“What is . . . what is it?” he asks.

“And you ask that?” the man of learning clasps his hands.  “You know how precious time is to me, and you are so late.  You are two hours late! . . .  Have you no fear of God?”

“I haven’t come straight from home,” mutters Ivan Matveyitch, untying his scarf irresolutely.  “I have been at my aunt’s name-day party, and my aunt lives five miles away. . . .  If I had come straight from home, then it would have been a different thing.”

“Come, reflect, Ivan Matveyitch, is there any logic in your conduct?  Here you have work to do, work at a fixed time, and you go flying off after name-day parties and aunts!  But do make haste and undo your wretched scarf!  It’s beyond endurance, really!”

The man of learning dashes up to the amanuensis again and helps him to disentangle his scarf.

“You are done up like a peasant woman, . . .  Come along, . . .  Please make haste!”

Blowing his nose in a dirty, crumpled-up handkerchief and pulling down his grey reefer jacket, Ivan Matveyitch goes through the hall and the drawing-room to the study.  There a place and paper and even cigarettes had been put ready for him long ago.

“Sit down, sit down,” the man of learning urges him on, rubbing his hands impatiently.  “You are an unsufferable person. . . .  You know the work has to be finished by a certain time, and then you are so late.  One is forced to scold you.  Come, write, . . .  Where did we stop?”

Ivan Matveyitch smooths his bristling cropped hair and takes up his pen.  The man of learning walks up and down the room, concentrates himself, and begins to dictate: 

“The fact is . . . comma . . . that so to speak fundamental forms . . . have you written it? . . . forms are conditioned entirely by the essential nature of those principles . . . comma . . . which find in them their expression and can only be embodied in them . . . .  New line, . . .  There’s a stop there, of course. . . .  More independence is found . . . is found . . . by the forms which have not so much a political . . . comma . . . as a social character . .”

“The high-school boys have a different uniform now . . . a grey one,” said Ivan Matveyitch, “when I was at school it was better:  they used to wear regular uniforms.”

“Oh dear, write please!” says the man of learning wrathfully.  “Character . . . have you written it?  Speaking of the forms relating to the organization . . . of administrative functions, and not to the regulation of the life of the people . . . comma . . . it cannot be said that they are marked by the nationalism of their forms . . . the last three words in inverted commas. . . .  Aie, aie . . . tut, tut . . . so what did you want to say about the high school?”

“That they used to wear a different uniform in my time.”

“Aha! . . . indeed, . . .  Is it long since you left the high school?”