And now you must imagine my small room on a dismal winter evening, with the water running down the frozen windows over the sandbags, two tallow candles burning on the table, and us two face to face. On the stage Dalès spoke in a fairly natural voice, but, in giving a lesson, he thought himself bound to get away as far as possible from nature. He recited Racine in a sing-song voice, and made a parting, like the parting of an Englishman’s back hair, at the caesura of each line, so that every verse came out in two pieces like a broken stick.

Meanwhile he made the gestures of a man who has fallen into the water and cannot swim. He made me repeat each verse several times and constantly shook his head: “Not right at all! Listen to me! ‘Je crains Dieu, cher Abner’—now came the parting; he closed his eyes, shook his head slightly, and added, repelling the waves with a languid movement of the arm, ‘et n’ai point d’autre crainte.’”[[22]]

[22]. From Racine’s Athalie.

Then the old gentleman, who “feared nothing but God,” would look at his watch, put away his books, and take hold of a chair. This chair was my partner.

Is it surprising that I never learned to dance? These lessons did not last long: within a fortnight they were brought to an end by a very tragic event.

I was at the theatre with my uncle, and the overture was played several times without the curtain rising. The front rows, wishing to show their familiarity with Paris customs, began to make the noise which is made in Paris by the back rows only. A manager came out in front of the curtain; he bowed to the left, he bowed to the right, he bowed to the front, and then he said: “We ask for all the indulgence of the audience; a terrible misfortune has befallen us: Dalès, a member of our company,”—and here the manager’s speech was interrupted by genuine tears,—“has been found dead in his room, poisoned by the fumes from the stove.”

Such were the forcible means by which the Russian system of ventilation delivered me from lessons in elocution, from spouting Racine, and from dancing a solo with the partner who boasted four legs carved in mahogany.

§11

When I was twelve, I was transferred from the hands of women to those of men; and, about that time, my father made two unsuccessful attempts to put a German in charge of me.

“A German in charge of children” is neither a tutor nor a dyádka[[23]]—it is quite a profession by itself. He does not teach or dress the children himself, but sees that they are dressed and taught; he watches over their health, takes them out for walks, and talks whatever nonsense he pleases, provided that it is in German. If there is a tutor in the house, the German is his inferior; but he takes precedence of the dyádka, if there is one. The visiting teachers, if they come late from unforeseen causes, or leave too early owing to circumstances beyond their control, are polite to the German; and, though quite uneducated, he begins to think himself a man of learning. The governesses make use of the German to do all sorts of errands for them, but never permit any attentions on his part, unless they suffer from positive deformity and see no prospect of any other admirers. When boys are fourteen they go off to the German’s room to smoke on the sly, and he allows it, because he needs powerful assistance if he is to keep his place. Indeed, the common practice is to dismiss him at this period, after thanking him in the presence of the boys and presenting him with a watch. If he is tired of taking children out and receiving reprimands when they catch cold or stain their clothes, then the “German in charge of children” becomes a German without qualification: he starts a small shop where he sells amber mouth-pieces, eau-de-cologne, and cigars to his former charges, and performs secret services for them of another kind.