The pupils obeyed, in a leisurely way, as though leaving of their own accord.
During the following few weeks this “victory” over the gendarmes was the great topic of discussion. The personality of the girl who “started the demonstration” was emblazoned with the halo of heroism. The curious part of it was that only a minority of those who had participated in the scene had any idea who she was. When the crowd at the railroad station had dispersed, the handful that knew her whispered her name to some of those who did not, so that the number of pupils in the secret was by now comparatively large, but it was a “revolutionary” secret, so it was guarded most zealously against unreliable pupils as well as against the authorities.
One of the page-proofs of the Miroslav Messenger that were sent to the censor at midnight contained the following paragraph:
“Alexandre Alexandrovich Pievakin, for many years instructor of History and Geography at our male gymnasium, left for his new place of service yesterday afternoon. A large number of gymnasium pupils were at the railway station.”
The entire paragraph was stricken out, so that the Messenger next morning contained not the remotest reference to the departure of the old teacher.
When Pasha heard what had happened at the railway station his heart sank.
“I must speak to you, mother,” he gasped out, bursting into her room, after school time. When her companion, a dried-up little Frenchwoman with a thriving streak of black moustache, had withdrawn, he said: “Mother, I am a miserable egoist and a scoundrel.” He told her the story of Pievakin’s departure. His dear old teacher was in trouble, the victim of a cruel injustice, yet he, Pasha, had not even thought of going to see him off. Everybody had been there except him. But what tantalised him more than anything else was the fact that a girl was the only person who had taken a brave noble stand in the old man’s behalf. This hurt his knightly sense of honour cruelly. He should have been on the scene and done exactly what that girl had done.
“I’m an egoist and a coward, mamman. I hate myself. Oh, I do hate myself!”