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In addition to everything else he was a squealer. One day our class teacher ripped into me for playing games for money. Once in my life, and that in my pre-school days, I had paid out seven kopecks and remained a ruble in debt as a result of pitching coins. Believing in the sincerity of my repentance, grandfather paid my debt of honor, and that ended my life as a gambler.

When Mitya was driven into a corner he confessed to having squealed. He did it, he assured me, for my own good, fearing my wicked instincts might once more be aroused and cause the ruin of a promising career (that of a Sanitary Inspector). With tears in his eyes he begged me to return my trust in him for the sake of our Sacred Friendship which was something greater than ourselves, and he attempted to seal it with a Judas kiss. All this smacked of fraud, baseness and hypocrisy; and yet for another two years I prolonged the indecent farce; prolonged it, in fact, until I realized that genuine friendship was to be found elsewhere. Mitya, however, was really attached to me and took our separation very much to heart.

Now Pavlik took up a firm hold of my life. The kids in our yard as well as our schoolmates took it for granted that I was the leader in this association and Pavlik was the led. Those with hostile inclinations looked upon Pavlik as a sort of make-weight attached to me. This attitude was handed down from the days when I “introduced Pavlik into society,” first into the society of our yard; later, of our class, when he transferred to it, where he was looked upon as an oddball. In those days I was very severe: I would accept no invitations to birthday, New Year, or any other parties unless Pavlik was invited too. I walked out on our yard’s soccer team, in which I was considered the best center forward, because Pavlik had been rejected even as a substitute player, and returned only when he was accepted. In this way an illusion of our inequality was created, which nothing in ensuing years could blast. Public opinion resists change even when contradicted by obvious facts.

In our case the facts were that neither of us depended on the other, but undoubtedly Pavlik was morally superior. His code of honor was stricter and purer than mine. My long friendship with Mitya could not but leave its mark; I had become used to compromising with my conscience. The acceptance of betrayal differs little from betrayal itself. When it came to matters of the conscience, Pavlik was adamant. We were fourteen years old when I was given a hard lesson in how uncompromising the gentle, easy-going Pavlik could be.

I felt like a prince at the German lessons. Not for nothing had mother worn herself out at the typewriter, tapping out roubles to payFraulein Schultz for poisoning my young life. My head was not onethat easily absorbed foreign languages, and even so it was stuffed with so many German words, poems and grammar rules, to say nothing of recht Berliner Aussprache, that I became the pet of the school German teachers who successively carried on our education in this field. Elena Frantzevna, the one who lasted the longest, was no exception, though I in no way answered her ideal of what a pupil should be.

It was not the ordinary silence and attention that Elena Frantzevna demanded of us, but the pious concentration, as in a cathedral. She was so thin and sallow and had such dark circles under the lemur-like eyes on a face no bigger than a fist, that she seemed to be dying of some dreadful illness. She was, however, extremely healthy and never missed a lesson, not even during the grippe epidemic that made victims of all our other teachers, one after another. She would shout at a pupil for a wandering glance or a stray smile. Worse than her shouts were her upbraidings, every word of which was like a bite. Naturally we called her the Rat behind her back—every school has its Rat—and the sharp, thin, cranky Elena Frantzevna seemed specially made for that nickname. Was she really so wicked? There was no question about it in the minds of the other boys, but I felt she was a harassed unfortunate creature. But then I was the prince! Whenever she called on me to read aloud and I came out with my “genuine Berlin pronunciation” her ugly little face would glow with pleasure.
But my turn came. Elena Frantzevna never asked me the day’s lesson. Why should she? She and I just talked German together. And then all of a sudden she called me to the blackboard like any of the other pupils. Just before that I had missed a few days, whether because of sickness or playing truant I don’t remember, and I had not the slightest idea of what the homework assignment had been. I suppose she really was malicious and called me to the board just to catch me. At first I m
ade a good showing. I conjugated a certain verb, listed the prepositions governing the dative case, read a sickeningly didactic piece out of the textbook, and retold it in my genuine Berlin pronunciation.