13 labors of hercules that can be written. The thirteenth labor of Hercules. "13 feat of Hercules" main characters

All the mathematicians that I had to meet in school and after school were slovenly people, weak-willed and quite brilliant. So the statement that Pythagorean pants are supposedly equal in all directions is hardly absolutely accurate.

Perhaps this was the case with Pythagoras himself, but his followers probably forgot about this and paid little attention to their appearance.

And yet there was one mathematician in our school who was different from all the others. He could not be called weak-willed, much less slovenly. I do not know if he was a genius - now it is difficult to establish. I think it most likely was.

His name was Kharlampy Diogenovich. Like Pythagoras, he was of Greek origin. He appeared in our class since the new school year. Before that, we had not heard of him and did not even know that such mathematicians could exist.

He immediately established exemplary silence in our class. The silence was so terrible that sometimes the director frightenedly opened the door, because he could not understand whether we were still there or had fled to the stadium.

The stadium was located next to the school yard and constantly, especially during big competitions, interfered with the pedagogical process. The director even wrote somewhere to be moved to another place. He said that the stadium made schoolchildren nervous. In fact, it was not the stadium that made us nervous, but the stadium commandant, Uncle Vasya, who unmistakably recognized us, even if we were without books, and drove us out of there with anger that did not fade over the years.

Fortunately, our director was not obeyed and the stadium was left in place, only the wooden fence was replaced with a stone one. So now those who used to look at the stadium through the cracks in the wooden fence had to climb over.

Nevertheless, our director was in vain afraid that we might run away from the mathematics lesson. It was unthinkable. It was like going up to the director at recess and silently throwing off his hat, although everyone was pretty tired of it. He always, both in winter and summer, wore the same hat, evergreen, like a magnolia. And I was always afraid of something.

From the outside, it might seem that he was most afraid of the commission from the city department, in fact, he was most afraid of our head teacher. It was a demonic woman. Someday I will write a Byronian poem about her, but now I am talking about something else.

Of course, there was no way we could escape from the math lesson. If we ever skipped class at all, it was usually singing class.

It used to happen that as soon as our Kharlampy Diogenovich entered the class, everyone immediately calmed down, and so on until the very end of the lesson. True, sometimes he made us laugh, but it was not spontaneous laughter, but fun organized from above by the teacher himself. It did not violate discipline, but served it, as in geometry proof of the contrary.

It happened like this. Say, another student is a little late for the lesson, well, about half a second after the bell, and Kharlampy Diogenovich is already entering the door. The poor student is ready to fall through the floor. Maybe it would have failed if there hadn't been a teacher's room right under our classroom.

Some teacher will not pay attention to such a trifle, another will scold him in the heat of the moment, but not Kharlampy Diogenovich. On such occasions he would stop at the door, shift the magazine from hand to hand, and, with a gesture of respect for the student's personality, point to the passage.

The student hesitates, his bewildered physiognomy expresses a desire to slip through the door somehow more discreetly after the teacher. But the face of Kharlampy Diogenovich expresses joyful hospitality, restrained by decency and understanding of the unusualness of this moment. He makes it clear that the very appearance of such a student is the rarest holiday for our class and personally for him, Kharlampy Diogenovich, that no one expected him, and since he has come, no one will dare to reproach him for this little delay, especially since he, modest a teacher who, of course, will enter the classroom after such a wonderful student and will close the door behind him as a sign that the dear guest will not be released soon.

All this lasts a few seconds, and finally the student, awkwardly squeezing through the door, stumbles to his place.

Kharlampy Diogenovich looks after him and says something magnificent. For example:

Prince of Wales.

The class is laughing. And although we do not know who the Prince of Wales is, we understand that he cannot appear in our class. He simply has nothing to do here, because the princes are mainly engaged in deer hunting. And if he gets tired of hunting for his deer and he wants to visit some school, then he will definitely be taken to the first school, which is near the power plant. Because she is exemplary. As a last resort, if he had taken it into his head to come to us, we would have been warned long ago and prepared the class for his arrival.

That's why we laughed, realizing that our student could not possibly be a prince, let alone some kind of Wales.

But here Kharlampy Diogenovich sits down. The class is instantly silent. The lesson starts.

Large-headed, short, neatly dressed, carefully shaven, he imperiously and calmly held the class in his hands. In addition to the journal, he had a notebook where he entered something after the survey. I don't remember him yelling at anyone, or persuading anyone to study, or threatening to call his parents to school. All these things were of no use to him.

During the tests, he did not even think of running between the rows, looking into the desks, or vigilantly tossing his head there at every rustle, as others did. No, he calmly read something to himself, or fingered a rosary with beads as yellow as cat's eyes.

It was almost useless to copy from him, because he immediately recognized the copied work and began to ridicule it. So we wrote off only as a last resort, if there was no way out.

It happened that during the test work he would tear himself away from his rosary or book and say:

Sakharov, please move to Avdeenko's.

Sakharov gets up and looks at Kharlampy Diogenovich questioningly. He does not understand why he, an excellent student, should change to Avdeenko, who is a poor student.

Have pity on Avdeenko, he might break his neck.

Avdeenko looks blankly at Kharlampy Diogenovich, as if not understanding, or perhaps not really understanding, why he can break his neck.

Avdeenko thinks he is a swan, Kharlampy Diogenovich explains. “The black swan,” he adds after a moment, hinting at Avdeenko's tanned, sullen face. - Sakharov, you can continue, - says Kharlampy Diogenovich.

Sakharov sits down.

And you, too, - he turns to Avdeenko, but something in his voice has barely perceptibly shifted. A well-measured dose of mockery poured into him. - ... Unless, of course, you break your neck ... a black swan! - he firmly concludes, as if expressing a courageous hope that Alexander Avdeenko will find the strength to work independently.

Shurik Avdeenko sits, furiously leaning over the notebook, showing the powerful efforts of the mind and will thrown into solving the problem.

The main weapon of Kharlampy Diogenovich is to make a person funny. A student who deviates from school rules is not a lazy person, not a lazybones, not a bully, but just a funny person. Or rather, not just funny, perhaps many would agree to this, but some kind of offensively funny. Funny, not realizing that he is funny, or the last to know about it.

And when the teacher makes you look ridiculous, the mutual responsibility of the students immediately breaks up, and the whole class laughs at you. Everyone laughs against one. If one person laughs at you, you can deal with it somehow. But it is impossible to make the whole class laugh. And if you turned out to be funny, I wanted to prove at all costs that, although you are funny, but not so completely ridiculous.

I must say that Kharlampy Diogenovich did not give anyone privileges. Anyone could be funny. Of course, I also did not escape the common fate.

On that day, I did not solve the problem given at home. There was something about an artillery shell that flies somewhere at some speed and for some time. It was necessary to find out how many kilometers he would fly if he flew at a different speed and almost in a different direction.

In general, the task was somehow confusing and stupid. My answer didn't match up. And by the way, in the problem books of those years, probably because of pests, the answers were sometimes incorrect. True, very rarely, because by that time almost all of them had been caught. But, apparently, someone else was operating in the wild.

But I still had some doubts. Pests are pests, but, as they say, do not make a mistake yourself.

So the next day I came to school an hour before class. We studied on the second shift. The most avid players were already in place. I asked one of them about the problem, it turned out that he did not solve it either. My conscience was completely at peace. We split into two teams and played until the bell rang.

And so we enter the classroom. Barely catching my breath, just in case, I ask the excellent student Sakharov:

Well, how is the task?

Nothing, he says, decided. At the same time, he briefly and significantly nodded his head in the sense that there were difficulties, but we overcame them.

How did you decide if the answer is wrong?

Correct, - he nods his head to me with such disgusting confidence on his intelligent, conscientious face that I immediately hated him for his well-being, although well-deserved, but all the more unpleasant. I still wanted to doubt, but he turned away, taking away from me the last consolation of the falling: to clutch at the air with my hands.

It turns out that at that time Kharlampy Diogenovich appeared at the door, but I did not notice him and continued to gesticulate, although he was standing almost next to me. Finally, I guessed what was the matter, slammed the problem book shut in fright, and froze.

Kharlampy Diogenovich went to the place.

I was frightened and scolded myself for first agreeing with the football player that the task was wrong, and then disagreeing with the excellent student that it was correct. And now Kharlampy Diogenovich probably noticed my excitement and will be the first to call me.

Year of publication of the story: 1964

The story "The thirteenth feat of Hercules" was written in 1964. The work is included in the story "School Waltz, or the Energy of Shame" and is largely autobiographical. The story, along with the whole story, occupies a worthy place among readers and is deservedly included in the school curriculum.

The story "The thirteenth feat of Hercules" summary

At the beginning of the story “The Thirteenth Feat of Hercules,” we can read that all the mathematics teachers with whom the narrator was familiar did not have special accuracy and, despite all their genius, were rather weak-willed people. But then one day a new teacher appeared at the school. His name was Kharlampy Diogenovich and by origin he, like Pythagoras, was a Greek. From the very first days of work, he was able to gain authority among his students. There was such silence in his lessons in the classroom that sometimes the director came to check if the children had run away from the lesson to the stadium.

And the students often ran to the stadium. The reason was the watchman Uncle Vasya, whom the children liked to anger with their appearance. The school management even wrote a complaint to the director of the stadium to be moved to some other place so as not to interfere with the educational process. But the complaint was not heard. The only thing that the stadium management did was to replace the wooden fence with a stone one.

Often students went to the stadium skipping singing lessons. But no caretaker Uncle Vasya could force the children to run away from the math lesson. The respect for the teacher was so strong that as soon as Kharlampy Diogenovich entered the classroom, silence reigned there, which lasted until the end of the lesson. Sometimes the teacher diluted the atmosphere in the lesson with some witty joke.

For example, if a student was late for a lesson by a few seconds and ran into Kharlampy Diogenovich at the door, the teacher did not shout or get angry. With a respectful gesture, he invited the latecomer to enter the class, as if hinting that he was letting some important person go ahead. And when a student awkwardly enters the office, the teacher, announcing what kind of important person this was, said something witty. For example:

— The Prince of Wales!

All the children started laughing. They had no idea who this Prince of Wales was, but they knew for sure that the latecomer was not.

Kharlampy Diogenovich was small in stature, always neatly dressed and calm enough. Even during tests, he did not walk around the class, but sat quietly at his desk and read something. And, despite the lack of control, the students rarely cheated. They knew that the teacher would immediately notice such work and ridicule it in front of the whole class.

The main feature of Kharlampy Diogenovich was the ability to make the student look ridiculous in front of everyone. He did not shout, did not call his parents to school, did not get angry at those who had bad grades or bad behavior in the classroom. He made them look funny in front of his classmates. And when everyone started laughing at such a student, he felt ashamed without unnecessary cries and moralizing.

Once the main character of the story had such a fate - to become ridiculous in front of his own friends. The boy did not do his homework. More precisely, he tried to solve the problem about an artillery shell, but the resulting answer did not agree with the one in the problem book itself. When a student came to school, he asked a football classmate if he had succeeded in solving this problem. And, having heard that his answer also did not agree with the one in the book, they decided that the mistake was in the textbook and went to play football. Before the lesson itself, the boy asked the excellent student Sakharov if he had done his homework, and he gave an affirmative answer.

Then the bell rang and Kharlampy Diogenovich entered the classroom. The main character was very afraid that the teacher would feel his excitement and call him to the blackboard. He sat down in his seat. His desk neighbor was Adolf Komarov, who, because of the war, was ashamed of his name and asked everyone to call him Alik. But the kids still sometimes teased him about Hitler.

Further, Iskander's story "The Thirteenth Feat of Hercules" tells how Kharlampy Diogenovich begins the lesson. There was no student on duty in the class and the teacher was waiting for the headman to wipe the blackboard and was about to start the lesson when the nurse entered the class. She asked if 5-A was in this room. Kharlampy Diogenovich sharply answered them that 5-B was sitting here. He understood that the nurse wanted to get vaccinated, but he really did not want the lesson to be disrupted. The nurse and doctor left. Since the main character was sitting near the door, he asked the teacher if he could quickly go out and show the doctor where the 5-A class was. He released the student.

The boy joyfully left the classroom and ran for the doctors. Catching up with the women, he asked if his class would give injections. He was told that paramedics would come to 5-B during the next lesson. But the student lied, saying that just in the next lesson, their entire class is heading to the library. Then the doctor and the nurse decided to come back and vaccinate the 5-A students. The boy was delighted. He suffered from malaria since childhood, suffered many injections and was no longer afraid of them.

They returned to class. Shurik Avdeenko stood near the board and tried to solve the problem about an artillery shell. The doctor announced that she and the nurse were now going to give the whole class vaccinations against typhus. They decided to call the children to the doctors according to the list from the magazine. The first to go was Avdeenko, who had just sat down at his desk. At that time, Alik Komarov waited in horror for his turn. The main character tried to calm him down, but the boy was terrified of injections.

When the time came to give an injection to Komarov, he went to the doctor, as if he were going to hard labor. As soon as the injection was given, the boy suddenly turned white and lost consciousness. Everyone in the class was scared. The doctor seated Alik on a chair, slipped a vial under the boy's nose, and he came to his senses. The boy returned to his place already confidently and businesslike, as if he had not died a few minutes ago.

When the main character was given an injection, he did not even feel it. The doctor praised the boy for his courage and sent him to his place. Still later, injections were given to all the students, the doctors said goodbye and left the office.

Further in the work “13 feat of Hercules” we can read that Kharlampy Diogenovich asked to open the window in order to get rid of the smell of medicines in the classroom. He sat down at the table, took out a rosary and began to sort out one after another the beads from them. The disciples knew that at such moments he was telling something very interesting and instructive.

He began his story with what, according to ancient Greek mythology, was perfect. But now a man appeared who decided to perform the thirteenth feat of the hero. Only in Hercules did all the feats out of courage, and this young man out of cowardice. In Iskander's story, the feat of Hercules, of course, had a metaphorical meaning, since everyone knows that the ancient Greek hero performed only twelve feats.

Further in the short story "The Thirteenth Feat of Hercules" you will learn that the main character suspected something was wrong. Kharlampy Diogenovich called the boy to the blackboard and asked him to solve a home problem. For a long time the main character thought about how to get out of this situation, and at the same time the boy became terribly ashamed. He stood at the blackboard and could not say anything except the phrase "artillery shell." The teacher asked if he had swallowed for an hour this projectile, which he had been talking about for so long. The boy was confused and said that he had swallowed it.

"The 13th feat of Hercules" a summary for the reader's diary will remind you of the events in the story.

"13 feat of Hercules" very brief content

The thirteenth labor of Hercules is a short story written in 1964 by Fazil Iskander.

The story is told in the first person - a fifth grade student.

In the new academic year, a new mathematics teacher appears at the school, the Greek Kharlampy Diogenovich. The mathematician manages to establish “exemplary silence” in the lessons, he intrigued his students by the fact that he never raised his voice, did not force him to study, did not threaten to call his parents to school. Humor was his main weapon. If the student was somehow guilty, Kharlampy Diogenovich joked with him, and the whole class could not help laughing ..

When it came time to write the control, everyone wrote with their minds and did not copy off, because they knew that Kharlampy Diogenovich would immediately figure out the deceiver and, in addition, would laugh.

One day, a student of the 5th “B” class, the main character of the story, without doing his homework, is waiting for the lesson with fear. At the beginning of the lesson, a doctor and a nurse enter the class and vaccinate against typhoid among the students of the school. At first, injections were supposed to be given to the 5-"A" class, and they went to 5-"B" by mistake. The boy decides to take advantage of the opportunity and offers to take them to the 5-"A" class. On the way, he convinces the doctor that it's best to start giving injections from their class. So he wanted to wait until the end of the lesson.

When during the vaccination one of the students of the class became ill, our hero decides to call an ambulance. But the nurse brings the boy to his senses. After the nurse and the doctor left, Kharlampy Diogenovich calls our hero to the board, but he does not cope with the task. The wise teacher tells the class about the 12 exploits of Hercules and says that 13 have now been completed. But Hercules performed his feats out of courage, and the boy performed this feat because of his cowardice.

The hero "became more serious about homework" and thought about the nature of laughter. He realized that laughter helps fight lies, falsehood, deceit; realized that "too afraid to look funny is not very smart, but it's much worse not to be afraid of it at all." That is, any person can be in a ridiculous position, but it’s bad not to understand that you are ridiculous, to be stupid. The hero is grateful to the teacher: with laughter, he “tempered our crafty children’s souls and taught us to treat our own person with a sufficient sense of humor”

Perhaps this was the case with Pythagoras himself, but his followers probably forgot about this and paid little attention to their appearance.

And yet there was one mathematician in our school who was different from all the others. He could not be called weak-willed, much less slovenly. I don't know if he was a genius - now it's hard to establish. I think it most likely was.

Of course, there was no way we could escape from the math lesson. If we ever skipped class at all, it was usually singing class.

It happened like this. Say, another student is a little late for the lesson, well, about half a second after the bell, and Kharlampy Diogenovich is already entering the door.

The poor student is ready to fall through the floor. Maybe it would have failed if there hadn't been a teacher's room right under our classroom.

The student hesitates, his bewildered physiognomy expresses a desire to slip through the door somehow more discreetly after the teacher. But the face of Kharlampy Diogenovich expresses joyful hospitality, restrained by decency and understanding of the unusualness of this moment. He makes it clear that the very appearance of such a student is the rarest holiday for our class and personally for him, Kharlampy Diogenovich, that no one expected him, and since he has already arrived, no one will dare to reproach him for this little delay, especially since he, modest a teacher who, of course, will enter the classroom after such a wonderful student and will close the door behind him as a sign that the dear guest will not be released soon.

All this lasts a few seconds, and finally the student, awkwardly squeezing through the door, stumbles to his place.

Kharlampy Diogenovich looks after him and says something magnificent. For example:

— The Prince of Wales.

That's why we laughed, realizing that our student could not possibly be a prince, let alone some kind of Wales.

But here Kharlampy Diogenovich sits down. The class is instantly silent. The lesson starts.

It was almost useless to copy from him, because he immediately recognized the copied work and began to ridicule it. So we wrote off only as a last resort, if there was no way out.

It happened that during the test work he would tear himself away from his rosary or book and say:

- Sakharov, please sit down with Avdeenko.

Sakharov gets up and looks at Kharlampy Diogenovich questioningly. He does not understand why he, an excellent student, should change to Avdeenko, who is a poor student.

- Have pity on Avdeenko, he can break his neck.

Avdeenko looks blankly at Kharlampy Diogenovich, as if not understanding, or perhaps not really understanding, why he can break his neck.

“Avdeenko thinks he is a swan,” Kharlampy Diogenovich explains. “A black swan,” he adds after a moment, hinting at Avdeenko's tanned, sullen face. “Sakharov, you can continue,” says Kharlampy Diogenovich.

Sakharov sits down.

“And you, too,” he turns to Avdeenko, but something in his voice has barely perceptibly shifted. A well-measured dose of mockery poured into him. - ... Unless, of course, you break your neck ... a black swan! - he firmly concludes, as if expressing a courageous hope that Alexander Avdeenko will find the strength to work independently.

Shurik Avdeenko sits, furiously leaning over the notebook, showing the powerful efforts of the mind and will thrown into solving the problem.

The main weapon of Kharlampy Diogenovich is to make a person funny. A student who deviates from school rules is not a lazy person, not a lazybones, not a bully, just a funny person. Or rather, not just funny, perhaps many would agree to this, but some kind of offensively funny. Funny, not realizing that he is funny, or the last to know about it.

I must say that Kharlampy Diogenovich did not give anyone privileges. Anyone could be funny. Of course, I also did not escape the common fate.

But I still had some doubts. Pests are pests, but, as they say, do not make a mistake yourself.

And so we enter the classroom. Barely catching my breath, just in case, I ask the excellent student Sakharov:

- Well, how is the task?

“Nothing,” he says, “I decided.

At the same time, he briefly and significantly nodded his head in the sense that there were difficulties, but we overcame them.

- How did you decide, because the answer is wrong?

“That’s right,” he nods his head to me with such disgusting confidence on his intelligent, conscientious face that I immediately hated him for his well-being, although well-deserved, but all the more unpleasant. I still wanted to doubt, but he turned away, taking away from me the last consolation of the falling: to clutch at the air with my hands.

Kharlampy Diogenovich went to the place.

Sitting next to me was a quiet and modest student. His name was Adolf Komarov. Now he called himself Alik and even wrote “Alik” on his notebook, because the war had begun and he did not want to be teased by Hitler. All the same, everyone remembered his name before, and on occasion reminded him of this.

I liked to talk, and he liked to sit quietly. We were put together to influence each other, but, in my opinion, nothing came of it. Everyone remained the same.

Now I noticed that even he solved the problem. He sat over his open notebook, neat, thin and quiet, and the fact that his hands were on the blotting paper made him seem even quieter. He had this stupid habit of keeping his hands on the blotter that I couldn't get him out of.

“Hitler kaput,” I whispered in his direction. Of course, he did not answer, but at least he removed his hands from the blotting paper, and it became easier.

Meanwhile, Kharlampy Diogenovich greeted the class and sat down on a chair. He slightly turned up the sleeves of his jacket, slowly wiped his nose and mouth with a handkerchief, then for some reason looked into the handkerchief and put it in his pocket. Then he took off his watch and began leafing through a magazine. It seemed that the executioner's preparations went faster.

But then he noted the absent ones and began to look around the class, choosing a victim. I held my breath.

- Who is on duty? he suddenly asked. I sighed, grateful for the respite.

There was no attendant, and Kharlampy Diogenovich forced the headman himself to erase from the board. While he was washing, Kharlampy Diogenovich instilled in him what the headman should do when there is no person on duty. I hoped that he would tell about this some parable from school life, or Aesop's fable, or something from Greek mythology. But he did not tell anything, because the creak of a dry rag against the board was unpleasant and he waited for the headman to finish his tedious rubbing as soon as possible. Finally the elder sat down.

The class is frozen. But at that moment the door opened and a doctor and a nurse appeared at the door.

– Excuse me, is this the fifth “A”? the doctor asked.

“No,” said Kharlampy Diogenovich with polite hostility, feeling that some kind of sanitary measure might disrupt his lesson. Although our class was almost the fifth “A”, because he was the fifth “B”, he said “no” so emphatically, as if there was and could not be anything in common between us.

“Excuse me,” the doctor said again, and, for some reason hesitantly hesitating, closed the door.

I knew they were going to give shots against typhus. Already done in some classes. Injections were never announced in advance, so that no one could slip away or, pretending to be sick, stay at home.

I was not afraid of injections, because they gave me a lot of injections for malaria, and these are the most disgusting of all existing injections.

And then the sudden hope that lit up our class with its snow-white robe disappeared. I couldn't leave it like that.

- Can I show them where the fifth "A" is? – I said, emboldened with fear.

Two circumstances to some extent justified my audacity. I sat opposite the door and was often sent to the staff room for chalk or something. And then the fifth "A" was in one of the outbuildings at the school yard, and the doctor's wife could really get confused, because she rarely visited us, she constantly worked at the first school.

“Show me,” said Kharlampy Diogenovich and slightly raised his eyebrows.

Trying to restrain myself and not betray my joy, I jumped out of the classroom.

I caught up with the doctor and the nurse in the corridor of our floor and went with them.

"I'll show you where the fifth A is," I said. The doctor's wife smiled as if she wasn't giving injections, but handing out sweets.

"What are we not going to do?" I asked.

"You're in the next lesson," the doctor said, still smiling.

“And we are going to the museum for the next lesson,” I said somewhat unexpectedly even for myself.

In fact, we were talking about going to the museum of local lore in an organized manner and inspecting the traces of the site of a primitive man there. But the history teacher kept postponing our trip because the director was afraid that we would not be able to go there in an organized manner.

The fact is that last year one boy from our school stole the dagger of an Abkhazian feudal lord from there in order to run away with him to the front. There was a lot of noise about this, and the director decided that everything turned out this way because the class went to the museum not in a row of two, but in a crowd.

In fact, this boy calculated everything in advance. He did not immediately take the dagger, but first put it into the straw that covered the Cabin of the Pre-Revolutionary Poor. And then, a few months later, when everything calmed down, he came there in a coat with a cut-out lining and finally took the dagger away.

“But we won’t let you in,” said the doctor jokingly.

- What are you, - I said, starting to get worried, - we are going to the courtyard and will go to the museum in an organized manner.

So, organized?

“Yes, organized,” I repeated seriously, afraid that she, like the director, would not believe in our ability to go to the museum in an organized manner.

“Well, Galochka, let’s go to the fifth “B”, otherwise they will actually leave,” she said and stopped. I have always liked such neat little doctors in little white caps and little white coats.

“But they told us first in the fifth “A,” this Galochka became stubborn and looked sternly at me. It was evident that she was posing as an adult with all her might.

I did not even look in her direction, showing that no one even thinks of considering her an adult.

“What difference does it make,” the doctor said, and turned around decisively.

“The boy is itching to test his courage, isn’t he?”

- I'm a painter, - I said, putting aside personal interest, - I was given injections a thousand times.

“Well, painter, lead us,” the doctor said, and we went.

Convinced that they would not change their minds, I ran ahead to eliminate the connection between myself and their arrival.

When I entered the classroom, Shurik Avdeenko was standing at the blackboard, and although the solution to the problem in three steps was written on the blackboard in his beautiful handwriting, he could not explain the solution. So he stood at the blackboard with a furious and sullen face, as if he knew before, but now he could not remember the course of his thoughts.

"Don't be afraid, Shurik," I thought, "you don't know anything, but I've already saved you." I wanted to be gentle and kind.

“Well done, Alik,” I said quietly to Komarov, “I solved such a difficult problem.

Alik was considered to be a capable troechnik. He was rarely scolded, but even more rarely praised. The tips of his ears blushed gratefully. He leaned over his notebook again and placed his hands carefully on the blotting paper. That was his habit.

But then the door opened, and the doctor, together with this Galochka, entered the classroom. The doctor's wife said that this is how, they say, and this is how the guys should be given injections.

“If this is necessary right now,” said Kharlampy Diogenovich, glancing briefly at me, “I cannot object. Avdeenko, to your place, - he nodded to Shurik.

Shurik put down the chalk and went to the place, continuing to pretend that he was remembering the solution to the problem.

The class became agitated, but Kharlampy Diogenovich raised his eyebrows, and everyone fell silent. He put his notepad in his pocket, closed the journal, and made way for the doctor. He himself sat down next to the desk. He seemed sad and a little offended.

The doctor and the girl opened their suitcases and began to lay out jars, bottles and hostile sparkling instruments on the table.

- Well, which of you is the most courageous? said the doctor, rapaciously sucking out the medicine with a needle and now holding this needle with the tip up so that the medicine would not spill out.

She said this cheerfully, but no one smiled, everyone looked at the needle.

- We will call according to the list, - said Kharlampy Diogenovich, - because there are solid heroes here.

He opened the magazine.

“Avdeenko,” said Kharlampy Diogenovich and raised his head.

The class laughed nervously. The doctor smiled too, though she didn't understand why we were laughing.

Avdeenko walked up to the table, long, ungainly, and it was evident from his face that he still hadn't decided what was better, to get a deuce or to go first for an injection.

He bared his shirt and now stood with his back to the doctor's wife, still as ungainly and undecided as to what was best. And then, when the injection was given, he was not happy, although now the whole class envied him.

Alik Komarov grew more and more pale. It was his turn. And although he continued to keep his hands on the blotter, it didn't seem to help him.

I tried to somehow cheer him up, but nothing worked. Every minute he became more strict and paler. He kept looking at the doctor's needle.

“Turn away and don’t look,” I told him.

“I can’t look away,” he answered in a hunted whisper.

“At first it won't hurt so much. The main pain is when they let the medicine in, - I prepared it.

“I’m thin,” he whispered back to me, barely moving his white lips, “it will hurt me a lot.”

“Nothing,” I answered, “as long as the needle does not hit the bone.”

“I have only bones,” he whispered desperately, “they will definitely hit.”

“Relax,” I told him, patting him on the back, “then they won’t hit him.”

His back was as hard as a board from the strain.

“I am already weak,” he answered, not understanding anything, “I am anemic.

“Thin people are not anemic,” I retorted sternly. - Malaria are anemic, because malaria sucks blood.

I had chronic malaria, and no matter how many doctors tried, there was nothing they could do about it. I was a little proud of my incurable malaria.

By the time Alik was called, he was quite ready. I don't think he even knew where he was going or why.

Now he stood with his back to the doctor, pale, with glazed eyes, and when they gave him the injection, he suddenly turned white as death, although it seemed that there was nowhere else to turn pale. He turned so pale that freckles appeared on his face, as if they had jumped out of somewhere. Before, no one thought he was freckled. Just in case, I decided to remember that he has hidden freckles. It might come in handy, though I didn't know what for yet.

After the injection, he almost fell over, but the doctor held him back and sat him on a chair. His eyes rolled back, we were all afraid that he was dying.

- "Ambulance"! I shouted. - I'll run and call!

Kharlampy Diogenovich looked angrily at me, and the doctor's wife deftly slipped a vial under his nose. Of course, not Kharlampy Diogenovich, but Alik.

At first he did not open his eyes, but then he suddenly jumped up and went busily to his place, as if he had not just been dying.

“I didn’t even feel it,” I said when they gave me an injection, although I felt everything perfectly.

“Well done, painter,” said the doctor.

Her assistant quickly and casually rubbed my back after the injection. It was evident that she was still angry with me for not letting them into the fifth "A".

- Rub it again, - I said, - it is necessary that the medicine disperse.

She rubbed my back with hatred. The cold touch of the alcoholized cotton was pleasant, and the fact that she was angry with me and still had to wipe my back was even more pleasant.

Finally it was all over. The doctor's wife and her Galochka packed their suitcases and left. After them, a pleasant smell of alcohol and an unpleasant smell of medicines remained in the classroom. The students sat, shivering, carefully trying the injection site with their shoulder blades and talking like victims.

“Open the window,” said Kharlampy Diogenovich, taking his seat. He wanted the spirit of hospital freedom to leave the classroom with the smell of medicine.

He took out a rosary and fingered the yellow beads thoughtfully. There was little time left before the end of the lesson. At such intervals, he usually told us something instructive and ancient Greek.

Perhaps this was the case with Pythagoras himself, but his followers probably forgot about this and paid little attention to their appearance.

Of course, there was no way we could escape from the math lesson. If we ever skipped class at all, it was usually singing class.

All this lasts a few seconds, and finally the student, awkwardly squeezing through the door, stumbles to his place.

Kharlampy Diogenovich looks after him and says something magnificent. For example:

Prince of Wales.

That's why we laughed, realizing that our student could not possibly be a prince, let alone some kind of Wales.

But here Kharlampy Diogenovich sits down. The class is instantly silent. The lesson starts.

It was almost useless to copy from him, because he immediately recognized the copied work and began to ridicule it. So we wrote off only as a last resort, if there was no way out.

It happened that during the test work he would tear himself away from his rosary or book and say:

Sakharov, please move to Avdeenko's.

Sakharov gets up and looks at Kharlampy Diogenovich questioningly. He does not understand why he, an excellent student, should change to Avdeenko, who is a poor student.

Have pity on Avdeenko, he might break his neck.

Avdeenko looks blankly at Kharlampy Diogenovich, as if not understanding, or perhaps not really understanding, why he can break his neck.

Sakharov sits down.

Shurik Avdeenko sits, furiously leaning over the notebook, showing the powerful efforts of the mind and will thrown into solving the problem.

I must say that Kharlampy Diogenovich did not give anyone privileges. Anyone could be funny. Of course, I also did not escape the common fate.