So it was once, but now lecturing is sheer agony. Not half an hour has passed before I feel intolerable weakness in legs and shoulders. I sit in an arm-chair—but I'm not accustomed to lecture sitting do^n. I stand up a minute later, and carry on standing—but then sit down again. My mouth feels dry, my voice grows husky, my head reels.
To conceal my condition from the audience, I keep drinking water, I cough, I frequently blow my nose as ifl had a cold, I make random jokes, and I end up announcing the break before time. But my main feeling is one of shame.
Conscience and reason tell me that my best course would now be to deliver the boys a farewell lecture, say my last words to them, give them my blessing, and yield my post to a younger and stronger man. But, as God is my judge, I lack the courage to obey my conscience.
Unluckily I'm neither philosopher nor theologian. I'm perfectly well aware that I have less than six months to live. My main concern should now be with the shades beyond the grave, one might suppose—with the ghosts which will haunt my entombed slumbers. Dut somehow my heart rejects these issues, though my mind recognizes their full import. On the brink of death my interests arc just the same now as they were twenty or thirty years ago—purely scientific and scholarly.
Even at my last gasp I shall still believe that learning is the most important, splendid and vital thing in man's life, that it always has been and always will be the highest manifestation of love, and that it alone can enable man to conquer nature and himself. Though the belief may be naive and based on incorrect premisses, it's not my fault if I hold this faith and no other. Nor can I shake this conviction within me.
But this is beside the point. I only want people to indulge my weakness, and realize that if a man's more interested in the fate of the bone medulla than in the ultimate goal of creation, then to deprive him of his professorial chair and pupils would be like taking him and nailing him in his coffin without waiting for his death.
My insomnia, and the strain of fighting my increasing weakness, have caused a strange thing to happen to me. In the middle of a lecture tears suddenly choke me, my eyes begin smarting, and I feel a furious, hysterical urge to stretch forth my arms and complain aloud. I want to cry aloud that fate has sentenced me, a famous man, to capital punishment, that within six months someone else will be officiating in this lecture theatre. I want to shout that I've been poisoned. New thoughts, hitherto unfamiliar, have been blighting the last days of my life, and they continue to^ sting my brain like mosquitoes. Meanwhile my situation seems so appalling that I want all members ofmy audience to leap from their seats in terror and rush panic-stricken to the exit with screams of despair.
Such moments are not easily endured.
II
After the lecture I stay at home working. I readjournals and academic theses, or prepare my next lecture. Sometimes I write. I work in fits and starts because I have to receive visitors.
My bell rings. A colleague has come to discuss some professional matter. Entering my room with his hat and stick, he thrusts both at me.
'I'll only be a minute, only a minute,' says he. 'Don't get up, dear colleague, I only want a couple ofwords.'
Our first concern is to demonstrate how extremely courteous we both are, and how delighted to see each other. I sit him in an arm-chair, he asks me to sit too. Meanwhile we're cautiously stroking each others' waists, touching each others' buttons, and seem to be feeling each other over as if afraid of burning our fingers. We both laugh, though our remarks are devoid of humour. Once seated, we incline our heads towards each other, and speak in subdued tones. However affectionately disposed we may be towards each other, we can't help embellishing our speech with all manner of mumbo-jumbo like 'as you so justly deigned to observe', or 'I have already had the honour to inform you'. And we can't help laughing aloud if one of us makes a joke, however poor. His business completed, my colleague stands up jerkily, and begins saying good-bye with a wave of his hat in the direction of my work. Again we finger each other, again we laugh. I see him out into the hall. Here I help him on with his coat, while he makes every effort to evade so high an honour. Then, when Yegor opens the door, my colleague assures me that I shall catch cold, while I pretend that I'm ready to escort him into the street, even. And when I get back to my study at last, my face still smiles—through inertia, no doubt.
A little later the bell rings again. Someone comes into the hall and spends some time removing his coat and coughing. Yegor announces a student.
'Ask him in,' say I.
A little later a well-favoured young man comes in. Our relations have been strained for the last twelve months. He makes a frightful hash of his examinations, so I give him the lowest mark. Each year I always have half a dozen of these young hopefuls whom I fail—or 'plough', in student parlance. Most of those who fail an examination through incompetence or illness bear their cross patiently, they don't bargain with me. The only ones to bargain and visit my home are gay, ^^^bited spirits who find that the examination grind spoils their appetite and prevents them visiting the opera regularly. The first sort I spare, the second I go on 'ploughing' throughout the year.
'Sit downwn,' I tell my visitor. 'Now, what can I do for you?'
'Sorry to disturb you, Professor,' he begins haltingly, not looking
me in the eye. 'I wouldn't venture to bother you ifl, er . I've taken
your examination five times now and, er, have ploughed. I beg you, please pass me because, er '
All idlers defend themselves with the same argument. They have passed with distinction in all other subjects, they have only failed mine —which is all the more amazing because they've always studied my subject so industriously, and know it inside out. Their failure is due to some mysterious misunderstanding.
'I'm sorry, friend,' I tell my visitor, 'but I can't pass you. Go and read your lecture notes again, then come back—and we'll see about it.'
There is a pause. I feel the urge to torment the student a little for lo^Bg beer and opera more than learning.
'Your best course,' I sigh, 'is to give up medicine altogether, I thinkhink If you, with your ability, can't get through your examination, you obviously don't want to be a doctor, and you've no vocation for it either.'
The young hopeful's face lengthens.
'I'm sorry, Professor,' he smiles. 'But that would be a bit odd, to put it mildly—study five years, and then suddenly throw it all up!'
'Oh, I don't know—better lose five years than spend the rest ofyour life doing a job you dislike.'
But then I immediately feel sorry for him.
'All right, suit yourself,' I hasten to add. 'Do a bit more reading, then, and come along again.'
'When?' asks the idler in a hollow voice.
'When you like—tomorrow would do.'
'Corne I may,' his good-natured eyes seem to tell me, 'but you'U only plough me again, you swine!'
'Ifl examine you fifteen times over,' I tell him, 'it still won't make you any more learned, that's obvious. But it will train your character, and that's at least something.'
Silence ensues while I get up and wait for my visitor to leave, but he stands looking at the window, plucking at his beard and t^^^g. This grows tedious.
Our young hopeful's voice is pleasantly fruity, his eyes are alert and sardonic, his face is complacent and somewhat the worse for wear from too much beer-drinking and lolling on his sofa. He would obviously have a lot to say about the opera, his love affairs and his student friends. But it's not done to discuss such things, unfortunately, much as I'd like to hear about them.
'On my word of honour, Professor, if you pass me I'll, er '
When we arrive at that 'word ofhonour', I make gestures of despair and sit downwn at my desk, while the student spends another minute in thought.