What can I do with him after this?
And in my state of health, too!”
The mother cried sadly:
“May God forgive you, Vassia Vassilich! Only, mark my words, you are spoiling that boy.”
When they had gone away raging, the master said to me sternly:
“You see, you little devil, what rows you cause!
I shall take you back to your grandfather, and you can be a rag-picker again.”
This insult was more than I could bear, and I said:
“I had a better life as a rag-picker than I have with you.
You took me as a pupil, and what have you taught me?
To empty the dish-water!”
He took me by the hair, but not roughly, and looked into my eyes, saying in a tone of astonishment:
“I see you are rebellious.
That, my lad, won’t suit me. N-o-o.”
I thought that I should be sent away for this, but a few days later he came into the kitchen with a roll of thick paper, a pencil, a square, and a ruler in his hands.
“When you have finished cleaning the knives, draw this.”
On one sheet of paper was outlined the fagade of a two-storied house, with many windows and absurd decorations.
“Here are compasses for you.
Place dots on the paper where the ends of the lines come, and then draw from point to point with a ruler, lengthwise first — that will be horizontal — and then across — that will be vertical.
Now get on with it.”
I was delighted to have some clean work to do, but I gazed at the paper and the instruments with reverent fear, for I understood nothing about them.
However, after washing my hands, I sat down to learn.
I drew all the horizontal lines on the sheet and compared them. They were quite good, although three seemed superfluous.
I drew the vertical lines, and observed with astonishment that the face of the house was absurdly disfigured. The windows had crossed over to the partition wall, and one came out behind the wall and hung in mid-air.
The front steps were raised in the air to the height of the second floor; a cornice appeared in the middle of the roof; and a dormer-window on the chimney.
For a long time, hardly able to restrain my tears, I gazed at those miracles of inaccuracy, trying to make out how they had occurred; and not being able to arrive at any conclusion, I decided to rectify the mistakes by the aid of fancy.
I drew upon the fagade of the house, upon the cornices, and the edge of the roof, crows, doves, and sparrows, and on the ground in front of the windows, people with crooked legs, under umbrellas which did not quite hide their deformities.
Then I drew slanting lines across the whole, and took my work to my master.
He raised his eyebrows, ruffled his hair, and gruffly inquired:
“What is all this about?”
“That is rain coming down,” I explained.
“When it rains, the house looks crooked, because the rain itself is always crooked.
The birds — you see, these are all birds — are taking shelter.
They always do that when it rains.
And these people are running home. There — that is a lady who has fallen down, and that is a peddler with lemons to sell.”
“I am much obliged to you,” said my master, and bending over the table till his hair swept the paper, he burst out laughing as he cried: “Och! you deserve to be torn up and thrown away yourself, you wild sparrow!”
The mistress came in, and having looked at my work, said to her husband:
“Beat him!”
But the master said peaceably:
“That’s all right; I myself did not begin any better.”
Obliterating the spoiled house with a red pencil, he gave me some paper.
“Try once more.”
The second copy came out better, except that a window appeared in place of the front door.
But I did not like to think that the house was empty, so I filled it with all sorts of inmates. At the windows sat ladies with fans in their hands, and cavaliers with cigarettes. One of these, a non-smoker, was making a “long nose” at all the others.
A cabman stood on the steps, and near him lay a dog.
“Why, you have been scribbling over it again!” the master exclaimed angrily.
I explained to him that a house without inhabitants was a dull place, but he only scolded me.
“To the devil with all this foolery!
If you want to learn, learn!
But this is rubbish!”