LEONÍD. He says, mamma, that they taught him a good deal, only it was impossible for him to learn anything.
NEGLIGÉNTOV. Impossible; from my birth I had no aptitude for the sciences. I received from fifty to a hundred birch rods nearly every day, but they didn't quicken my understanding.
LEONÍD. Oh, mamma, how amusingly he tells about the way he learned! Here, just listen. Well, and how did you learn Latin?
NEGLIGÉNTOV. Turpissime!
MADAM ULANBÉKOV. [Shrugging her shoulders] What in the world is that?
NEGLIGÉNTOV. Most abominably.
LEONÍD. No, wait a bit; and what did the teacher do with you?
NEGLIGÉNTOV. [Bursts out laughing] It made you laugh. Once, after a cruel torture, he commanded two students to fasten me by the neck with a belt, and to lead me through the market-place as a laughing-stock.
MADAM ULANBÉKOV. How is it they took you into the civil service if you never learned anything?
NEGLIGÉNTOV. Through the mediation of influential people.