Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 08 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/196

182 much of it. One leans on another's shoulder; another stands by the table. Occasionally one of them, stretching over to the very middle of the throng across the back of some one else, scratches some figure with his finger-nail on some boy's back. Rarely will any one look at you.

When a new story begins, all sit still as death and listen. If it happen to be one they have heard before then, here and there conceited voices are heard from those who cannot refrain from reminding the teacher. However, if the old story is one they like, they will urge the teacher to repeat it in full, and they will not let him be interrupted.

"Can't you be patient! hush!" they will cry to the mischievous urchin.

It hurts them to have the character and artistic quality of the teacher's tale interrupted. During the last weeks it has been the story of the life of Christ. Each time they have insisted on hearing the whole of it. If any part were omitted, then they themselves added their favorite ending—the story of Peter's denial and the Saviour's sufferings.

It would seem as if there were no one alive in the room, not a motion—can it be that they are asleep?

If you should go round in the twilight and look into the face of any youngster whatever, you would find him sitting with his eyes fastened on his teacher's face, his brow drawn into a frown of attention, and ten times he will shake off his mate's hand thrown over his shoulder. If you should tickle him in the neck, he would not even smile, but would shake his head as if to drive away a fly, and again give all his attention to the mysterious and poetic tale,—how the veil of the temple was rent, and darkness covered the face of the earth,—and it seems to him both painful and delightful.