“What! An artist!”
“When I leave the University, I intend to enter the Academy.”
“What’s the matter with you, Borushka? Make the sign of the cross! Do you want to be a teacher!”
“All artists are not teachers. Among artists there are great geniuses, who are famous and receive large sums for pictures or music.”
“And do you intend to sell your pictures for money, or to play the piano for money in the evenings? What a disgrace!”
“No, Grandmother, an artist....”
“No, Borushka, don’t anger your Grandmother; let her have the joy of seeing you in your Guard’s uniform.”
“Uncle says I ought to go into the Civil Service.”
“A clerk! Good heavens! To stoop over a desk all day, bathed in ink, run in and out of the courts! Who would marry you then? No, no; come home to me as an officer, and marry a rich woman!”
Although Boris shared neither his uncle’s nor his aunt’s views, yet for a moment there shimmered before his eyes a vision of his own figure in a hussar’s or a court uniform. He saw how well he sat his horse, how well he danced. That day he made a sketch of himself, negligently seated in the saddle, with a cloak over his shoulders.