t-throats, we were, but
yet we were magnanimous, you know! There weren't any boys like you
in my day, they were all great hulking fellows, great strapping
louts, one taller than another. For instance, in our third class,
there was Mamahin. My goodness, he was a solid chap! You know, a
regular maypole, seven feet high. When he moved, the floor shook;
when he brought his great fist down on your back, he would knock
the breath out of your body! Not only we boys, but even the teachers
were afraid of him. So this Mamahin used to . . ."

Pelageya Ivanovna's footsteps are heard through the door. Pavel
Vassilitch winks towards the door and says:

"There's mother coming. Let's get to work. Well, so you see, my
boy," he says, raising his voice. "This fraction has to be multiplied
by that one. Well, and to do that you have to take the numerator
of the first fraction. . ."

"Come to tea!" cries Pelageya Ivanovna. Pavel Vassilitch and his
son abandon arithmetic and go in to tea. Pelageya Ivanovna is already
sitting at the table with an aunt who never speaks, another aunt
who is deaf and dumb, and Granny Markovna, a midwife who had helped
Styopa into the world. The samovar is hissing and puffing out steam
which throws flickering shadows on the ceiling. The cats come in
from the entry sleepy and melancholy with their tails in the
air. . . .

"Have some jam with your tea, Markovna," says Pelageya Ivanovna,
addressing the midwife. "To-morrow the great fast begins. Eat well
to-day."

Markovna takes a heaped spoonful of jam hesitatingly as though it
were a powder, raises it to her lips, and with a sidelong look at
Pavel Vassilitch, eats it; at once her face is overspread with a
sweet smile, as sweet as the jam itself.

"The jam is particularly good," she says. "Did you make it yourself,
Pelageya Ivanovna, ma'am?"

"Yes. Who else is there to do it? I do everything myself. Styopotchka,
have I given you your tea too weak? Ah, you have drunk it already.
Pass your cup, my angel; let me give you some more."

"So this Mamahin, my boy, could not bear the French master," Pavel
Vassilitch goes on, addressing his son. "'I am a nobleman,' he
used to shout, 'and I won't allow a Frenchman to lord it over me!
We beat the French in 1812!' Well, of course they used to thrash
him for it . . . thrash him dre-ead-fully, and sometimes when he
saw they were meaning to thrash him, he would jump out of window,
and off he would go! Then for five or si