The master repeated his explanation, and again Boris caught the sound of
his voice, noticing that sometimes he spoke shortly, staccato--sometimes
drawled as if he were singing, and then rapped out his words smartly
like nuts.

"Well?"

Raisky blushed, perspired with anxiety, and was silent.

It was the mathematical master. He went to the blackboard, wrote up the
problem, and again began the explanation. Raisky only noticed with what
rapidity and certainty he wrote the figures, how the waistcoat with the
cornelian seal and then the snuff-spattered shirt front came
nearer--nothing, except the solution of the problem, escaped him.

Now and then a notion penetrated to his brain, but when it came to
equations he grew weary with the effort required. Sometimes the teacher
lost patience with him, and generally concluded: "Go back to your place,
you are a blockhead."

But if a whiff of originality passed over the master himself, if he
taught as if it were a game, and had recourse neither to his book nor to
the blackboard, then the solution flashed on Raisky, and he found the
answer quicker than any of the others.

He consumed passionately history, novels and tales; wherever he could he
begged for books. But he did not like facts or theories or anything that
drew him from the world of fancy towards the world of reality. In the
geography lesson he could not understand how any boy could answer in
class, but once out of class he could talk about foreign countries and