CHILDHOOD
I.
KARL IVÁNOVICH, OUR TEACHER
On the 12th of August, 18-, exactly two days after my birthday, when I was ten years old and received such wonderful presents, Karl Ivánovich woke me at seven o'clock in the morning by striking right over my head at a fly with a flap which was made of wrapping-paper attached to a stick. He did that so awkwardly that he set in motion the small picture of my guardian angel which was hanging on the oak headpiece of my bed, and made the dead fly fall straight upon my head. I stuck my nose out of my coverlet, stopped the swinging picture with my hand, threw the killed fly upon the ground, and with angry, though sleepy, eyes measured Karl Ivánovich. But he, dressed in a many-coloured wadded dressing-gown, which was girded by a belt of the same material, in a red hand-knit skull-cap with a tassel, and in soft goatskin boots, continued to make the round of the walls, and to aim and flap at flies.
"I'll admit I am a little fellow," thought I, "but why does he worry me? Why does he not kill flies over Volódya's bed? There are lots of them there! No, Volódya is older than I, and I am the youngest of all;
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