“Is this Trirodov’s school?”
“Yes,” said the boy.
The visitors entered and found themselves in a small glade. Three barefoot girls slowly came to meet them. These were instructresses. Nadezhda Vestchezerova looked with her large dark eyes at Madame Doulebova, who whispered to the Vice-Governor:
“Have a look at her. This girl had a scandal in her life, but he’s taken her on.”
Doulebova knew everyone in town, and she knew especially well those who have had an unpleasant experience of some sort.
Presently Trirodov appeared in a white summer suit. He looked with an ironic smile at the gaily dressed party of visitors.
The visitors were met with courtesy; but the Headmaster was displeased because no honour was shown them and no special preparations were evident. The instructresses were dressed as simply as always. Doulebov was especially displeased because both the instructresses and their pupils walked about barefoot. The naivete of the children irritated the visitors. The children looked at the party indifferently. Some of them nodded a greeting, others did not.
“Take off your cap!” shouted Shabalov.
The boy pulled his cap off and reached it out to Shabalov with the remark:
“Here!”
Shabalov growled savagely:
“Idiot!”
Then he turned away. The boy looked at him in astonishment.
Doulebov, and even more his wife, were terribly annoyed because they had not put on more clothes for their visitors, not even shoes. The Vice-Governor looked dully and savagely. Everything displeased him at once. Doulebov asked with a frown:
“Surely they are not always like that?”
“Always, Vladimir Grigorievitch,” replied Trirodov. “They have got used to it.”
“But it is indecent!” said Madame Doulebova.
“It is the one thing that is decent,” retorted Trirodov.
XXXII
The windows of the house in the small glade were wide open. The twitter of birds was audible and the fresh, delicious aroma of flowers entered in. It was here the children gathered, and the miserable farce of the examination began. Doulebov stood up before an icon on one side of the room, assumed a stately air, and exclaimed:
“Children, rise to prayer.”
The children rose. Doulebov thrust a finger forward towards a dark-eyed boy’s breast and shouted:
“Read, boy!”
The thin, shrill outcry and the movement of the finger towards the child’s breast were so unexpected by the boy that he trembled and gave a choking sound. Someone behind him laughed, another gave an amused chuckle. Doulebova exchanged glances with Kerbakh and shrugged her shoulders; her face expressed horror.
The boy quickly recovered himself and read the prayer.
“Sit down, children,” ordered Doulebov.
The children resumed their places, while the elders seated themselves at a table in the order of their rank—the Vice-Governor and Doulebov in the middle, with the others to their right and left. Doulebova looked round with an anxious, angry expression. At last she said in a bass voice, extraordinarily coarse for a woman:
“Shut the windows. The birds are making a noise, and the wind too; it is impossible to do anything.”
Trirodov looked at her in astonishment. He said quietly to Nadezhda:
“Close the windows. Our guests can’t stand fresh air.”
The windows were shut. The children looked with melancholy tedium at the depressing windowpanes.
Writing exercises were given. A little tale was read aloud from a reader brought by Shabalov. Doulebov asked the class to compose it in their own words.
The boys and girls were about to pick up their pens, but Doulebov stopped them and delivered a long and tedious dissertation on how to write the given composition. Then he said:
“Now you can write it.”
The children wrote. It was quiet. The writers handed in their papers to their instructresses. Doulebov and Shabalov looked them over there and then. They tried to find mistakes, but there were few. Then dictation was given.
Doulebova looked morosely the whole while and blinked often. Trirodov tried to enter into conversation with her, but the angry dame answered so haughtily that it was with great difficulty he refrained from smiling, and finally he left the malicious woman to herself.
After the written exercises Trirodov asked the uninvited guests to luncheon.
“It was such a long journey here,” said Doulebov as if he were explaining why he did not refuse the invitation to eat.
The children scattered a short way into the wood, while the elders went into a neighbouring house, where the luncheon was ready. The conversation during luncheon was constrained and captious. The Doulebovs tried all sorts of pinpricks and coarse insinuations; their companions followed suit. Everyone tried to outdo the other in saying caustic, spiteful things.
Doulebov looked with simulated horror at Trirodov’s instructresses who happened to be present, and whispered to Kerbakh:
“Their feet are soiled with earth.”
After luncheon they returned to the school. All resumed their former places. Then the oral examination began. Doulebov bent over the roll-call and called out three boys at once. Each of them was questioned first about the Holy Scriptures, and immediately afterwards about the Russian language and arithmetic.
The examiners cavilled at everything. Nothing satisfied Doulebov. He gave questions the answers to which were bound to make evident whether higher feelings were being instilled in the children—of love for the Fatherland, of allegiance to the Tsar, and of devotion to the Orthodox Church. He asked one boy:
“Which country is better, Russia or France?”
The boy thought a while and said:
“I don’t know. It depends upon which place a man is used to—there he is better off.”
Doulebova laughed viperously. Shabalov said in a preceptorial manner:
“The orthodox matushka33 Russia! Is it possible to compare any kingdom with ours? Have you heard how our native land is called? Holy Russia, Mother Russia, the holy Russian soil. And you are an idiot, blockhead, a little swine. If you don’t like your Fatherland what are you good for?”
The boy flushed. Tiny tears gleamed in his eyes. Doulebov asked:
“Now tell me what is the very best faith in this world.”
The boy fell into thought. Shabalov asked malignantly:
“Can’t you answer even that?”
The boy said:
“When one believes sincerely, then it is the very best faith for him.”
“What a blockhead!” said Shabalov with conviction.
Trirodov looked at him in astonishment.
