My father rushed to my room. Beaupre was sleeping upon his bed the sleep of innocence. I was deep in a most interesting occupation. They had brought from Moscow, for me, a geographical map, which hung unused against the wall; the width and strength of its paper had been to me a standing temptation. I had determined to make a kite of it, and profiting that morning by Beaupre's sleep, I had set to work. My father came in just as I was tying a tail to the Cape of Good Hope! Seeing my work, he seized me by the ear and shook me soundly; then rushing to Beaupre's bed, awakened him without hesitating, pouring forth a volley of abuse upon the head of the unfortunate Frenchman. In his confusion Beaupre tried in vain to rise; the poor pedagogue was dead drunk! My father caught him by the coat-collar and flung him out of the room. That day he was dismissed, to the inexpressible delight of Saveliitch.
Thus ended my education. I now lived in the family as the eldest son, not of age whose career is yet to open; amusing myself teaching pigeons to tumble on the roof, and playing leap-frog in the stable- yard with the grooms. In this way I reached my sixteenth year.
One Autumn day, my mother was preserving fruit with honey in the family room, and I, smacking my lips, was looking at the liquid boiling; my father, seated near the window, had just opened the Court Almanac which he received every year. This book had great influence over him; he read it with extreme attention, and reading prodigiously stirred up his bile. My mother, knowing by heart all his ways and oddities, used to try to hide the miserable book, and often whole months would pass without a sight of it. But, in revenge whenever he did happen to find it, he would sit for hours with the book before his eyes.
Well, my father was reading the Court Almanac, frequently shrugging his shoulders, and murmuring: "'General!' Umph, he was a sergeant in my company. 'Knight of the Orders of Russia.' Can it be so long since we--?"
Finally he flung the Almanac away on the sofa and plunged into deep thought; a proceeding that never presaged anything good.
"Avoditia," said he, brusquely, to my mother, "how old is Peter?"
"His seventeenth precious year has just begun," said my mother. "Peter was born the year Aunt Anastasia lost her eye, and that was--"
"Well, well," said my father, "it is time he should join the army. It is high time he should give up his nurse, leap-frog and pigeon training."