His voice was stern, and no longer had that expression of kindness which had touched me to tears. In the classroom Karl Ivánovich was a different man: he was an instructor. I dressed in a hurry, washed myself, and, with the hair-brush in my hand, trying to smooth down my wet hair, made my appearance in response to his call.
Karl Ivánovich had his spectacles on his nose and a book in his hands, and was seated in his usual place, between the door and the window. At the left of the door were two small shelves: one was ours, the children's, the other was his, Karl Ivánovich's. On our shelf were all kinds of books, school-books and others: some of these were placed upright, others lay flat. Only two large volumes of the "Histoire des Voyages," in red bindings, were properly placed against the wall. Then followed long, fat, large, and small books, — bindings without books, and books without bindings. We used to stick and jam into it all kinds of things, when, just before recess, we were ordered to fix up the "library," as Karl Ivánovich loudly called that shelf.
The collection of books on his shelf was not so large as ours, but it was much more varied. I remember three of them: a German pamphlet about the manuring of gardens for cabbage, — without a binding: one volume of a history of the Seven Years' War, — in parchment which was burned at one end; and a complete course of hydrostatics. Karl Ivánovich used to pass the greater part of his time reading, and he had even impaired his eyesight in that way; but he never read anything else but these books and the Northern Bee.[1]
Among the objects which lay on Karl Ivánovich's shelf, there was one which more than any other reminds me of him. It was a circle of cardboard, stuck in a wooden support, in which it moved, by means of pegs. Upon
- ↑ A periodical.
