t whole winter, for he was not to be had
up for slaughter till about Pentecost. Pentecost over, he went up for
examination, and this time he brought home no more two's, but a four and
a five. There was great joy--we congratulate! we congratulate! Wait a
bit, don't be in such a hurry with your congratulations! We don't know
yet for certain whether he has got in or not. We shall not know till
August. Why not till August? Why not before? Go and ask _them_. What is
to be done? A Jew is used to that sort of thing.

August--and I gave a glance out of the corner of my eye. She was up and
doing! From the director to the inspector, from the inspector to the
director! "Why are you running from Shmunin to Bunin," say I, "like a
poisoned mouse?"

"You asking why?" says she. "Aren't you a native of this place? You
don't seem to know how it is nowadays with the Gymnasiyes and the
percentages?" And what came of it? He did _not_ pass! You ask why?
Because he hadn't two fives. If he had had two fives, then, they say,
perhaps he would have got in. You hear--perhaps! How do you like that
_perhaps_? Well, I'll let you off what I had to bear from her. As for
him, the little boy, it was pitiful. Lay with his face in the cushion,
and never stopped crying till we promised him another teacher. And we
got him a student from the Gymnasiye itself, to prepare him for the
second class, but after quite another fashion, because the second class
is no joke. In the second, besides mathematics and grammar, they require
geography, penmanship, and I couldn't for the life of me say what else.
I should have thought a bit of the Maharsho was a more difficult thing
than all their studies put together, and very likely had more sense in
it, too. But what would you have? A Jew learns to put up with things.

In fine, there commenced a series of "lessons," of ourokki. We rose
early--the ourokki! Prayers and breakfast over--the ourokki. A whole
day--ourokki. One heard him late at night drumming it over and over:
Nominative--dative--instrumental--vocative! It grated so on my ears! I
could hardly bear it. Eat? Sleep? Not he! Taking a poor creature and
tormenting it like that, all for nothing, I call it cruelty to animals!
"The child," say I, "will be ill!" "Bite off your tongue," says she. I
was nowhere, and he went up a second time to the slaughter, and brought
home nothing but fives! And why not? I tell you, he has a head--there
isn't his like! And such a boy for