with his arshin-stick. At table he arranged them according to size for appearance’s sake, and not according to capacity; so that the stupid boys got the best bits and the clever boys the remnants. All this provoked grumbling, especially when the new master, in direct opposition to the practices of his predecessor, announced that brains and fine progress signified nothing to him; that he only looked at conduct; that if a boy studied badly but behaved well, he should show him a preference over the clever but playful boy. However, Feodor Ivanovitch did not attain his object. Playfulness being objected to, secret pranks began. Everything went like clockwork in the daytime, but at night there was rioting.

Our young friend Andrei Ivanovitch was of a quiet disposition. He could not be led astray by the nightly orgies of his schoolmates, who played their pranks in full view of the windows of the principal’s quarters, nor by their mockery of holy things, which arose because the pope did not chance to be a clever man. No, even in his dreams his mind recognised its heavenly origin. Still he hung his head: his ambition was aroused, but there was no career of active occupation open to him. It would have been better perhaps had this ambition not been aroused at all. He listened to the enthusiastic professors at their lectures, and recalled his former instructor, who had known how to talk in intelligible terms without becoming excited. What courses did he not attend! What subjects did he not hear treated! Medicine and chemistry, philosophy, law, and the universal history of mankind, all on such a vast scale, that in three years the professors merely succeeded in reading the introduction. However, all this lingered in Andrei’s brain in formless masses. Thanks to his native common-sense, he was conscious that he ought not to be taught in that manner; but the proper way he did not know. And he often recalled Alexander Petrovitch, and grew so sad at times that he did not know what to do with himself for grief.

But youth is happy in this, that it has a future. In proportion as the time of his departure from school drew nigh, his heart began to beat more violently. He said to himself, “Surely, this is not life; this is only the preparation for life: real life lies on the surface; that is the place for action.” And without even glancing at the marvellously beautiful little nook which made such an impression on every visitor, without even paying obeisance to the dust of his parents, he betook himself, after the custom of all ambitious men, to Petersburg, where, as it is well known, all our spirited young fellows hasten, from every quarter of Russia, to enter the service, to shine or to work, or simply to skim the surface of colourless, deceptive society, which is as cold as ice.

Andrei Ivanovitch’s ambitious aspirations were promptly quelled, however, at the very outset by his uncle, Onufriy Ivanovitch, an actual councillor of state. The latter declared that the chief point in a man was a good handwriting; that, without this, no one could obtain admission to a ministry or to any imperial office. At last, however, with great difficulty, and with the assistance of his uncle’s influence, Tentyotnikoff secured an appointment in some department or other. When he was conducted for the first time into the light and magnificent hall, with its inlaid floor and varnished writing-desks, which looked as though the greatest grandees of the empire sat at them, and dealt with the fate of the whole country; when he beheld the legions of handsome gentlemen who were writing there, noisily moving their pens, and inclining their heads on one side; and when they placed him at a table, and at once gave him a document—intentionally of little importance—to copy (it was a correspondence about three roubles, which had been going on for half a year), an extraordinarily odd sensation took possession of him.

It seemed to him as though he were in some primary school, and had to go through his education all over again. It was as though he had been degraded from the upper to the lower class for some prank or other; the gentlemen who were seated around him were very much like scholars. His former occupations then seemed better to him than those of the present moment, and his preparation for the service superior to the service itself. He began to regret his school-life. And all at once the defunct Alexander Petrovitch stood so vividly before him that he came near bursting into tears. The room spun round, the officials and the tables became all mixed up together, and he with difficulty conquered this momentary obscuration of his faculties. “No,” he said on recovering himself, “I will set to work, no matter how petty the work may seem in the beginning!” Then summoning strength to his heart and spirit, he resolved to acquit himself of his duties in imitation of the rest.