The Head Teacher

Sysoev, the head teacher of the factory-school paid for by the firm Kulikin, was getting ready for the dinner. Every year after the school examination, the managers gave a dinner for the inspector of primary schools, everyone who had helped with the examinations, and all the managers of the factory. Even though they were official, these dinners were always lively and the guests sat there a long time. Forgetting rank and remembering only their hard work, they ate till they were full, chatted till they could not speak anymore and left late in the evening, filling the whole factory with their singing. Sysoev had taken part in thirteen dinners like this, as he had been head teacher for exactly that many years.

Now, getting ready for the fourteenth, he was trying to look as smart and correct as possible. He had spent a whole hour brushing his new black suit and almost as long in front of a mirror while he put on a fashionable shirt; but it did not look right and this led to a storm of complaints and threats to his wife.

His poor wife, hurrying round him, was tired out with her efforts. And Sysoev was too, in the end. When his polished boots were brought to him from the kitchen he had not got the strength to put them on. He had to lie down and have a drink of water.

"How weak you've become!" his wife noticed. "You shouldn't go to this dinner at all."

"No advice, please!" the head teacher cut her short angrily.

He was in a very bad temper, because he had been displeased with the recent exams. They had ended in wonderful results. All the boys had got certificates and prizes; both the managers of the factory and the government officials were pleased; but that was not enough for the head teacher. He was annoyed that Babkin, a boy who never made a mistake in writing, had made three; another boy had been so excited that he could not remember seventeen times thirteen; the inspector, a young and inexperienced man, had chosen a difficult subject, and the head teacher of a neighbouring school, who had been asked to read the passage for the children to write, had not behaved like 'a good colleague'; he had not said the words clearly, as they were written.

After putting on his boots with the help of his wife, and looking at himself once more in the mirror, the head teacher set off for the dinner. Just in front of the factory manager's house, where the party was taking place, he had a little accident. He started coughing violently... He coughed so much that his hat fell off his head; and when the school inspector and the teachers heard his cough and ran out of the house, he was sitting on the bottom step, wet with sweat.

"Sysoev, is that you?" said the inspector, surprised. "You... have come?"

"Why not?"

"You should be at home, my dear man. You are not at all well today..."

"I am just the same today as I was yesterday. But if you don't want me, I can go back."

"Oh, Sysoev, you mustn't talk like that! Please come in. The party is really for you, not us. And we are delighted to see you. Of course we are!"

Inside, everything was ready for the meal. In the big dining-room there were two tables, a larger one for the dinner and a smaller one for the starters. It was all arranged by the head of the factory, a good-natured little German with a round stomach and affectionate little eyes. Adolf Bruni (that was his name) was hurrying round the tables, busily filling up the glasses and plates, trying in every way to please and to show how friendly he was. He hit people on the back, looked into their eyes, laughed - in fact, he was like a friendly dog.

"Who do I see? Sysoev!" he said in a surprised voice, when he saw him. "How nice! You have come in spite of your illness. Gentlemen, let me congratulate you, Sysoev has come!"

The school teachers were already crowding round the table and eating the starters. Sysoev frowned; he was displeased that his colleagues had begun to eat and drink without waiting for him. He noticed among them the man who had read the passage at the examination, and going up to him, began:

"You didn't behave like a colleague! No! Gentlemen don't read like that!"

"Are you still complaining about that?" said the head teacher of the neighbouring school, and he frowned. "Aren't you sick of it?"

"Yes, still complaining! My Babkin has never made mistakes! I know why you read like that. You simply wanted my students to score badly, so that your school might seem better than mine. I know all about it!..."

"Why are you trying to have an argument?" the other head teacher asked. "Why are you bothering me?"

"Come, gentlemen," interrupted the inspector, making an unhappy face. "Is it worth getting so angry over something so small? Three mistakes... not one mistake... does it matter?"

"Yes, it does matter. Babkin has never made mistakes."

"He won't stop," the other head teacher went on. "He uses his position as an invalid and worries us all. Well, sir, I'm not going to consider your illness."

"Leave my illness alone!" cried Sysoev, angrily. "What's it got to do with you? They all keep repeating it at me: illness, illness, illness!... I don't need your sympathy! Besides, where have you got the idea that I'm ill? I was ill before the exams, that's true, but now I've completely recovered but am just a little weak."

"You've recovered. You should be so happy, but you're so annoyed."

Eventually, they got him to relax and sit down at the table. He was a long time making up his mind what to eat; then he chose an egg with onion on it. At the first mouthful, it seemed to him that there was no salt on it. But when he had put some on, he pushed it away again as the egg was now too salty. At dinner Sysoev sat between the inspector and Bruni. After the first course, as always, the speeches began.

"It's my pleasant duty," the inspector began, "to thank the factory owners who finance the school but can't be here tonight, Daniel and... and... and..."

"And Ivan," Bruni prompted him.

"And Ivan Kulikin, who spend so much money on the school."

"For my part," said Bruni, jumping up, "I'd like to thank the inspector of primary schools!"

Chairs were pushed back and faces smiled. The third speech was always Sysoev's. And he got up and began to speak. Looking serious, he first of all announced that he hadn't got a talent for speeches and that he would not make a long one. Then he said that during the fourteen years that he had taught there, there had been many intrigues and even secret reports about him to the authorities, and that he knew his enemies and those who complained against him, but he would not mention their names, 'because he was afraid of spoiling their dinners'; that in spite of all that gossip, the Kulikin school held the first place in the area because of the character of the boys and their excellent grades."

"Everywhere else," he said, "school teachers get two hundred or three hundred roubles, while I get five hundred, and, what's more, my house has been redecorated and even furnished at the company's expense. And this year all the walls have been repainted..."

The head teacher then talked about the students getting free pens and paper in the factory schools. And, in his opinion, the school owed all this not to the heads of the company, who lived abroad and did not really know anything about the school, but to a man who, in spite of his German origin, was a Russian at heart. Sysoev spoke at length, with pauses to get his breath, and his speech was boring and nasty. Several times, he mentioned his enemies, he repeated himself and coughed continuously. At last he was very tired and sweating and talked with difficulty, in a low voice like he was talking to himself, and finished his speech very unclearly: "And so I thank Adolf Bruni, who is here with us... generally speaking... you understand..."

When he finished, everyone gave a faint sigh, as though someone had changed the air. Only Bruni did not feel unhappy. Smiling, the German shook Sysoev's hand with feeling and was again as friendly as a dog.

"Oh, thank-you," he said, laying his left hand on his heart. "I am very happy that you understand me! With all my heart, I wish you the best. But I should also say that you exaggerate my importance. The school owes its excellence only to you, my friend, Sysoev. It's only because of you that it's different from other schools! You think the German is complimenting you, the German is saying something polite. Ha-ha! No, my dear Sysoev, I am an honest man and never pay compliments. If we pay you five hundred roubles a year it is because you are valued. Isn't that so? Gentlemen, it's true, isn't it? We wouldn't pay anyone else so much!"

"I must say that your school is really excellent," said the inspector. "I've never seen another like it in my life. As I sat in the examination I was full of admiration... Wonderful children! They know a great deal and answer cleverly, and at the same time they are somehow special, honest... Everyone can see that they love you, Sysoev. You must have been born a teacher. You have all the gifts - vocation, long experience, and love for your work... It's simply amazing, considering your poor health, what energy, what understanding... what confidence you have!"

And everyone present at the dinner began talking of Sysoev's extraordinary talent.

Sysoev's speech and his bad temper and the spiteful look on his face were all forgotten. Everyone talked freely, even the shy new teachers, poverty-stricken youths who never spoke to the inspector without addressing him as 'sir.' It was clear that Sysoev was a person of importance. As he had been used to success for the fourteen years that he had been head teacher, he listened carelessly to the noisy enthusiasm of his teachers.

It was Bruni who listened to the praise instead of the head teacher. The German caught every word, smiled, and clapped his hands as if the praise was not about the head teacher but about him.

"Bravo! bravo!" he shouted. "That's true! You have understood my meaning!... Excellent!..." He looked into the head teacher's eyes as if he wanted to share his happiness with him. At last he could control himself no longer. He jumped up, and, shouting over all the other voices, said:

"Gentlemen! Allow me to speak! Sh-h! To everything you have said, I can make only one reply: the management will not forget what it owes to Sysoev!..."

Everyone was silent. Sysoev raised his eyes to the German's rosy face.

"We know how to value it," Bruni went on, speaking more quietly. "I should tell you that... Sysoev's family will be looked after and that money for that reason was placed in the bank a month ago."

Sysoev looked with surprise at the German, at his colleagues, as if he could not understand why his family should be cared for and not himself. And at once on all the faces, in all the motionless eyes looking at him, he read not the sympathy but something else, something soft but at the same time extremely dark, like a terrible truth, something which immediately made him cold all over and filled him with despair. With a pale face he suddenly jumped up and held his head. For a quarter of a minute he stood like that, stared with horror before him, like he saw his own death, then sat down and burst into tears.

"Come, come!... What is it?" he heard worried voices saying.

"Water, drink a little water!"

A short time passed and the head teacher grew calmer, but the party did not become lively again. The dinner ended in miserable silence, and much earlier than usual.

When he got home Sysoev first looked at himself in the mirror.

"Of course there was no need for me to cry like that!" he thought, looking at his wrinkled cheeks and his eyes with dark rings under them. "My face is a much better colour today than yesterday. My cough is only a cold."

He slowly began undressing, and spent a long time brushing his new black suit, then carefully put it in the wardrobe. Then he went up to the table where there were his students' notebooks, and taking Babkin's, sat down and started thinking about the beautiful childish handwriting...

And, in the meantime, while he was examining the notebooks, the local doctor was sitting in the next room and telling his wife in a whisper that a man who had no more than a week to live should not go out for dinner.