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