Seriosha was extremely captivating.  His face and eyes glowed with laughter as he surprised us with tricks which we had never seen before.  He jumped over three chairs put together, turned somersaults right across the room, and finally stood on his head on a pyramid of Tatistchev’s dictionaries, moving his legs about with such comical rapidity that it was impossible not to help bursting with merriment.

After this last trick he pondered for a moment (blinking his eyes as usual), and then went up to Ilinka with a very serious face.

“Try and do that,” he said.  “It is not really difficult.”

Ilinka, observing that the general attention was fixed upon him, blushed, and said in an almost inaudible voice that he could not do the feat.

“Well, what does he mean by doing nothing at all?  What a girl the fellow is!  He has just got to stand on his head,” and Seriosha, took him by the hand.

“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.