ay anyone else so much. . . . Why, a good school is an honour
to the factory!"

"I must sincerely own that your school is really exceptional," said
the inspector. "Don't think this is flattery. Anyway, I have never
come across another like it in my life. As I sat at the examination
I was full of admiration. . . . Wonderful children! They know a
great deal and answer brightly, and at the same time they are somehow
special, unconstrained, sincere. . . . One can see that they love
you, Fyodor Lukitch. You are a schoolmaster to the marrow of your
bones. You must have been born a teacher. You have all the gifts
--innate vocation, long experience, and love for your work. . . .
It's simply amazing, considering the weak state of your health,
what energy, what understanding . . . what perseverance, do you
understand, what confidence you have! Some one in the school committee
said truly that you were a poet in your work. . . . Yes, a poet you
are!"

And all present at the dinner began as one man talking of Sysoev's
extraordinary talent. And as though a dam had been burst, there
followed a flood of sincere, enthusiastic words such as men do not
utter when they are restrained by prudent and cautious sobriety.
Sysoev's speech and his intolerable temper and the horrid, spiteful
expression on his face were all forgotten. Everyone talked freely,
even the shy and silent new teachers, poverty-stricken, down-trodden
youths who never spoke to the inspector without addressing him as
"your honour." It was clear that in his own circle Sysoev was a
person of consequence.

Having been accustomed to success and praise for the fourteen years
that he had been schoolmaster, he listened with indifference to the
noisy enthusiasm of his admirers.

It was Bruni who drank in the praise instead of the schoolmaster.
The German caught every word, beamed, clapped his hands, and flushed
modestly as though the praise referred not to the schoolmaster but
to him.

"Bravo! bravo!" he shouted. "That's true! You have grasped my
meaning! . . . Excellent! . . ." He looked into the schoolmaster's
eyes as though he wanted to share his bliss with him. At last he
could restrain himself no longer; he leapt up, and, overpowering
all the other voices with his shrill little tenor, shouted:

"Gentlemen! Allow me to speak! Sh-h! To all you say I can make only
one reply: the management of the factory will not be forgetful of
what it owes to Fyodor Lukitch! . . ."

A