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He imagined his father’s having suddenly been presented with both
the Vladimir and the Andrey today, and in consequence being much
better tempered at his lesson, and dreamed how, when he was grown
up, he would himself receive all the orders, and what they might invent
higher than the Andrey. Directly any higher order were invented, he
would win it. They would make a higher one still, and he would imme-
diately win that too.
The time passed in such meditations, and when the teacher came,
the lesson about the adverbs of place and time and manner of action
was not ready, and the teacher was not only displeased, but hurt. This
touched Seryozha. He felt he was not to blame for not having learned
the lesson; however much he tried, he was utterly unable to do that.
As long as the teacher was explaining to him, he believed him and
seemed to comprehend, but as soon as he was left alone, he was posi-
tively unable to recollect and to understand that the short and familiar
word “suddenly” is an adverb of manner of action. Still he was sorry
that he had disappointed the teacher.
He chose a moment when the teacher was looking in silence at the
book.
“Mihail Ivanitch, when is your birthday?” he asked all, of a sudden.
“You’d much better be thinking about your work. Birthdays are of
no importance to a rational being. It’s a day like any other on which one
has to do one’s work.”
Seryozha looked intently at the teacher, at his scanty beard, at his
spectacles, which had slipped down below the ridge on his nose, and
fell into so deep a reverie that he heard nothing of what the teacher
was explaining to him. He knew that the teacher did not think what he
said; he felt it from the tone in which it was said. “But why have they
all agreed to speak just in the same manner always the dreariest and
most useless stuff? Why does he keep me off; why doesn’t he love
me?” he asked himself mournfully, and could not think of an answer.