Page:Dead Souls - A Poem by Nikolay Gogol - vol2.djvu/111

Rh course were few in number, but those few were strong men, were like men who had been through fire. In the service they kept their footing even in the most precarious position when many others, cleverer perhaps than they, could not hold out, but gave up the service on account of the most trivial annoyances, or without being aware of it got into the hands of rogues and bribe-takers. But Alexandr Petrovitch's pupils did not merely hold on steadily but, trained in the knowledge of man and nature, exerted a lofty influence, even upon the corrupt and the depraved.

But poor Andrey Ivanovitch was not destined to enjoy this teaching. Just when he had been approved for that higher course as one of the best among the boys—there was a sudden calamity; the rare teacher, from whom one word of approval threw him into a delicious tremor, was all at once taken ill and died. Everything in the school was transformed. Alexandr Petrovitch's place was filled by a certain Fyodor Ivanovitch, a kind-hearted and conscientious man whose views however were entirely different. He saw something unbridled in the free and easy manners of the pupils of the first class. He began to introduce an external discipline, insisted that the young creatures were to maintain a mute stillness, that they should never under any circumstances walk out except in twos; and even began with a yard measure fixing the distance between one pair and the next. For the sake of appearance he placed them at table according to height