In death, of which they talked to him so often, Seryozha
disbelieved entirely. He did not believe that those he loved
could die, above all that he himself would die. That was to him
something utterly inconceivable and impossible. But he had been
told that all men die; he had asked people, indeed, whom he
trusted, and they too, had confirmed it; his old nurse, too, said
the same, though reluctantly. But Enoch had not died, and so it
followed that everyone did not die. "And why cannot anyone else
so serve God and be taken alive to heaven?" thought Seryozha.
Bad people, that is those Seryozha did not like, they might die,
but the good might all be like Enoch.
"Well, what are the names of the patriarchs?"
"Enoch, Enos--"
"But you have said that already. This is bad, Seryozha, very
bad. If you don't try to learn what is more necessary than
anything for a Christian," said his father, getting up, "whatever
can interest you? I am displeased with you, and Piotr Ignatitch"
(this was the most important of his teachers) "is displeased with
you.... I shall have to punish you."
His father and his teacher were both displeased with Seryozha,
and he certainly did learn his lessons very badly. But still it
could not be said he was a stupid boy. On the contrary, he was
far cleverer than the boys his teacher held up as examples to
Seryozha. In his father's opinion, he did not want to learn what
he was taught. In reality he could not learn that. He could
not, because the claims of his own soul were more binding on him
than those claims his father and his teacher made upon him.
Those claims were in opposition, and he was in direct conflict
with his education. He was nine years old; he was a child; but
he knew his own soul, it was precious to him, he guarded it as
the eyelid guards the eye, and without the key of love he let no
one into his soul. His teachers complained that he would not
learn, while his soul was brimming over with thirst for
knowledge. And he learned from Kapitonitch, from his nurse, from
Nadinka, from Vassily Lukitch, but not from his teachers. The
spring his father and his teachers reckoned upon to turn their
mill-wheels had long dried up at the source, but its waters did
their work in another channel.
His father punished Seryozha by not letting him go to see
Nadinka, Lidia Ivanovna's niece; but this punishment turned out
happily for Seryozha. Vassily Lukitch was in a good humor, and
showed him how to make windmills. The whole evening passed over
this work and in dreaming how to make a windmill on which he
could turn himself--clutching at the sails or tying himself on
and whirling round. Of his mother Seryozha did not think all the
evening, but when he had gone to bed, he suddenly remembered her,
and prayed in his own words that his mother tomorrow for his
birthday might leave off hiding herself and come to him.