al and
attended the student's societies, where you hear nothing that is
commonplace. I was working up for six months, but as one has to
have been through the whole high-school course of mathematics to
enter the technical school, Grumaher advised me to try for the
veterinary institute, where they admit high-school boys from the
sixth form. Of course, I began working for it. I did not want to
be a veterinary surgeon but they told me that after finishing the
course at the veterinary institute I should be admitted to the
faculty of medicine without examination. I learnt all Kuehner; I
could read Cornelius Nepos, _a livre ouvert_; and in Greek I read
through almost all Curtius. But, you know, one thing and another,
. . . the students leaving and the uncertainty of my position, and
then I heard that my mamma had come and was looking for me all over
Harkov. Then I went away. What was I to do? But luckily I learned
that there was a school of mines here on the Donets line. Why should
I not enter that? You know the school of mines qualifies one as a
mining foreman--a splendid berth. I know of mines where the foremen
get a salary of fifteen hundred a year. Capital. . . . I entered
it. . . ."

With an expression of reverent awe on his face Alexandr Ivanitch
enumerated some two dozen abstruse sciences in which instruction
was given at the school of mines; he described the school itself,
the construction of the shafts, and the condition of the miners. . . .
Then he told me a terrible story which sounded like an invention,
though I could not help believing it, for his tone in telling it
was too genuine and the expression of horror on his Semitic face
was too evidently sincere.

"While I was doing the practical work, I had such an accident one
day!" he said, raising both eyebrows. "I was at a mine here in the
Donets district. You have seen, I dare say, how people are let down
into the mine. You remember when they start the horse and set the
gates moving one bucket on the pulley goes down into the mine, while
the other comes up; when the first begins to come up, then the
second goes down--exactly like a well with two pails. Well, one
day I got into the bucket, began going down, and can you fancy, all
at once I heard, Trrr! The chain had broken and I flew to the devil
together with the bucket and the broken bit of chain. . . . I fell
from a height of twenty feet, flat on my chest and stomach, while
the bucket, being heavier, reached