at me, and to note my quivering lips and tear-filled eyes, he
seemed to interpret my agitation as a desire to be accorded my marks and
dismissed: wherefore, with an air of relenting, he said (in the presence
of another professor who had just approached):

"Very well; I will accord you a 'pass'" (which signified two marks),
"although you do not deserve it. I do so simply out of consideration for
your youth, and in the hope that, when you begin your University career,
you will learn to be less light-minded."

The concluding phrase, uttered in the hearing of the other professor
(who at once turned his eyes upon me, as though remarking, "There! You
see, young man!") completed my discomfiture. For a moment, a mist swam
before my eyes--a mist in which the terrible professor seemed to be far
away, as he sat at his table while for an instant a wild idea danced
through my brain. "What if I DID do such a thing?" I thought to myself.
"What would come of it?" However, I did not do the thing in question,
but, on the contrary, made a bow of peculiar reverence to each of the
professors, and with a slight smile on my face--presumably the same
smile as that with which I had derided Ikonin--turned away from the
table.

This piece of unfairness affected me so powerfully at the time that, had
I been a free agent, I should have attended for no more examinations.
My ambition was gone (since now I could not possibly be third), and I
therefore let the other examinations pass without any exertion, or even
agitation, on my part. In the general list I still stood fourth, but
that failed to interest me, since I had reasoned things out to myself,
and come to the conclusion that to try for first place was stupid--even
"bad form:" that, in fact, it was better to pass neither very well nor
very badly, as Woloda had done. This attitude I decided to maintain
throughout the whole of my University career, notwithstanding that it
was the first point on which my opinion had differed from that of my
friend Dimitri.

Yet, to tell the truth, my thoughts were already turning towards a
uniform, a "mortar-board," and the possession of a drozhki of my own,
a room of my own, and, above all, freedom of my own. And certainly the
prospect had its charm.

XIII. I BECOME GROWN-UP

When, on May 8th, I returned home from the final, the divinity,
examination, I found my acquaintance, the foreman from Rozonoff's,
awaiting me. He had called once before to fit me