Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/88

64 by the products of such a despotical schooling, and I concluded, even as defenceless people are wont to conclude, when their patience is finally broken—with revenge and flight. When I came upon him one day in a state of complete drunkenness I turned upon him his own weapon, the rod, and as far as my childish strength permitted I got even with him for all his cruelty. Among all the chattels of this drunken sacristan, the most precious thing always seemed to me a certain little book with pictures, that is, engravings, truly of wretched workmanship. Whether it was that I could not reckon it a sin, or whether I could not resist the temptation to purloin this rarity, I took it, and ran away by night to the township of Lesyanka.

There I found a new teacher in the person of a painter-deacon, who, as I very soon discovered, differed in his principles and habits very little from my former master. Three days I patiently dragged buckets of water uphill from the river Teketch, and crunched copper dye on an iron disc. On the fourth day I lost patience and ran away to the village of Tarasovka to a sacristan painter who had gained renown in the locality by his effigies of the great martyrs Mikita and Ivan Voyin. To this Apelles I now turned with the firm resolution to overcome all the trials of destiny which at that time seemed to me inseparable from study. I fervently wished to acquire