The master surprised him, and seized him by the hair. When he looked
closer at the drawing, however, he asked: "Where did you learn to do
that?"

"Nowhere," was the reply.

"But it is well done, my lad. See yourself what this hurry to get on
leads to; the forehead and nose are good enough, but the ear you have
put in the wrong place, and the hair looks like tow."

Raisky was triumphant. The words, "But it is well done; the forehead and
nose are good enough," were for him a crown of laurel.

He walked round the school yard proud in the consciousness that he was
the best in the drawing class; this mood lasted to the next day, when he
came to grief in the ordinary lessons. But he conceived a passion for
drawing, and during the month that followed drew a curly-headed boy,
then the head of Fingal. His fancy was caught by a woman's head which
hung in the master's room; it leaned a little towards one shoulder, and
looked away into the distance with melancholy, meditative eyes. "Allow
me to make a copy," he begged with a gentle, tremulous voice, and with a
nervous quiver of the upper lip.

"Don't break the glass," the master warned him, and gave him the picture.
Boris was happy. For a whole week his masters did not secure a single
intelligent answer from him. He sat silently in his corner and drew. At
night he took the drawing to his bedroom, and as he looked into its
gracious eyes, followed the lines of the delicately bent neck, he
shivered, his heart stood still, there was a catch in his breath, and he
closed his eyes; with a faint sigh he pressed the picture to his breast