teach him something, because he has to do something, because he must write competently. If you take your heights elsewhere, please. It is also impossible for everyone to sit with their eyes wide open and admire.
It seems to me that the main thing in teaching literature and history at school is that this is the material that really forms views on life, on one's country, on one's place in society, and not in an orderly manner, but naturally.
- Were there any among your students who were not interested in anything at all - neither mathematics, nor literature, nor geography?
- There was such a boy Petya, round, plump, his eye was cloudy, and all the lessons he sat with his hands folded. He was a normal student, not mentally retarded, he just wasn't interested in anything. "Petya, write." - "Writing". “Sing, don’t dream, write.” “I’m writing,” that’s all I heard from him. Two years have passed. I didn't work there anymore. Once I meet Petya, and he joyfully tells me: “You know, I read War and Peace. About the war, and the rest is boring. And they gave me a four! “For what, Petya?” - “I made a stand, with pictures!”
- And now former students are you visiting?
- I have my own life principle (as many say, stupid): I don’t like to prolong something in my life. Some segment of life has ended - and that's it, period. So when I moved out of my old apartment ten years ago, I didn't leave anyone with any phones. And until that moment - yes, they called, they came. I don’t go to meetings with graduates - for the same reason, and it’s hard for me. "By misfortune or luck, the truth is simple: never return to your former places." So I'm not coming back.
Xenia Knorre Dmitrieva
Current page: 3 (total book has 20 pages)
Zina screamed: “Ah! how similar! Natasha laughed merrily and immediately threw off her mask.
“Tyoma, you must try to behave better,” said Aglaida Vasilievna, “you are terribly hunched over ... You could be more effective than all your comrades.
“After all, Tyoma, if he had behaved well, would have been very personable ...” Zina confirmed. - Well, to tell the truth, he is very handsome: eyes, nose, hair ...
Tyoma hunched his back in embarrassment, listened with pleasure and at the same time grimaced unpleasantly.
- Well, what are you, Tyoma, just like a small one, right ... - Zina noticed. - But you have all this, as soon as you start to hunch over, it’s as if it disappears somewhere ... Your eyes become pleading, as if you are about to ask for a pretty penny ...
Zina laughed. Tom got up and walked around the room. He glanced briefly at himself in the mirror, turned away, walked in the other direction, straightened up imperceptibly, and, going back to the mirror, glanced briefly into it.
- And how cleverly to dance with Rylsky! Zina exclaimed. You don't feel at all...
“And I kept getting lost with Semyonov,” said Natasha.
- Semyonov must certainly start from the door. He dances wow... it's comfortable with him... only he needs to start... Darcier dances very well.
“You have a very sweet manner,” mother threw to Zina.
- Natasha also dances well, - Zina praised, - she just runs a little ...
“I don’t know how at all,” Natasha answered, blushing.
“No, you’re very nice, but there’s no need to rush ... You somehow always start before the gentleman ... Here, Tyoma, I didn’t want to learn to dance,” Zina finished, turning to her brother, “but if I also danced like Rylsky.
“And you could dance well,” said Aglaida Vasilievna.
Tyoma imagined himself dancing like Rylsky: he even felt his pince-nez on his nose, recovered and grinned.
“At that moment you looked like Rylsky,” Zina screamed and suggested: “Come on, Tyoma, I’ll teach you polka now.” Mom, play.
And unexpectedly, to the music of Aglaida Vasilievna, the training of a young bear cub began.
One, two, three, one, two, three! Zina counted, lifting the tip of her dress and making polka-dots in front of Tyoma.
Tyoma jumped up and down conscientiously and conscientiously. Natasha, sitting on the sofa, looked at her brother, and his embarrassment, and pity for him, and some kind of reflection were reflected in her eyes, and Zina only occasionally smiled, resolutely turning her brother by the shoulders, and said:
- Well, you, teddy bear!
- Oh oh oh! Quarter past one: sleep, sleep! - declared Aglaida Vasilievna, rising from her chair, and, carefully lowering the lid of the piano, put out the candles.
Life went on. The company went to class, somehow prepared their lessons, gathered at each other's and intensively read, now together, now each separately.
Kartashev did not lag behind the others. If for Kornev reading was an innate need due to the desire to comprehend the life around him, then for Kartashev reading was the only way to get out of that difficult situation of an “ignoramus” in which he felt.
Some Yakovlev, the first student, also did not read anything, was "ignorant", but Yakovlev, firstly, had the ability to hide his ignorance, and secondly, his passive nature did not push him anywhere. He stood at the little window that others had cut through for him, and he didn't want to go anywhere else. The passionate nature of Kartashev, on the contrary, pushed him in such a way that often his actions acquired a completely involuntary character. With such a nature, with the need to act, create or destroy, semi-educated people live poorly: demi-instruit - double sot, - the French say, and Kartashev received enough blows on his share from the root company so as not to passionately strive, in turn, to get out from the darkness that surrounded him. Of course, even while reading, he was still, perhaps, in a greater fog than before, because of a multitude of questions, but he already knew that he was in a fog, knew the way how to get out of this fog little by little. Something has already been illuminated. He gladly shook hands common man, and the consciousness of equality did not anger him, as it once did, but gave him pleasure and pride. He did not want to wear more colored ties, to take cologne from his mother's toilet to put on perfume, to dream of patent leather shoes. It even gave him special pleasure now - slovenliness in a suit. He listened with delight when Kornev, already considering him his own, patted him on the shoulder in a friendly manner and spoke for him to his mother's reproach:
- Where are we with the cloth snout!
Kartashev at that moment would have been very glad to have a real cloth snout, so as not to look like some smart Neruchev, their neighbor on the estate.
After the evening described, no matter how cheerfully they spent their time, the company avoided gathering at the house of Aglaida Vasilievna under various pretexts. Aglaida Vasilyevna was upset by this, and Kartashev was also upset, but he went where everyone was going.
“No, I don’t sympathize with your evenings,” said Aglaida Vasilievna, “you study poorly, you have become a stranger to the family.
- Why am I a stranger? Kartashev asked.
- Everyone ... Before you were a loving, simple boy, now you are a stranger ... looking for flaws in your sisters.
– Where do I look for them?
“You attack the sisters, laugh at their joys.
- I don’t laugh at all, but if Zina sees her joy in some dress, then, of course, it’s funny to me.
- And what does she see joy in? She learns lessons, goes first and has every right to rejoice at the new dress.
Kartashev listened, and in his heart he felt sorry for Zina. In fact: let her be happy with her dress, if it pleases her. But behind the dress something else followed, behind this again something of its own, and the whole network of conventional propriety again enveloped and entangled Kartashev until he rebelled.
“Everything is accepted with you, not accepted,” he said fervently to his sister, “as if the world would fall apart from this, and all this is nonsense, nonsense, nonsense ... it’s not worth a damn. Korneva does not think about any of this, but God forbid that everyone was like that.
- Ooo! Mother! What he says?! Zina threw up her hands.
Why is Korneva so good? asked Aglaida Vasilievna. - Does he study well?
- What are you studying? I don't know how she learns.
“Yes, he studies poorly,” Zina explained with a heart.
“So much the better,” Kartashev shrugged dismissively.
Where is the best limit for this? asked Aglaida Vasilievna, “to be for the inability to be expelled from the gymnasium?”
- This is an extreme: you need to study halfway.
“So, your Korneva is half-hearted,” Zina put in, “neither fish nor meat, neither warm nor cold - fi, disgusting!
- Yes, this has nothing to do with either cold or warm.
“He has a lot, my dear,” said Aglaida Vasilievna. - I imagine the following picture: the teacher calls: "Korneva!" Korneva comes out. "Answer!" "I don't know the lesson." Korneva goes to the place. Her face is beaming. In any case, probably contented, vulgar. No dignity!
Aglaida Vasilievna speaks expressively, and it is unpleasant and hard for Kartashev: his mother managed to humiliate Korneva in his eyes.
- She read a lot? the mother continues.
She doesn't read anything.
And he doesn't even read...
Aglaida Vasilievna sighed.
“In my opinion,” she says sadly, “your Korneva is an empty girl, who cannot be treated strictly only because there is no one to point out her emptiness to her.
Kartashev understands what his mother is hinting at, and reluctantly accepts the challenge:
- She has a mother.
“Stop talking nonsense, Tyoma,” the mother stops him authoritatively. - Her mother is as illiterate as our Tanya. Today I will dress Tanya for you, and she will be the same as Kornev's mother. She may be a very good woman, but this same Tanya, with all her virtues, still has the shortcomings of her environment, and her influence on her daughter cannot be without trace. One must be able to distinguish a decent, educated family from another. Education is not given in order to finally mix into mush everything that has been invested in you by generations.
- What generations? All from Adam.
– No, you deliberately deceive yourself; your concept of honor is thinner than that of Yeremey. For him, what is clear to you is not available.
Because I am more educated.
- Because you are more educated ... Education is one thing, and upbringing is another.
While Kartashev was pondering these new barriers, Aglaida Vasilievna continued:
- Tyoma, you are on a slippery slope, and if your brains do not work on their own, then no one will help you. You can come out as an empty flower, you can give people a plentiful harvest ... Only you yourself can help yourself, and it’s a sin for you more than anyone else: you have a family that you won’t find another. If in it you do not draw strength for a rational life, then nowhere and no one will give it to you.
– There is something higher than the family: social life.
“Public life, my dear, is the hall, and the family are the stones of which this hall is composed.
Kartashev listened to such conversations of his mother as a departing traveler listens to the ringing of his native bell. It rings and awakens the soul, but the traveler goes his own way.
Kartashev himself was now pleased that it was not with him that the company was going. He loved his mother and sisters, recognized all their virtues, but his soul yearned for a place where a cheerfully and carelessly authoritative company lived the life it wanted to live. Gymnasium in the morning, lessons in the afternoon, and meetings in the evening. Not for drunkenness, not for revelry, but for reading. Aglaida Vasilievna reluctantly let her son go.
Kartashev has won this right once and for all.
“I cannot live feeling inferior to others,” he said to his mother with force and expressiveness, “and if they force me to live a different life, then I will become a scoundrel: I will ruin my life ...
“Please don't be intimidating, because I'm not the type to be scared.
Nevertheless, since then, Kartashev, leaving home, only stated:
- Mom, I'm going to Kornev.
And Aglaida Vassilyevna usually only nodded her head with an unpleasant sensation.
GYMNASIUM
It was more fun at the gymnasium than at home, although the oppression and demands of the gymnasium were harder than those of the family. But there life was on the people. In the family of each, the interest was only his, and there the gymnasium connected the interests of everyone. At home, the struggle went on eye to eye, and there was little interest in it: all the innovators, each separately in their family, felt their powerlessness, in the gymnasium one felt the same powerlessness, but here the work went on together, there was full scope for criticism, and no one was dear to anyone. those who were taken apart. Here it was possible without looking back, so as not to hurt the sick feelings of one or another of the company, to try on the theoretical scale that the company gradually worked out for itself.
From the point of view of this scale, the company related to all the phenomena of gymnasium life and to all those who represented the administration of the gymnasium.
From this point of view, some deserved attention, others - respect, others - hatred, and the fourth, finally, did not deserve anything but neglect. The latter included all those who, in addition to their mechanical duties, had nothing else in their heads. They were called "amphibians". The kind amphibian is the overseer Ivan Ivanovich, the vengeful amphibian is the teacher of mathematics; not good and not evil: the inspector, teachers of foreign languages, pensive and dreamy, in colored ties, smoothly combed. They themselves seemed to be aware of their wretchedness, and only at examinations did their figures become outlined for a moment more clearly, only to disappear again from the horizon until the next examination. Everyone loved and respected the same director, although they considered him a fever, capable of doing many faux pas in the heat of the moment. But somehow they did not take offense at such moments and willingly forgot his harshness. The focus of the company was four: a Latin teacher in the lower grades Khlopov, a Latin teacher in their class Dmitry Petrovich Vozdvizhensky, a literature teacher Mitrofan Semenovich Kozarsky and a history teacher Leonid Nikolaevich Shatrov.
The young teacher of the Latin language Khlopov, who taught in the lower grades, was disliked by everyone in the gymnasium. There was no greater pleasure for high school students than to accidentally push this teacher and throw him a contemptuous “guilty” or give him an appropriate look. And when he ran hurriedly along the corridor, red-faced, in blue glasses, with his gaze fixed forward, then everyone, standing at the door of his class, tried to look at him as insolently as possible, and even the quietest, first student Yakovlev, flaring his nostrils, said, not embarrassed whether they hear it or not:
“He is red because he sucked the blood of his victims.
And the little victims, crying and overtaking each other, after each lesson poured out into the corridor after him and begged in vain for mercy.
Satiated with ones and twos, the teacher only moved his intoxicated eyes and hurried, without saying a single word, to hide in the teacher's room.
It cannot be said that this was an evil person, but only the dumbfounded ones used his attention, and as these victims under his care became more and more frightened, Khlopov became more and more tender towards them. And they, in turn, were in awe of him and, in a fit of ecstasy, kissed his hands. Khlopov did not enjoy sympathy between teachers either, and which of the students looked into the crack of the teacher's room during recreation always saw him running lonely from corner to corner, with a red, excited face, with the air of an offended person.
He spoke quickly and stuttered slightly. Despite his youth, he already had a fairly pendulous belly.
The little victims, who knew how to cry in front of him and kiss his hands, behind their eyes, probably struck by the inadequacy of his abdomen, called him a "pregnant bitch."
In general, he was a tyrant - convinced and proud, about whom it was said that at the anniversary of Katkov, when they rocked him, he turned up so that Katkov found himself sitting on his back. That's why they called him in high school: Katkovsky donkey.
The teacher of literature, Mitrofan Semyonovich Kozarsky, was a small, gloomy man with all the signs of an evil consumption. On his head was a whole heap of unkempt, tangled, curly hair, into which he now and then ran his small hand, with fingers apart, biliously. He always wore dark, smoky glasses, and only occasionally, when he took them off to wipe them, did the students see small gray, angry eyes, like those of a chained dog. He growled like a dog. It was difficult to make him smile, but when he smiled, it was even more difficult to recognize it as a smile, as if someone were forcibly stretching his mouth, and he resisted it with all his might. Although the students were afraid of him, and regularly crammed various ancient Slavic beauties, they also tried to flirt with him.
Such flirting rarely went in vain.
Once, as soon as the roll call was over, Kartashev, who considered it his duty to doubt everything, which, however, came out of him a little violently, got up and turned to the teacher in a resolute, excited voice:
- Mitrofan Semyonovich! One circumstance in the life of Anthony and Theodosius is incomprehensible to me.
- What-with? - the teacher was worried.
“I'm afraid to ask you, it's so incongruous.
- Speak, sir!
Kozarsky nervously propped his chin on his hand and glared at Kartashev.
Kartashev turned pale and, not taking his eyes off him, expressed, albeit confusingly, but in one volley, his suspicions that there was partiality in the appointment of the boyar Fyodor.
As he spoke, the teacher's eyebrows rose higher and higher. It seemed to Kartashev that it was not the glasses that were looking at him, but the dark hollows of someone's eyes, terrible and mysterious. He suddenly became terrified at his own words. He would have been too glad not to say them, but everything was said, and Kartashev fell silent, depressed, bewildered, with a stupid, frightened look, continued to look into terrible glasses. And the teacher kept silent, kept looking, and only a venomous grimace twisted his lips more strongly.
A thick blush flooded Kartashev's cheeks, and agonizing shame seized him. Finally Mitrofan Semyonovich spoke quietly, measuredly, and his words dripped like boiling water onto Kartashev's head:
- To such disgusting ... to such vulgarity can a person be driven by the desire to always be original ...
The class spun in the eyes of Kartashev. Half of the words flew past, but there were enough of those that fell into his ears. His legs buckled and he sat up half unconscious. The teacher coughed nervously, biliously, and clutched his sunken chest with his small, disheveled hand. When the seizure had passed, he walked silently around the classroom for a long time.
- In due time at the university you will touch in detail on that sad phenomenon in our literature, which caused and still causes such a buffoon attitude to life.
The hint was too clear and seemed too offensive to Kornev.
“History tells us,” he could not resist, turning pale and rising with a twisted face, “that much of what seemed to contemporaries to be clownish and not worthy of attention, in reality turned out to be completely different.
“Well, it won’t turn out to be,” the teacher turned his dark glasses sharply to him. “And it won’t turn out for the very reason that this is a story, and not an overexposure. Well, anyway, this is not a modern topic. What is given?
The teacher immersed himself in the book, but immediately pulled himself away and spoke again:
“Childhood has no place in history. Fifty years ago, a poet who lived for understanding requires knowledge of the era, and not pulling him out of it and bringing him as a defendant on the bench of modernity.
- But we, contemporaries, learn the poems of this poet “Go away” by heart ...
Mitrofan Semyonovich raised his eyebrows high, bared his teeth, and silently looked at Kornev like a skeleton in blue glasses.
- Yes, sir, teach ... you must teach ... and if you don’t know, you will get a unit ... And this is not your business, with competence.
“Perhaps,” Dolba intervened, “we are not competent, but we want to be competent.
- Well, Darcier! called the teacher.
Dolba met Rylsky's eyes and looked down dismissively.
When the lesson was over, Kartashev rose embarrassedly and stretched out.
- What, brother, shaved you off? Dolba slapped him good-naturedly on the shoulder.
“He shaved it off,” Kartashev chuckled awkwardly, “to hell with him.”
“Yes, you shouldn’t even argue with him,” Kornev agreed. - What are these tricks? illiterate boys ... And if only his literacy was limited, would they be literate?
"Please don't put it down," Rylsky interrupted him cheerfully, "because you'll put it down and won't lift it up."
History teacher Leonid Nikolaevich Shatrov has long won popularity among his students.
He became a teacher at the gymnasium just in the year when the described company moved into the third grade.
And with his youth, and gentle receptions, and that spirituality that so attracts young, untouched hearts, Leonid Nikolayevich gradually attracted everyone to him, so that in the senior classes the students treated him with respect and love. One thing upset them that Leonid Nikolaevich was a Slavophil, although not a “leavened one,” as Kornev explained, but with a confederation of Slavic tribes, with Constantinople at the head. This somewhat mitigated the severity of his guilt, but all the same, the company became at a dead end: he couldn’t help but read Pisarev, and if he did, was he really so limited that he didn’t understand him? Be that as it may, even Slavophilism was excused for him, and his lesson was always expected with particular pleasure.
The appearance of his unsightly figure, with a large broad forehead, long straight hair, which he now and then pawned behind his ear, with intelligent, soft, brown eyes, always somehow especially excited the students.
And he was "tortured". Either Pisarev's book will be accidentally forgotten on the table, or someone will drop it casually on a topic from the field of general questions, or else he will express a coherent consideration. The teacher will listen, smile, shrug his shoulders and say:
- Reduce, dearest!
And then he notices:
- What other guys!
And he will say so mysteriously that the students do not know whether to rejoice at them or be sad that they are still children.
Leonid Nikolayevich loved his subject very much. Loving, he forced those who came into contact with him to love what he himself loved.
In that lesson, when, having called the roll, he modestly rose and, laying a lock of hair behind his ear, said, descending from his elevation: “Today I will tell,” the class turned into hearing and was ready to listen to him all five lessons in a row. And they not only listened, but also carefully wrote down all his conclusions and generalizations.
Leonid Nikolaevich's manner of speaking was somehow special, captivating. Now, pacing around the class, carried away, he grouped the facts, for greater clarity, as if grabbing them with his hand into the fist of his other hand, then he moved on to conclusions and, as if taking them out of his clenched fist, instead of the facts that he put there. And always a clear and logical conclusion, strictly justified, was obtained.
Within the framework of a scientific formulation of the question, wider than the program of the gymnasium course, the students felt both satisfied and flattered. Leonid Nikolaevich took advantage of this and organized voluntary work. He proposed topics, and those who wished were taken, guided by the sources indicated by him and his own, if they were afraid of one-sided coverage of the issue.
So, in the sixth grade, one topic - "The Confederation of Slavic Tribes in the specific period" - no one wanted to take for a long time. Berendya finally made up his mind, saying to himself the right that if, after getting to know the main source indicated by the teacher, Kostomarov, he did not like the posing of the question, then he was free to come to a different conclusion.
- Justified? asked Leonid Nikolaevich.
“Of course,” Berendya pressed his fingers to his chest and rose, as usual, on his toes.
One day Leonid Nikolayevich came to class upset and upset as usual.
The new trustee, having examined the gymnasium, was dissatisfied with some dissoluteness of the students and the lack of factual knowledge.
Among the others, Leonid Nikolayevich was also summoned to the trustee, and straight from the explanation, obviously unfavorable for him, he came to class.
The students did not immediately notice the bad mood of the teacher.
Having made a roll call, Leonid Ivanovich called Semyonov.
The students hoped that today's lesson would be in the story.
The disappointment was unpleasant, and everyone listened to Semyonov's answer with dull faces.
Semyonov pulled and tried to leave in common places.
Leonid Nikolaevich, bowing his head, listened, bored, with a sickly face.
- Year? he asked, noticing that Semyonov had evaded giving the year.
Semyonov said the first one that came up on his tongue, and he lied, of course.
- Bravely, but you won’t get the St. George Cross, - Leonid Nikolayevich remarked half-irritatedly, half-jokingly.
“He will get it when Constantinople is taken,” Rylsky put in.
Leonid Nikolayevich frowned and lowered his eyes.
- He will never get it, - Kartashev answered fervently from his place, - because the federation of Slavic tribes with Constantinople at the head is an impracticable nonsense.
“You, most respected one, will be reduced,” said Leonid Nikolaevich, raising his burning eyes to Kartashev.
Kartashev became embarrassed and fell silent, but Kornev stood up for Kartashev. He spoke sarcastically and caustically:
- A good way to argue!
Leonid Nikolaevich turned purple, and the veins poured on his temples. There was silence for some time.
- Kornev, stand without a seat.
Since the third grade, Leonid Nikolaevich has not subjected anyone to such a humiliating punishment.
Kornev turned pale and his face contorted.
Deathly silence reigned in the classroom.
Again everything was silent. Something terrible approached and was about to be embodied in some irreparable fact. Everyone was waiting tensely. Leonid Nikolaevich was silent.
“In that case, I ask you to leave the classroom,” he said without looking up.
It was like a stone fell off everyone's shoulders.
“I don’t consider myself guilty,” Kornev spoke up. “Perhaps I am mistaken, but it seems to me that I have not said anything that you would not have allowed me to say at another time. But if you find me guilty, then I'll go ...
Kornev began to make his way to the exit.
- draw a map Ancient Greece, - Leonid Nikolaevich suddenly told him, pointing to the board when Kornev passed him.
Instead of punishment, Kornev began to draw the assignment on the board.
- Kartashev! Causes and Reasons for the Crusades.
It was a grateful topic.
Kartashev, according to Guizot, outlined in detail the causes and reason for the crusades.
Leonid Nikolaevich listened, and as Kartashev spoke, a tense, unsatisfied feeling fled from his face.
Kartashev spoke well and painted a vivid picture of the desperate economic situation in Europe as a result of arbitrariness, violence and unwillingness of self-willed vassals to reckon with the urgent needs of the people ... Having cited several examples of relations between the upper and lower classes that had become aggravated to the extreme, he moved on to the practical side of the matter: to the cause and further presentation of events.
Leonid Nikolaevich listened to Kartashev's lively speech, looked into his excitedly burning eyes from the proud awareness of the meaningfulness and sensibility of his answer, - he listened, and he was overcome by a feeling, perhaps similar to that experienced by a good rider, teaching a hot young horse and smelling in it a move that will glorify both the horse and him in the future.
“Well, that’s fine,” Leonid Nikolaevich remarked with feeling, “that’s enough.
- Rylsky, the economic state of France under Louis the Fourteenth.
Rylsky's speech did not have those bright colors and overflows, with which Kartashev's speech sparkled beautifully. He spoke dryly, concisely, often interrupting his periods with the sound "e", generally speaking with some effort. But in the grouping of facts, in their stratification, some serious businesslikeness was felt, and the impression of the picture was not as artistic, perhaps, as Kartashev's, but stronger, beating with facts and figures.
Leonid Nikolayevich listened, and a feeling of satisfaction and, at the same time, a kind of melancholy shone in his eyes.
- Finished, - said Kornev.
Leonid Nikolaevich turned around, quickly examined the board he had written on and said:
“Thank you…sit down.”
A very special kind of relationship existed between the students and the teacher of the Latin language, Dmitry Petrovich Vozdvizhensky.
He was no longer young, with a strong gray hair, a red-nosed man, round-shouldered and hunched, with blue eyes the color of a tender spring sky, which contrasted sharply with a pimply face and bristly hair cut short on his cheeks and beard. This hair stood out in dirty greyish stubble, and the big mustache moved like a cockroach. In general, "Mitya" was unprepossessing in appearance, often came to class drunk and had the ability to influence his students so that they immediately turned into first-graders boys. And Pisarev, and Shelgunov, and Shchapov, and Buckle, and Darwin were immediately forgotten for those hours when there were Latin lessons.
No one cared about Mitya's political convictions, but much was about his big red nose, his small gray eyes, which at times suddenly became very large, and his stooped figure.
Even from a distance, who noticed him walking along the corridor, flew into the classroom with a joyful cry:
In response, there was a united roar of forty voices. Babylonian pandemonium arose: each in his own way, as he wanted, hastened to express his joy. They roared like a bear, barked like a dog, crowed like roosters, beat a drum. From an excess of feelings, they jumped up on the benches, stood on their heads, thrashed each other on the backs, reaped oil.
The figure of the teacher appeared at the door, and everything instantly calmed down, and then, to the beat of his gait, everyone quietly, in unison, said:
- They're coming, they're coming, they're coming...
When he ascended the pulpit and suddenly stopped at the table, all at once fragmentarily cried out:
- Come!
And when he sank into a chair, everyone shouted in unison:
- And sit down!
There was an expectant silence. It was necessary to find out the question: is Mitya drunk or not?
The teacher assumed a stern physiognomy and began to squint. It was a good sign, and the class whispered happily but hesitantly:
- Squinting.
Suddenly he opened his eyes wide. There was no doubt.
- rolled out!! - a volley of the whole class was heard.
The fun began.
But the teacher was not always drunk, and then at the entrance he immediately interrupted the students, saying in a dull and disappointed voice:
- Enough.
“That’s enough,” the class answered him and, just like him, waved his pen.
This was followed by relative calm, since the teacher, although short-sighted, knew the voices so well that, no matter how the students changed them, he always accurately guessed the culprit.
“Semyonov, I’ll write it down,” he usually answered some kind of cry of an owl.
If Semyonov did not let up, then the teacher wrote it down on a piece of paper, and said:
And the class repeated in every way:
Give me a piece of paper and I'll write you down.
And everyone vied with each other in a hurry to give him what was required, with the difference that if he was sober, they gave paper, and if he was drunk, they carried what they could: books, hats, feathers - in a word, everything, but not paper.
The students heard that the teacher had received the rank of state councillor. In the next lesson, no one called him otherwise than “Your Excellency” ... And every time he was about to say something, the duty officer turned to the class and said in a frightened whisper:
- Shh! .. His Excellency wants to speak.
The news that Mitya was the groom aroused even greater delight in the students. This news came just before his lesson. Even the imperturbable Yakovlev, the first student, and he succumbed.
Rylsky bent his knees a little, hunched over, puffed out his face and, putting his finger to his lips, quietly, slowly, like a pouting turkey, began to walk, imitating Mitya and saying in a low bass:
“Gentlemen, we must honor Mitya,” suggested Do forehead.
- Need, Need!
- Honor Mitya!
- Honor! – they picked it up from all sides and heatedly began to discuss the program of the festival.
It was decided to elect a deputation that would convey to the teacher the congratulations of the class. They chose Yakovlev, Dolba, Rylsky and Berendya. Kartashev was rejected for the reason that he would not stand it and spoil the whole thing. Everything was ready when the familiar, round-shouldered figure of the teacher appeared at the end of the corridor.
A long-brimmed uniform frock coat below the knees, some kind of Cossack trousers cone down, a bundle under the arm, thick hair, stubble on the cheeks, a spiky beard, protruding mustaches and the whole ruffled figure of the teacher gave the impression of a rooster rumpled after a fight. When he entered, everyone rose to their feet, and the classroom fell into a dead silence.
Everyone was tempted to bark, because Mitya was more interesting than usual. He walked, aiming straight at the table, unevenly, quickly, trying to maintain dignity and swiftness in achieving the goal, he walked as if he was struggling with invisible obstacles, he fought, overcome and victoriously moved forward.
It was obvious that at breakfast they had time to zealously congratulate the groom.
His face was redder than usual: blackheads, a full red nose, shone.
“Just drink some water,” Dolba remarked cheerfully, shrugging his shoulders.
