Page:Andreyev - A Dilemma (Brown, 1910).djvu/65

Rh accepted it as a jest. Wretched pasteboard clown, through misapprehension thou art called a man!

He did not know my soul, although the outward order of my life perturbed him, as he did not enter into its understanding. I was an apt pupil at the gymnasia, and this distressed him. Once when we had visitors—lawyers, litterateurs and artists—he directed his finger at me and said:

"I have a son; he is the first in his class. What have I done that God should punish me so?"

And they all laughed at me, and I laughed at them all. Even more than by my successes he was distressed by my conduct and attire. He would enter my room purposely to rearrange, unnoticed by me, the books on the table, and to create even a little bit of disorder. My neat way of combing my hair robbed him of his appetite.

"The superintendent has ordered a close hair cut," I would say seriously and respectfully.