第32章

"Yes, on your head at once! This instant, this instant!" every one shouted as we ran upon Ilinka and dragged him to the dictionaries, despite his being visibly pale and frightened.

"Leave me alone! You are tearing my jacket!" cried the unhappy victim, but his exclamations of despair only encouraged us the more. We were dying with laughter, while the green jacket was bursting at every seam.

Woloda and the eldest Iwin took his head and placed it on the dictionaries, while Seriosha, and I seized his poor, thin legs (his struggles had stripped them upwards to the knees), and with boisterous, laughter held them uptight--the youngest Iwin superintending his general equilibrium.

Suddenly a moment of silence occurred amid our boisterous laughter--a moment during which nothing was to be heard in the room but the panting of the miserable Ilinka. It occurred to me at that moment that, after all, there was nothing so very comical and pleasant in all this.

"Now, THAT'S a boy!" cried Seriosha, giving Ilinka a smack with his hand. Ilinka said nothing, but made such desperate movements with his legs to free himself that his foot suddenly kicked Seriosha in the eye: with the result that, letting go of Ilinka's leg and covering the wounded member with one hand, Seriosha hit out at him with all his might with the other one. Of course Ilinka's legs slipped down as, sinking exhausted to the floor and half-suffocated with tears, he stammered out:

"Why should you bully me so?"

The poor fellow's miserable figure, with its streaming tears, ruffled hair, and crumpled trousers revealing dirty boots, touched us a little, and we stood silent and trying to smile, Seriosha was the first to recover himself.

"What a girl! What a gaby!" he said, giving Ilinka a slight kick. "He can't take things in fun a bit. Well, get up, then."

"You are an utter beast! That's what YOU are!" said Ilinka, turning miserably away and sobbing.

"Oh, oh! Would it still kick and show temper, then?" cried Seriosha, seizing a dictionary and throwing it at the unfortunate boy's head. Apparently it never occurred to Ilinka to take refuge from the missile; he merely guarded his head with his hands.

"Well, that's enough now," added Seriosha, with a forced laugh.

"You DESERVE to be hurt if you can't take things in fun. Now let's go downstairs."

I could not help looking with some compassion at the miserable creature on the floor as, his face buried in the dictionary, he lay there sobbing almost as though he were in a fit.

"Oh, Sergius!" I said. "Why have you done this?"

"Well, you did it too! Besides, I did not cry this afternoon when I knocked my leg and nearly broke it."

"True enough," I thought. "Ilinka is a poor whining sort of a chap, while Seriosha is a boy--a REAL boy."

It never occurred to my mind that possibly poor Ilinka was suffering far less from bodily pain than from the thought that five companions for whom he may have felt a genuine liking had, for no reason at all, combined to hurt and humiliate him.

I cannot explain my cruelty on this occasion. Why did I not step forward to comfort and protect him? Where was the pitifulness which often made me burst into tears at the sight of a young bird fallen from its nest, or of a puppy being thrown over a wall, or of a chicken being killed by the cook for soup?

Can it be that the better instinct in me was overshadowed by my affection for Seriosha and the desire to shine before so brave a boy? If so, how contemptible were both the affection and the desire! They alone form dark spots on the pages of my youthful recollections.