de of?" he asked suddenly, putting the bottle
to his eyes.

Bykovsky took the bottle out of his hands and set it in its place
and went on:

"Secondly, you smoke. . . . That's very bad. Though I smoke it does
not follow that you may. I smoke and know that it is stupid, I blame
myself and don't like myself for it." ("A clever teacher, I am!"
he thought.) "Tobacco is very bad for the health, and anyone who
smokes dies earlier than he should. It's particularly bad for boys
like you to smoke. Your chest is weak, you haven't reached your
full strength yet, and smoking leads to consumption and other illness
in weak people. Uncle Ignat died of consumption, you know. If he
hadn't smoked, perhaps he would have lived till now."

Seryozha looked pensively at the lamp, touched the lamp-shade with
his finger, and heaved a sigh.

"Uncle Ignat played the violin splendidly!" he said. "His violin
is at the Grigoryevs' now."

Seryozha leaned his elbows on the edge of the table again, and sank
into thought. His white face wore a fixed expression, as though he
were listening or following a train of thought of his own; distress
and something like fear came into his big staring eyes. He was most
likely thinking now of death, which had so lately carried off his
mother and Uncle Ignat. Death carries mothers and uncles off to the
other world, while their children and violins remain upon the earth.
The dead live somewhere in the sky beside the stars, and look down
from there upon the earth. Can they endure the parting?

"What am I to say to him?" thought Yevgeny Petrovitch. "He's not
listening to me. Obviously he does not regard either his misdoings
or my arguments as serious. How am I to drive it home?"

The prosecutor got up and walked about the study.

"Formerly, in my time, these questions were very simply settled,"
he reflected. "Every urchin who was caught smoking was thrashed.
The cowardly and faint-hearted did actually give up smoking, any
who were somewhat more plucky and intelligent, after the thrashing
took to carrying tobacco in the legs of their boots, and smoking
in the barn. When they were caught in the barn and thrashed again,
they would go away to smoke by the river . . . and so on, till the
boy grew up. My mother used to give me money and sweets not to
smoke. Now that method is looked upon as worthless and immoral. The
modern teacher, taking his stand on logic, tries to make the child
form good principles, not from fe