lthough
according to contract he was engaged to teach me French, German, and
_all the sciences_, yet he was content that I should teach him to
chatter Russian. But as each of us minded his own business, our
friendship was constant, and I desired no mentor. However, destiny very
soon separated us, in consequence of an event which I will relate.

Our laundress, a fat girl all scarred by small-pox, and our dairymaid,
who was blind of an eye, agreed, one fine day, to throw themselves at my
mother's feet and accuse the Frenchman of trifling with their innocence
and inexperience!

My mother would have no jesting upon this point, and she in turn
complained to my father, who, like a man of business, promptly ordered
"that dog of a Frenchman" into his presence. The servant informed him
meekly that Beaupre was at the moment engaged in giving me a lesson.

My father rushed to my room. Beaupre was sleeping upon his bed the sleep
of innocence. I was deep in a most interesting occupation. They had
brought from Moscow, for me, a geographical map, which hung unused
against the wall; the width and strength of its paper had been to me
a standing temptation. I had determined to make a kite of it, and
profiting that morning by Beaupre's sleep, I had set to work. My father
came in just as I was tying a tail to the Cape of Good Hope! Seeing
my work, he seized me by the ear and shook me soundly; then rushing to
Beaupre's bed, awakened him without hesitating, pouring forth a volley
of abuse upon the head of the unfortunate Frenchman. In his confusion
Beaupre tried in vain to rise; the poor pedagogue was dead drunk! My
father caught him by the coat-collar and flung him out of the room. That
day he was dismissed, to the inexpressible delight of Saveliitch.

Thus ended my education. I now lived in the family as the eldest son,
not of age whose career is yet to open; amusing myself teaching pigeons
to tumble on the roof, and playing leap-frog in the stable-yard with the
grooms. In this way I reached my sixteenth year.

One Autumn day, my mother was preserving fruit with honey in the family
room, and I, smacking my lips, was looking at the liquid boiling; my
father, seated near the window, had just opened the _Court Almanac_
which he received every year. This book had great influence over him; he
read it with extreme attention, and reading prodigiously stirred up his
bile. My mother, knowing by heart all his ways and oddities, used to try
to h