schools! You think the German is paying a compliment, the German
is saying something polite. Ha-ha! No, my dear Fyodor Lukitch, I
am an honest man and never make complimentary speeches. If we pay
you five hundred roubles a year it is because you are valued by us.
Isn't that so? Gentlemen, what I say is true, isn't it? We should
not pay anyone else so much. . . . Why, a good school is an honour
to the factory!"

"I must sincerely own that your school is really exceptional," said
the inspector. "Don't think this is flattery. Anyway, I have never
come across another like it in my life. As I sat at the examination
I was full of admiration. . . . Wonderful children! They know a
great deal and answer brightly, and at the same time they are somehow
special, unconstrained, sincere. . . . One can see that they love
you, Fyodor Lukitch. You are a schoolmaster to the marrow of your
bones. You must have been born a teacher. You have all the gifts
--innate vocation, long experience, and love for your work. . . .
It's simply amazing, considering the weak state of your health,
what energy, what understanding . . . what perseverance, do you
understand, what confidence you have! Some one in the school committee
said truly that you were a poet in your work. . . . Yes, a poet you
are!"

And all present at the dinner began as one man talking of Sysoev's
extraordinary talent. And as though a dam had been burst, there
followed a flood of sincere, enthusiastic words such as men do not
utter when they are restrained by prudent and cautious sobriety.
Sysoev's speech and his intolerable temper and the horrid, spiteful
expression on his face were all forgotten. Everyone talked freely,
even the shy and silent new teachers, poverty-stricken, down-trodden