Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - Sidor ...
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
Below is the raw OCR text
from the above scanned image.
Do you see an error? Proofread the page now!
Här nedan syns maskintolkade texten från faksimilbilden ovan.
Ser du något fel? Korrekturläs sidan nu!
This page has never been proofread. / Denna sida har aldrig korrekturlästs.
48
SÖNYA KOVALÉVSKY
Then for the first time father divines what is the
matter.
"Ah, ah! you have been naughty again, of course,"
he says, trying to communicate to his voice as stern
an intonation as possible. " Come, tell your story.
What have you been doing ? "
And I, with sobs and breaks, begin my
denunciation of myself.
My father listens in an absent-minded way to my
confession. His ideas of education are very
elementary, and the whole of pedagogy he puts under the
rubric of woman’s, not man’s, business. Naturally he
does not even suspect what a complicated inner world
has formed within the head of that little girl who now
stands before him and awaits his sentence. Occupied
with his " man’s business," he has not observed that I
have gradually grown up from the chubby child that
I was five years ago. He evidently finds himself in
difficulties as to what he shall say to me; how he
ought to act in the case presented to him. My
misdemeanor seems to him of small importance, but he is
a firm believer in the necessity of sternness in the
rearing of children. He is vexed at heart at the governess,
because she has not known how to settle so trivial a
matter herself, instead of sending me to him; but he
is bound to exhibit his authority now that his
intervention has been invoked. Therefore, in order not to
diminish his authority, he endeavors to assume a look
of severity and disapproval.
" What a horrid, naughty little girl you are. I am
very much displeased with you," he says, and pauses
because he does not know what else to say. "Go,
stand in the corner," he pronounces judgment at last,
because, out of all his pedagogic wisdom, his memory
has retained nothing beyond the fact that naughty
children are made to stand in the corner.
<< prev. page << föreg. sida << >> nästa sida >> next page >>
