“Gloves! Yellow ones!”
“What of that?”
“Out of bribes.”
Zinaida Grigorievna was overjoyed, and grew animated. For a long time the whispers of the malicious women were audible, and between their whispers their hissing, snake-like laughter.
Then the women, together with Shabalov and Voronok, went off to finish the examination. Doulebov and the Vice-Governor went in to look at the library. Poterin accompanied them. Everything was in order. The thick volumes of Katkov[32] quietly slumbered; the dust had been wiped from them on the eve of the Vice-Governor’s visit.
Poterin made use of an opportunity to make insinuations against the instructors. He reported that Voronok did not go to church, and that he collected schoolboys at his own house in order to read something or other to them.
“I shall have to have a talk with him,” said Doulebov. “Ask him into your study and I will talk to him. In the meantime, show Ardalyon Borisovitch the laboratory.”
Doulebov and Voronok spoke for a long time in Poterin’s study.
“I don’t question your convictions,” said the Headmaster, “but I must make it clear to you that it is impossible to introduce politics into schools. Children cannot discuss such questions; it does them harm.”
“Agents’ reports are not always to be believed,” said Voronok restrainedly.