Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/195

Rh Marks, however, remain only as a relic of a past system, and are beginning, of their own accord, to go out of use.

scholars after dinner gather for the first lesson of the second session, just as they did for the morning, and wait for the teacher in the same way.

As a general rule this lesson is devoted to sacred or Russian history, and all the classes take part in it. By the time this lesson begins, generally the twilight is coming on. The teacher stands or sits in the middle of the room, and the scholars gather around him as in an amphitheater; some on benches, some on chairs, some on the window-seats.

All these evening lessons, and especially this first one, have an absolutely different character from those of the morning, a character of calm dreaminess and poetry.

Come into the school at dusk; no lights are visible at the windows, it is almost quiet; only the snow newly tracked in on the stairs, a subdued murmur, and a slight motion behind the door, and perhaps some little lad seizing the balustrade and running up-stairs two steps at a time, give proof that school is in session.

Come into the room.

It is almost dark behind the frosted windows; the older and better scholars pressing together, crowding close to the teacher, and lifting their pretty heads, look him straight in the face. The independent little house-maid, with preoccupied face, always sits in a high chair and seems to swallow every word. The more mischievous and younger the children are, the farther away they manage to get. But they all listen attentively, even seriously; they behave themselves as well as the older ones; but, notwithstanding their attention, we cannot help being conscious that they will not be able to repeat anything of what they hear, although they remember