XIII
Towards evening Peredonov appeared before the Headmaster—to talk on business.
The Headmaster, Nikolai Vlasyevitch Khripatch had a certain number of rules which were sufficiently practical and not difficult to keep. He calmly fulfilled all the school laws and regulations and also kept to the rules of a generally-accepted mild Liberalism. This was why the school authorities, the parents and the students were equally satisfied with the Headmaster. He had no moments of doubt, no indecisions and no hesitations—what was the use of them?—one could always rely on the decisions of the Pedagogical Council or on the instructions of the Educational authorities. He was no less calm and correct in his personal relations. His very appearance gave the impression of good-nature and steadiness. He was short, robust, active, with keen eyes, and with a confident voice. He seemed a man who ordered his life well and who was always ready to improve. There were many books on the shelves in his study. He made notes from them. When he had accumulated a sufficient number of notes, he would put them in order and paraphrase them—that was how a textbook was compiled, published and circulated, of course not so successfully as the textbooks of Ushinsky and Evtoushevsky but still they were not a failure. Sometimes he put together, chiefly from foreign books, a compilation which was very respectable and quite unnecessary to anyone and published it in a periodical equally respectable and equally unnecessary. He had a number of children and all of them, boys and girls, already gave indication of various talents: some wrote verses, some drew, some made rapid progress in music.
Peredonov said morosely:
“You’re always down on me, Nikolai Vlasyevitch. Perhaps someone has been slandering me to you, but I’ve done nothing of the kind.”
“I beg your pardon,” the Headmaster interrupted him, “I don’t understand what slanders you have in mind. In the management of the gymnasia entrusted to me, I make use of my own observations, and I dare hope that my educational experience is sufficient to estimate with proper correctness what I see and what I hear, all the more in view of my close attention to my duties which I have made an unbreakable rule.”
Khripatch said this quickly and decisively, and his voice sounded dry and clear, like the sharp noise given out by a zinc bar when bent. He went on:
“As far as it concerns my personal opinion of you, I still continue to think that there are sad lapses in your professional activity.”
“Yes,” said Peredonov morosely. “You’ve taken it into your head that I’m good for nothing. Yet I’m always preoccupied with the gymnasia.”
Khripatch lifted his eyebrows in astonishment and glanced questioningly at Peredonov.
“You haven’t noticed,” continued Peredonov, “that there’s a possibility of a scandal in our gymnasia. No one has noticed it—I alone have detected it.”
“What scandal?” asked Khripatch with a dry smile, pacing up and down his study. “You arouse my curiosity, though, to speak candidly, I hardly believe in the possibility of a scandal in our school.”
“Yes, but you don’t know who you have recently admitted to the school,” said Peredonov with such malevolence that Khripatch paused and looked attentively at him.
“I know all the new students perfectly well,” he said dryly. “Besides, it goes without saying that the new boys in the first form have never been excluded from another school, and the only one who has just entered the fifth form came to us with such recommendations that preclude all possibility of suspicion.”
“Yes, but he shouldn’t have come to us but to some other kind of institution,” said Peredonov morosely and as if reluctantly.
“Please explain, Ardalyon Borisitch,” said Khripatch. “I hope you don’t mean to say that Pilnikov ought to have been sent to a Reformatory.”
“No, that creature should be sent to a pension where they don’t learn ancient languages,”21 said Peredonov maliciously, and his eyes gleamed with spite.
Khripatch put his hands into the pockets of his short jacket and looked at Peredonov with unusual astonishment.
“What pension?” he asked. “Do you know what institutions are designated in that way? And if you do know, how could you venture to make such an unseemly suggestion?”
Khripatch flushed violently and his voice sounded drier and even more decisive. At another time these symptoms of the Headmaster’s anger would have flustered Peredonov. But this time he was not flustered.
“Of course, you think Pilnikov’s a boy,” he said screwing up his eyes in derision, “but he’s not a boy at all, but a girl, and what sort of a girl!”
Khripatch uttered a dry, abrupt laugh, but his laughter sounded affected, it was so loud and mechanical—he always laughed like that.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” he laughed mechanically, and when he had finished laughing he sat down in the chair and threw his head back as if he had dropped exhausted from laughing.
“You astonish me, my good Ardalyon Borisitch! Ha! Ha! Ha! Be so kind as to tell me upon what you base your supposition, if the premises which have led you to this conclusion are not secret! Ha! Ha! Ha!”
Peredonov recounted everything that he had heard from Varvara, and incidentally he dilated on the poor qualities of Kokovkina. Khripatch listened and now and then gave vent to his dry, mechanical laughter.
“I’m afraid, my dear Ardalyon Borisitch, that your imagination has played pranks with you,” he said, as he rose and caught Peredonov by the sleeve. “I, as well as many of my esteemed friends, have children, we’re not in our swaddling clothes. Surely you don’t think that we would have admitted a disguised girl as a boy?”
“That’s your opinion,” said Peredonov. “But if anything should happen who’s going to be responsible?”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Khripatch. “What consequences are you afraid of?”
“It’ll demoralise the school,” said Peredonov.
Khripatch frowned and said:
“You’re presuming too far. All that you have told me so far doesn’t give me the slightest cause for sharing in your suspicion.”
That same evening Peredonov rapidly went round to all his colleagues, from the inspector down to the form-masters, and told everyone that Pilnikov was a girl in disguise. They all laughed and refused to believe him, but when he left several of them began to wonder if it were not true. The Masters’ wives believed it immediately.
Next morning many came to their classes with the thought that Peredonov was possibly right. They did not speak of this openly, yet they no longer argued with Peredonov and limited themselves to indecisive and ambiguous answers; each was afraid that he would be considered stupid if he argued about the matter, should it afterwards prove to be true. Many would have liked to know what the Headmaster thought of it, but the Headmaster stopped in his own house more than usual. He came very late to the one lesson he gave that day to the sixth form, remained there hardly more than five minutes and then went to his study without speaking to anyone.
At last, before the fourth lesson, the grey-haired Divinity Master and two other instructors went to the Headmaster’s study on the pretext of business and the Divinity Master cautiously led up to the subject of Pilnikov. But the Headmaster laughed so confidently and so indifferently that all three became convinced that the whole thing was an invention. The Headmaster quickly went on to other subjects, told a new piece of town news, complained about his bad headache and said that he would probably have to call in the gymnasia doctor, Evgeny Ivanovitch. Then he told them in a very good-natured voice that his lesson that day had only made his headache worse, for, as it happened, Peredonov was in the next class and the students had for some reason or other laughed frequently and with extraordinary loudness. Khripatch laughed dryly and said:
“This year fate has not been kind to me—three times a week I am compelled to sit in a classroom next to Ardalyon Borisitch. And just imagine! There is constant boisterous laughter. One would think that Ardalyon Borisitch was not at all an amusing man and yet he always arouses merriment!”
And without giving them time to comment on this, Khripatch changed the subject.
It was true that recently there had been a good deal of laughter at Peredonov’s classes—though they did not particularly please him. On the contrary, children’s laughter annoyed Peredonov, but he could not restrain himself from saying things which were malapropos and unnecessary: now he would tell a stupid anecdote, now he would try to subdue one of the most quiet boys by sneering at him. In his classes there were also a number of boys who were glad of every opportunity to create disorder—and at every one of Peredonov’s sallies they would roar with laughter.
After school Khripatch sent for the physician, picked up his hat and went into his garden which was situated between the school and the riverbank. The garden was large and shady. The little boys loved it. They were allowed to run about in it freely during recreation, but this was the reason why the assistant masters did not like it. They were afraid that something would happen to the boys. But Khripatch insisted that the boys should spend their recreation time in the garden. This was necessary in order to make his reports appear more imposing.
As he walked through the corridor he stopped outside the Gymnasium hall for a while, and then walked in with bent head. From his cheerless face and slow walk, everyone knew that he had a headache.
The fifth form was getting ready for its exercises. They stood in a row and the Athletic instructor, a lieutenant of the local reserve battalion, was about to give a command, but, on seeing the Headmaster, he went forward to meet him. Khripatch shook his hand and looking somewhat confusedly at the students asked:
“Are you satisfied with them? Do they work well? Do any of them get tired?”
The lieutenant deep in his heart detested those students, who, in his opinion, had not and could never have a military bearing. If they had been cadets he would have told them at once what he thought of them, but it was not worth while to tell the unpleasant truth about these sluggards to the man on whom these lessons depended. And so with a smile on his thin lips he looked at the Headmaster in a friendly way and said:
“Oh, yes, they’re fine boys.”
The Headmaster walked past some of the boys in the line and was about to leave when he stopped short as if he had suddenly remembered something.
“And are you satisfied with the new boy? Is he doing well? Does he tire quickly?” he asked languidly and cheerlessly, putting his hand to his forehead.
The lieutenant said for the sake of variety—the boy in any case was a stranger:
“He’s a little frail—he gets tired quickly.”
But the Headmaster seemed not to listen to him and he left the hall.
The outdoor air rather refreshed Khripatch. He returned in half an hour and again standing in the door looked on at the exercises. The boys were using various gymnastic appliances. Two or three idle students who did not notice the Headmaster were leaning against the wall, taking advantage of the fact that the lieutenant was not looking at them. Khripatch walked up to them.
“But Pilnikov,” he said, “why are you leaning against the wall?”
Sasha flushed violently, straightened himself and said nothing.
“If you get tired so quickly then perhaps the exercises are injurious to you,” said Khripatch sternly.
“It’s my fault, I’m not tired,” said Sasha timidly.
“You must choose between two things,” said Khripatch, “either not to attend the gymnastic exercises or … In any case come in and see me after the exercises.”
He went away hurriedly and left Sasha standing confused and frightened.
“You’re in for it,” said the other boys to him. “He’ll lecture you till evening.”
Khripatch loved to deliver lengthy reprimands and the students dreaded his invitations above everything.
After the exercises Sasha timidly went to the Headmaster. Khripatch received him promptly. He went close to Sasha, looked intently into his eyes and asked:
“Tell me, Pilnikov, do the gymnastic exercises really tire you? You look quite a healthy youngster but ‘appearances are deceptive.’ Are you sure you haven’t some illness? Perhaps it’s injurious for you to do these exercises.”
“No, Nikolai Vlasyevitch, I’m quite well,” answered Sasha, red with confusion.
“However,” said Khripatch, “Aleksey Alekseyevitch was complaining about your languidness and that you get tired soon. And I myself noticed today that you had a tired look. Or perhaps I was mistaken?”
Sasha did not know how to shield his eyes from Khripatch’s penetrating look. He muttered in a confused way:
“I’m very sorry—I won’t do it again—I was just a little lazy—really I’m quite well. I will work hard at the exercises.”
Suddenly, quite unexpectedly to himself, he burst into tears.
“You see,” said Khripatch, “it’s obvious that you’re tired: you cry as if I had given you a severe scolding. Now, quiet yourself.”
He laid his hand on Sasha’s shoulder and said:
“I called you in not to lecture you but to make things clear. … Sit down, Pilnikov, I can see you’re tired.”
Sasha quickly dried his wet eyes with his handkerchief and said:
“I’m not a bit tired.”
“Sit down, sit down,” said Khripatch, not unkindly, and pushed a chair over to Sasha.
“Really I’m not tired, Nikolai Vlasyevitch,” Sasha assured him.
Khripatch took him by the shoulders and made him sit down, sat down himself opposite the boy and said:
“Let’s talk the matter over quietly, Pilnikov. You yourself cannot tell the actual condition of your health. You’re very good and conscientious in all respects. That is why I can understand your wanting to be relieved from the gymnastic exercises. By the way, I’ve asked Evgeny Ivanovitch to come here today as I don’t feel quite myself; he might incidentally look at you. I hope you have nothing against that?”
Khripatch looked at his watch and without waiting for an answer began to talk with Sasha as to how he had spent the summer.
Evgeny Ivanovitch Sourovtsev, the school physician, a little dark alert man, soon appeared; he delighted in conversations on politics and news generally. His knowledge was not great but he attended his patients conscientiously, and as he preferred diet and hygiene to medicines he was generally successful in his cases.
Sasha was asked to undress. Sourovtsev examined him attentively but found nothing wrong with him. As for Khripatch he was now convinced that Sasha was not a girl. Though he was convinced of this even before, still he considered it proper that in the event of any possible inquiries from the district, the school physician could certify to the facts without further investigation.
As Khripatch let Sasha go he said to him kindly:
“Now, we know that you’re well, and I will tell Aleksey Alekseyevitch that he’s not to let you off!”
Peredonov had no doubt that the discovery of a girl among the students would turn the attention of the authorities to himself, and that, aside from promotion, he would be given a decoration. This encouraged him to look vigilantly after the conduct of the students. As the weather for some days now had been bleak and cold, there were few people in the billiard-room, so there was nothing for him to do but to walk about town and visit students’ lodgings, and even those students who lived with their parents.
Peredonov chose the parents who were simple folk; he would come, he would complain about the boy, the boy would be whipped—and Peredonov would be satisfied. In this way he first of all complained to Yosif Kramarenko’s father, who kept a brewery in the town—he told him that Yosif misbehaved in church. The father believed him and punished his son. The same fate befell several others. Peredonov did not go to those who, he thought, would defend their sons—they might complain to the authorities.
Every day he visited at least one student’s lodgings. He conducted himself then like an official, he reprimanded, gave orders and threatened. Still the students felt themselves more independent in their own lodgings than at school, and at times they were rebellious. Aside from this there was Flavitskaya, a tall, loud-voiced, energetic woman, who, acting on Peredonov’s suggestion, beat severely her young lodger, Vladimir Boultyakov.
On the following day Peredonov would relate his exploits to his class.
He did not name his victims but they usually gave themselves away by their embarrassment.