"You know papa's received the Alexander Nevsky today?"
"To be sure I do! People have been already to congratulate him."
"And is he glad?"
"Glad at the Tsar's gracious favor! I should think so! It's a
proof he's deserved it," said the porter severely and seriously.
Seryozha fell to dreaming, gazing up at the face of the porter,
which he had thoroughly studied in every detail, especially the
chin that hung down between the gray whiskers, never seen by
anyone but Seryozha, who saw him only from below.
"Well, and has your daughter been to see you lately?"
The porter's daughter was a ballet dancer.
"When is she to come on week-days? They've their lessons to
learn too. And you've your lesson, sir; run along."
On coming into the room, Seryozha, instead of sitting down to his
lessons, told his tutor of his supposition that what had been
brought him must be a machine. "What do you think?" he inquired.
But Vassily Lukitch was thinking of nothing but the necessity of
learning the grammar lesson for the teacher, who was coming at
two.
"No, do just tell me, Vassily Lukitch," he asked suddenly, when
he was seated at their work table with the book in his hands,
"what is greater than the Alexander Nevsky? You know papa's
received the Alexander Nevsky?"
Vassily Lukitch replied that the Vladimir was greater than the
Alexander Nevsky.
"And higher still?"
"Well, highest of all is the Andrey Pervozvanny."
"And higher than the Andrey?"
"I don't know."
"What, you don't know?" and Seryozha, leaning on his elbows, sank
into deep meditation.
His meditations were of the most complex and diverse character.
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 immediately 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 positively 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.