A CLASSICAL STUDENT

by Anton Chekhov

BEFORE setting off for his examination in Greek, Vanya 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.

NOTES

you Herod: Herod was a curse word meaning tyrant or monster; the Biblical Herod ordered the
Massacre of the Innocents (Matthew 2:13-21)

the enclitic particles: particles in linguistics that have no independent accent and form an
accentual unit with the preceeding word

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