He had stolen twenty copper kopeks from the teacher's room, and they had caught him as he was hiding the money under the stairs.
Again we decorated him with the placard; again began the same ugly scene. I gave him a lecture, as all disciplinarians are accustomed to do. Now there happened to be present a grown-up boy, a chatterer, and he began to lecture him, repeating words such as he had unquestionably heard from his father, who was a farmer.[1]
"He has stolen once, he has stolen twice," he said in a clear and deliberate voice. "It has become a habit; it won't do any good."
I began to grow vexed. I felt almost angry against the thief.
But as I looked into the culprit's face, which was more pale, wretched, passionate, and hard than ever, I seemed to see the face of a convict, and it suddenly appeared to me so wrong and odious, that I took off the stupid placard; I told him to go wherever he pleased, and I suddenly felt the conviction—felt it, not through my intellect, but in my whole being—that I had no right to punish this unhappy lad, and that it was not in my power to make of him what I and the dvornik's son might like to make of him. I felt a conviction that there are soul-secrets hidden from us on which life, but not regulations and punishments, may act.
And what nonsense! A boy had stolen a book,—by what a long, complicated process of feelings, thoughts, mistaken judgments he was induced to take a book that did not belong to him!—and hid it in his box, and I fasten to him a tag with the word "THIEF" on it, which means something entirely different.
Why?
To punish him by making him ashamed, some one will say.
Why? What is shame? And have I any proof that that shame will put an end to his inclination to steal?
- ↑ Dvornik, generally one who serves in a dvor; also house-porter. Here, one who occupies a dvor, including house and land.
