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Voinitsin resigned himself to his fate, took a paper, showed the number on it, and went and sat down by the window, while his predecessor was answering his question. At the window Voinitsin never took his eyes off his paper, except that at times he looked slowly round as before, though he did not move a muscle.
He never, of course, touched a book, and the next day the same story was repeated. So this was the Voinitsin who joined me. We talked about Moscow, about sport. 'Would you like me, he whispered to me suddenly, 'to introduce you to the first wit of these parts? 'If you will be so kind.
Beside him stood a country gentleman, broad, soft, and sweet a veritable sugar-and-honey mixture with one eye. He laughed in anticipation at the witticisms of the little man, and seemed positively melting with delight. Voinitsin presented me to the wit, whose name was Piotr Petrovitch Lupihin. We were introduced and exchanged the preliminary civilities.
I was beginning, however, to feel bored, when suddenly I was joined by a young man, one Voinitsin by name, a student without a degree, who resided in the house of Alexandr Mihalitch in the capacity of...it would be hard to say precisely, of what. He was a first-rate shot, and could train dogs. I had known him before in Moscow.
Voinitsin led me up to a little man, with a high tuft of hair on his forehead and moustaches, in a cinnamon-coloured frock-coat and striped cravat. His yellow, mobile features were certainly full of cleverness and sarcasm. His lips were perpetually curved in a flitting ironical smile; little black eyes, screwed up with an impudent expression, looked out from under uneven lashes.
'Well, now, your answer, please, the same professor remarks languidly, throwing himself backwards, and crossing his arms over his breast. There reigns the silence of the tomb. 'Why are you silent? Voinitsin is mute. The assistant-examiner begins to be restive. 'Well, say something! Voinitsin is as still as if he were dead.
'Take a paper, please, the professor would say to him pleasantly. Voinitsin would stretch out his hand, and with trembling fingers fumble at the pile of papers. 'No selecting, if you please, observed, in a jarring voice, an assistant-examiner, an irritable old gentleman, a professor in some other faculty, conceiving a sudden hatred for the unlucky bearded one.
Come, don't you know it? if so, say so. 'Let me take another question, the luckless youth articulates thickly. The professors look at one another. Well, take one, the head-examiner answers, with a wave of the hand. Voinitsin again takes a paper, again goes to the window, again returns to the table, and again is silent as the grave. The assistant-examiner is capable of devouring him alive.
He was one of those young men who at every examination 'played at dumb-show, that is to say, did not answer a single word to the professor's questions. Voinitsin, who had sat upright and motionless in his place, bathed in a hot perspiration from head to foot, slowly and aimlessly looked about him, got up, hurriedly buttoned up his undergraduate's uniform, and edged up to the examiner's table.
All his companions gaze inquisitively at the back of his thick, close-cropped, motionless head. The assistant-examiner's eyes are almost starting out of his head; he positively hates Voinitsin. 'Well, this is strange, really, observes the other examiner. 'Why do you stand as if you were dumb?
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