I started to grope for the meaning of the passage, but each questioning look which I threw at the professor was met by a shake of the head, a profound sigh, and an exclamation of "No, no!" Finally he banged the book to with such a snap that he caught his finger between the covers.Angrily releasing it, he handed me a ticket containing questions in grammar, and, flinging himself back in his chair, maintained a menacing silence.I should have tried to answer the questions had not the expression of his face so clogged my tongue that nothing seemed to come from it right.
"No, no! That's not it at all!" he suddenly exclaimed in his horrible accent as he altered his posture to one of leaning forward upon the table and playing with the gold signet-ring which was nearly slipping from the little finger of his left hand."That is not the way to prepare for serious study, my good sir.Fellows like yourself think that, once they have a gown and a blue collar to their backs, they have reached the summit of all things and become students.No, no, my dear sir.A subject needs to be studied FUNDAMENTALLY," and so on, and so on.
During this speech (which was uttered with a clipped sort of intonation) I went on staring dully at his lowered eyelids.
Beginning with a fear lest I should lose my place as third on the list, I went on to fear lest I should pass at all.Next, these feelings became reinforced by a sense of injustice, injured self-
respect, and unmerited humiliation, while the contempt which I felt for the professor as some one not quite (according to my ideas) "comme il faut"--a fact which I deduced from the shortness, strength, and roundness of his nails--flared up in me more and more and turned all my other feelings to sheer animosity.Happening, presently, to glance at me, and to note my quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, he seemed to interpret my agitation as a desire to be accorded my marks and dismissed:
wherefore, with an air of relenting, he said (in the presence of another professor who had just approached):
"Very well; I will accord you a 'pass'" (which signified two marks), "although you do not deserve it.I do so simply out of consideration for your youth, and in the hope that, when you begin your University career, you will learn to be less light-
minded."
The concluding phrase, uttered in the hearing of the other professor (who at once turned his eyes upon me, as though remarking, "There! You see, young man!") completed my discomfiture.For a moment, a mist swam before my eyes--a mist in which the terrible professor seemed to be far away, as he sat at his table while for an instant a wild idea danced through my brain."What if I DID do such a thing?" I thought to myself.
"What would come of it?" However, I did not do the thing in question, but, on the contrary, made a bow of peculiar reverence to each of the professors, and with a slight smile on my face--
presumably the same smile as that with which I had derided Ikonin--turned away from the table.
This piece of unfairness affected me so powerfully at the time that, had I been a free agent, I should have attended for no more examinations.My ambition was gone (since now I could not possibly be third), and I therefore let the other examinations pass without any exertion, or even agitation, on my part.In the general list I still stood fourth, but that failed to interest me, since I had reasoned things out to myself, and come to the conclusion that to try for first place was stupid--even "bad form:" that, in fact, it was better to pass neither very well nor very badly, as Woloda had done.This attitude I decided to maintain throughout the whole of my University career, notwithstanding that it was the first point on which my opinion had differed from that of my friend Dimitri.
Yet, to tell the truth, my thoughts were already turning towards a uniform, a "mortar-board," and the possession of a drozhki of my own, a room of my own, and, above all, freedom of my own.And certainly the prospect had its charm.
