"When your superior speaks to you," says he, "you ought to jump up as though the seat were hot," and he looks at me angrily, as much as to say, "You may know theory, but you'll please to know your manners as well, and treat me with proper respect."
"Stand up again and answer!"
I start up as though I felt a prick from a needle, and answer the question as he likes it done: smartly, all in one breath, and word for word according to the book.
He, meanwhile, looks at the primer, to make sure I am not leaving anything out, but as he reads very slowly, he cannot catch me up, and when I have got to the end, he is still following with his finger and reading. And when he has finished, he gives me a pleased look, and says enthusiastically "Right!" and tells me to sit down again.
"Theory," he says, "that you do know!"
Well, begging his pardon, it isn't much to know. And yet there are soldiers who are four years over it, and don't know it then. For instance, take my comrade Ossadtchok; he says that, when it comes to "theory", he would rather go and hang or drown himself. He says, he would rather have to carry three pails of water than sit down to "theory."
I tell him, that if he would learn to read, he could study the whole thing by himself in a week; but he won't listen.
"Nobody," he says, "will ever ask my advice."
One thing always alarmed me very much: However was I to take part in the manœuvres?
I cannot lift a single pud (I myself only weigh two pud and thirty pounds), and if I walk three versts, my feet hurt, and my heart beats so violently that I think it's going to burst my side.