42

p Among my ninth-grade students, who were generally not very tall, Vanya Zolotykh was altogether tiny. This was 43 emphasized by the way in which he was dressed and by the way he carried himself.

p He sat by himself in the first row, wearing a pale-green shirt with blue dots. Buttoned to the very top, its tight collar jutted into his chin. His worn grey jacket was also too small, revealing the cuffs of his shirt sleeves. Perhaps that was the reason Vanya hid his broad, reddish hands.

p Short but thickset, wearing patched felt boots and eager to please, he looked straight into my eyes and I could not tell what his look expressed with greater force: devotion or understanding.

p The subject of the lesson was to describe the image of Andrei Bolkonsky in Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace. Vanya spoke faintly and slowly as if expressing doubt after each word. I, on the other hand, asked him to speak loudly, for loudness, according to established school traditions, was an asset; it was supposed to indicate sureness of one’s knowledge. That was why I tactlessly insisted, playing it smart for the rest of the class:

p “Sound, make it louder!”

p But Vanya, looking at me through his pure eyes, that strangely enough were also green with blue dots, merely widened them slightly as his lips began to move even more slowly.

p “In reverse,” I said humourously, without sparing his feelings, as if he carried a regulating knob in his pocket that could be turned in either direction.

p The other children understood the meaning of "in reverse”, and were nodding and giggling in approval how funny our teacher was. But Vanya shifted from foot to foot in his patched felt boots, his hands becoming even redder. His face began to burn and the fine fair down on his cheeks stood out more clearly. He continued to speak about Bolkonsky, the hero of War and Peace, describing how he fell mortally wounded and watched the clouds floating in the infinitely beautiful blue sky. Vanya quoted Tolstoy word for word, and I sensed that Prince Andrei Bolkonsky’s suffering reached into his own soul, but at the same time I could not reconcile myself to the fact that Vanya was speaking in a faint voice. For this spoiled everything. What I wished to hear was a round of machine-gun fire as in the classes of other teachers that I have attended. This automatically produced the highest grade. I felt a prisoner to that standard and this made me forget that Vanya’s voice had carried deeply meaningful intonations. I waxed on 44 explaining that one had to train one’s voice and speech, use one’s chest in speaking as well as one’s throat (I demonstrated how one could shout without straining one’s vocal cords), I mentioned Demosthenes, who used to put pebbles in his mouth to learn to speak distinctly. The children laughed, for they liked such digressions. But Vanya stood, unoffended, looking at me shyly as if he enjoyed my mockery, and his eyes seemed even more loyal. Perhaps for that reason my feelings towards him grew even warmer. I gave him a four plus and told him that his presentation had depth and understanding in reading Tolstoy. Vanya was radiant. He looked at me with loving eyes and nodded assentingly when I proposed to work with him after class.

p “For some reason you are not sure of yourself, Zolotykh.” (At that time I addressed all students by their surnames as was the general practice in schools. To address them by their first names was viewed as excessive familiarity and as a cheap way of winning popularity with the class.)

p Vanya remained silent and lowered his long white eyelashes. He quietly stroked one hand with the other. He looked undisturbably calm, and that irritated me. Seeking to undermine his calmness I suggested:

p “Perhaps that lack of sureness means a lack of knowledge, perhaps you cannot really imagine Bolkonsky?”

p But how could Vanya imagine Bolkonsky? He had never even seen a city, had never left Solenga in his life.

p “Try to imagine that Bolkonsky is someone that you know personally, that you value him for his noble qualities. How do you imagine him, whom does he resemble?”

p Vanya opened wide his white eyelashes that shimmered in the sunlight in gold and silver tones. His green pupils expressed timid submissiveness.

p “He is like you,” Vanya replied.

p I did not expect this and was almost taken off my feet. Of course, the authoritarian teacher in me was flattered. But my all too straightforward “fairness” continued lashing Vanya’s burning cheeks.

p “What are you saying, Zolotykh!" I burst out. But I felt sick fearing even to admit to myself that I had swallowed both the hook and the line.

p Vanya looked at me as if he did not hear my voice and repeated:

p “Bolkonsky is like you.”

p “Alright, Zolotykh, you can go. You can be sure I’ll call on you next time.”

45

p Vanya did not hurry to leave, and remained as if frozen. Then he quietly gathered his books into a torn brown school bag and tied it with a long piece’of string so that he could carry it over his shoulder to free his hands for ski poles; he was to ski home six kilometres. He bid me farewell and left.

p One part of my self—the one that I left outside the school entrance—understood Vanya’s vulnerable integrity, while the other, the classroom one, experienced a strong feeling of irritation. This ambivalence in my attitude towards Vanya expressed itself again a few weeks later when I was hunting with my friend Irinei. Actually, our hunting expeditions never amounted to much, but they did produce a semblance of hunting. I would arrive at Irinei’s home the evening before the hunting and we would spend hours at the scales preparing powder, wads, cartridge cases and caps. We also prepared our skis and clothing, doing everything as required. But we usually returned empty-handed. And on that occasion, too, there were no partridges, rabbits or foxes. But then it was interesting to talk with Irinei and hear his simple short answers.

p We were lying in an old hay-loft made of logs and without doors or windows.

p “There is one thing I can’t understand,” I said. "With such a natural potential, fresh air, and pastures, why is everything so undeveloped?”

p “Have you ever visited a village in our North?" asked Irinei.

p “Well?”

p “There is one some three kilometres from here in that direction. We’ll be there in no time and you’ll see for yourself.”

p The village spread along the bank of a small river. We were standing on a hill, chimney smokes rising straight up from some of the log houses below. As we skied down we discovered that the very first house was that of Vanya Zolotykh.

p Vanya was embarrassed, blushed, and invited us to come in. Even though the house seemed very large from outside, inside there was one large room with a Russian stove, wooden benches, an old icon in the corner, and a score or so of photographs in a single frame hanging on the wall. A man was sleeping curled up on the floor near the stove, his head resting on the sleeve of his sweater. He was tiny in size, his face was reddish-black and wrinkled, and his hands, of the same colour, were freshly scratched.

p “He has been drunk since last night,” explained Anastasia, Vanya’s mother. "Petya, wake up, we have guests!”

46

p “He won’t wake up,” quietly commented an old woman sitting in a corner, who was untangling yarn. She looked ancient and greatly resembled Vanya. Her face resembled Vanya’s by its calmness, and her movements, too, were similarly unhurried. While we were warming ourselves Vanya was helping his mother by the stove. And when the meal was ready Vanya’s father had awakened. He rose, looked around the room and left for a moment.

p At dinner Petya described how he caught fish, what good hay he had recently brought home and how he would soon have to carry more hay by the snow road. Vanya was flushed and tense as he listened to his father’s words. His calm eyes seemed to be saying: "This is how we live... I sleep on the bench over there, sometimes on a mattress and sometimes without. There are not enough sheets for everyone, but then, we eat well. There is always fresh bread and codfish, potatoes and mushrooms, mainly milk-agarics and saffron milk caps. I do my lessons at this same table, as does my sister and my younger brother, Vasya. I help them do their lessons and my grandmother is pleased when I help them.”

p From time to time I glanced at Petya. He was helping himself with gestures trying to explain how he cut the grass, brought firewood, and caught a grayling. Vanya looked at me as if saying: “Don’t be harsh on my Dad. Please understand him, as well as my Granny and my Mom....”

p Suddenly something stirred within me that made me want to be congenial with Vanya’s embarrassment and his grandmother’s holiness, to say something kind and encouraging to Vanya. But instead I continued to chatter feeling sick of myself for this, I could not stop because my glib tongue was stronger than the tiny feeling that was lurking in the depths of my non-school self.

p As Irinei occasionally nodded his approval of what I was saying I felt so intelligent, nothing less than a torchbearer of culture, and I went on and on, unable to stop and making everyone else silent. And I enjoyed my sermonizing. While I must have found different words, conveyed some warmth to Vanya Zolotykh so as to remove his embarrassed flush and let a different light come to his face. Perhaps I could have said simply that I, too, came from the human species, that there was only a small window in my room, that I slept in the same bed with my mother and that because of the freezing cold my mother always proposed that we lie back to back, in this way one becomes warmer more quickly. I have had such a light-filled room, 47 and even such a bench with a mattress, such a father and such a grandmother, for it was a great fortune for any man to be able to live with his own father and with such an uncomplaining grandmother who had seen so much during her long life.

p Vanya’s mother added some codfish to my plate and poured me tea.

p Later Irinei and I slept on the floor. We declined an invitation to sleep on the warm stove, for we planned to leave early.

p It the morning we took leave of the grandmother, Anastasia and Petya, and together with Vanya we proceeded along the frozen snow crust. It was blue, pink, and brocade white, and reflected the shimmering shadows of the pine trees. Vanya looked at the sky and proposed that we stopped, for the frozen snow crust would soon vanish; it would collapse as the sun continued to shine on it. Everyone awaited my decision and I said that we had to continue. Once more we did not find any game. We only saw a half-sick rabbit hopping sideways.

p In the meantime the sun grew warmer, melting the snow and turning it into large glassy grains (as you stepped on it your foot sank to the ground). One could see red bilberries in the patches where the snow had thawed. Vanya gathered some and offered them to me:

p “They are tasty and frozen. Now I’ll find some cranberries.”

p There was pleasant and infinitely live freshness in the air. But it became impossible to move on. We had better stop and wait until the snow froze over!

p I was utterly exhausted and my feeling of shame was increased by Vanya’s presence. His eyes conveyed sympathy. There was not a trace of a smile or of superiority on his face. I already had blisters on my feet, and my back was wet, I stuffed my scarf and sweater into my backpack, and I felt ready to throw away both my cartridge belt and my gun. Vanya noticed that: "Let me carry the gun, give it to me.” He also offered me his own wide skis—two scraped boards with slightly upturned ends, and two wide leather straps, with leather laces tied in the middle... I agreed "to try them on"—and it became easier to walk, but I was still ashamed. I was ashamed of my physical weakness as well as my omniscient chatter, and that I had offended Vanya at school. Yet Vanya forgave me everything, for he saw that I was ashamed: he seemed to straighten himself inwardly and stated reassuringly: "Just a little while longer, and then it will be easier.”

48

p Irinei, too, was red and silent, probably because he was angry at me. I had been told that we should wait and that there would not be any snow crust. He was tired, saving his strength, but occasionally he paused waiting for me and pointed to Vanya:

p “None the worse for it he is.”

p I met Vanya on the following day as I was hobbling on my unbending legs to school. Now that he was once more Zolotykh the pupil he avoided me. In the meantime I had already donned my teacher’s mask of superiority and informed him condescendingly:

p “The hobby group will meet today, Zolotykh...”

p At the group’s meeting after class I was carried away once more. I was oblivious of realities as I uttered the longest phrases with many names and problems. I saw how the students’ attention gradually dwindled; they did not understand what the new teacher was saying nor to whom he was addressing himself.

p Vanya sat in the first row, as during the lesson. He was looking absent-minded to the side as he stroked his arm with his hand. Finally, I announced a break, and everyone rushed away except for Vanya Zolotykh and Zina Shugayeva.

p Vanya remained at his desk as if nothing had happened, waiting for me to continue my story. But everyone had left and this meant that my story was not interesting. I felt engulfed in a feeling of shame that was made even more bitter by my knowledge that Vanya Zolotykh understood everything. I wished to remain alone and I said to him:

p “The boys are waiting for you.”

p “They have already left.”

p “How will you go home alone?”

p “I often do it.”

p “You are not afraid?”

p “No.”

p I saw how Vanya disappeared into the darkness of the woods, and also Zina, together with a group of other girls who had waited for her. And I remained alone to face my pedagogic defeat.

A teacher’s calling possesses its own soul. It develops through encounters with the souls of children, producing sparks of creativity, altering the teacher’s entire world, as it were, and leading him to enter a new phase of his existence, that of discoveries and illumination.