There was a clock overhead- a decidedly English model, possibly Jacobean. Its second ticking clicked dully throughout the classroom as Samuil Abramov dozed off with his chin resting on his chin like some bored Greek deity the old masters were wont to paint.
The professor's bland voice droned in duller tones, as flat as the atmosphere of the room. Sam could stomach no more of his legal studies! What was his father thinking? Did he not realize, Sam mentally protested, his son possessed an artistic talent? Law would soon drain and kill his creative force like an infection on a healthy person.
Sam chewed on his lip. His eyes burned with that familiar exhaustion boredom makes a specialty of inflicting on disinterested students stuck in subjects they especially hated.
And this professor! Droning on and on! Sam's ears ached- not with a ringing, but muffled pressure from hearing something so damningly montonous it could drive a sane (as he imagined himself) person mad!
The professor who ached Sam's ears was of a lean, tall, sharp-jointed frame. From his roman nose, to his auburn hair greying at the temples, to his colorless, pencil-thin lips, and his elongated face, the pedagogue was certainly of an Anglo model- of course, being English. His intonations were crisply accented with that familiar accent maintained by all sound English scholars of Oxfordian or Cambridgean (or another) stamp.
Sam disliked this scholar. He disliked his form of pedagogy. This fellow here, Sam judged, was the opposite of his Rabbi at his earlier school.
His Rabbi, of a quick wit and quicker tongue, was a jovial, glib sort. His body, though equally lean as the Englishman's, had a rubbery quality which his jaunty and sometimes physical gestures only heighten to a striking effect. With his beard and sidelocks, the Rabbi also established a decidedly Hebrew dignity, which Sam idolized. While his father sported the same beard, his father was a dull, bitter personality. Sam much preferred the company and teaching of his Rabbi, who treated Sam as student but as also a respected debater on the philosophical issues the Rabbi would exhort his students into.
This morning, Sam heavily consider joining the clergy. It was equally respectable, if not more respectable as a lawyer's profession- why not become a Rabbi, he reasoned?
Then again, his father demanded Sam take up a lucrative profession- being a Rabbi, while it garnered respect and security, it was not as profitable as the legal profession yielded.
While Sam weightily contemplated his future choice of his life's calling, the English professor noted the daydreaming student of his and glided like a judgemental crow to Sam's desk. As Sam rested his chin in his hand in deep reflection, the professor cleared his throat dryly, to rouse his absent-minded pupil into attention. No avail. Sam still vacilated in deep thought.
Tucking a sharp breath, the scholar rapped his knobbed cane harshly on top of Sam's green-felt desk.
Crack!
The metal knob thrashing the desk clapped through the otherwise stilled classroom. Sam snapped to attention, though bewildered. A resentful frown lined his face instantly, he briefly shook his head before his eyes met the professor's reproachful glare.
"Mr. Abramov! If you will! Are you, by any chance, paying attention to this lesson? Are we boring you, by any chance?" The scholar asked in a sour, mocking tone of false patronizing.
Sam, none too brilliant at perceiving the English way of insinuation, bluntly replied, "Well, your teaching leaves a lot to be desired, professor! Maybe you could tell us story to illustrate the scene! It's really dull, Prof! Maybe some jokes, too? I bet you know some real funny ones!"
A sour twist on the Englishman's face told Sam the pedantic, dour scholar was none too keen on accepting suggestions from students. No sooner had the dreaded lesson ended, Sam was sent for reprimand at the Dean's office.
The Dean, being of a more lax pedant than his colleague, the professor, still discouraged Sam from the student's input of the standard pedagogy.
Still, Sam's father did pay tuition in full, and coins in the coffer have a way of ameliorating a reprimand from authorities, as the Dean reasoned and attempted a patronizing placation with a confused and whining Sam.
"You see, Mr. Abramov, education simply conform to a standard of discipline- levity isn't something we readily accept as an element sound for academic pedagogy. But-" The Dean grinned that pleading smirk a professional yes-man always knows when to pull- "of course, we encourage the welfare of our students. Perhaps you and Mr. Smythe may reach a compromise? I shall discuss your concerns about his overall demeanor towards the students, of course, Mr. Abramov."
"Yeah, " Sam yawned. "The old bird's way's too stiff- how we can learn if he's just a grump with us? Thanks, Dean Hollinger- you're a capital fellow!" Sam leapt to his feet and shook the Dean's hand all too sprightly for a supposedly "serious" student of an advanced law course.
Sam went his merry way, ambling and jaunting down the hall, whistling while the Dean's incredulous eyes followed the brassy student until he vanished.
"Really! What crass manners! Is he really serious about entering this profession?" The Dean doubted. He simply shrugged to himself- all that mattered was that the elder Mr. Abramov paid the entire tuition.
With his patent shoes tacked with white spats, Sam's shoes skidded with a quirky scuff on the polished floorboards when he halted in his track when he caught sight of one of his friends- a youth named Cornelius Campbell.
Despite his mundane name evoking the image of some corn-fed boy of the Midwest with wheat-colored hair and a merry smile found on advertisements for a canned good, Cornelius was a stout, dyed-in-the-wool bohemian- much to his father's outrage.
Garbed in dark suits of a fanciful cut and seam, he took also to wearing elaborate cravats deemed fashionable a century prior. He also curled his hair in a poetical fashion. On his soft, pale face, his mien always assumed those plaintive, dropping, shining eyes attributed to melancholic artists who pined after some unrequited love.
Sam grew attached to this novel,outlandish youth.
In turn, Cornelius appreciated Sam's ready acceptance of his fanatical unconventionality.
Both formed an eccentric friendship, and often kept one another's company, mainly bemoaning the state of a stale, stagnating society which inhibited their self-imagined "brilliance".
Though he was of the Midwestern stock his name evoked, Cornelius insisted on speaking with a British accent, like those posh gentlemen whose livelihoods consisted of idle travel and trivial pastimes and pursuits. He fancied himself a less decadent, albeit stoutly heterosexual version of the formerly vogue Wilde.
"Say, Sam, you dear old thing- so you were sent to the Master's for an ear-thrashing? Any countermeasures against that crusty tyrant Smythe? You're a braver crusader, old fellow!" Cornelius accosted Sam with that posh, faked accent.
"Of course, you know I'm a man of conviction of my ideas. I can't abide men with small minds like Smythe. So much for education!" Sam quietly boasted, attempting to emanate what most people deem "dignity" on through Sam it came off as terribly affected as Cornelius' staged mannerisms.
*** Upon entering his father's study when he returned home for Spring Holiday, Sam found himself more invested than his own father in the debates he overheard his father and their Rabbi held those rainy afternoons. Sam joined in, and eventually, he became the sole debator with the Rabbi while his father grew distracted with some political articles he sought to complete and submit for publication for a number of the ethno-political papers in the Jewish Quarter of Brookyln. The Rabbi, one Solomon Garfunkel, was a spry, lively man whose advanced age failed to correspond with body and especially more so his mind. His eyes lit with his ideas, and his tongue poured a seemingly inexhaustible litany of concepts and arguments. However, as much as an avid debater the Rabbi proved to be, he remained fixedly jovial. He seemed to embody cheer, and that sort of warm nature of magnanimity of a man who does no harm to none yet heartens all he encounters. It was the Rabbi who planted, (as Sam's father, Lev, denounced as "wild ideas of rebellion") the idea that Sam should abandon his study of Law. "If God didn't make you for Law, why do it? That's like asking a fish to fly like a bird, Samek! You always talk about the theatre- why not become involved? You have a good voice, a good posture- you could be an actor!" "An actor? Me?" Sam asked, half-pleased, half -faking his surprise at the cleric's outlandishly bold suggestion. Sam always knew he was meant for an audience's captive attention and adoration. "Yes! Why not? Look at your face!" The Rabbi pointed to a nearby mirror. "Just look what a handsome man you are! And that face! It projects nobility- like a King David! Yes, you could command a stage very well!" He nudged Sam infront of the mirror as both men admired the latter's youthful, soft, somewhat childish features. Sam preened silently while attempting to yet again assume what he deemed "dignified" countenance. "Yes, you're right, Rabbi!" Sam agreed heartily. Suddenly, a boldness seized Sam and Sam became filled with an undaunted determination to abandon his legal studies and take to the stagelights! "Now there! A man with much chutzpah! You'll become another Tolmachevsky, Samek! Maybe more famous! You're more handsome and energetic than he is!" The Rabbi crooned with praise. He meant every word. Being an avid theatergoer, the Rabbi sensed Sam's sense of good-natured narcissism demanded the outlet of the stage, and here the Rabbi was pleased he guided his spiritual pupil into a career path Sam would reap the joy of success from. Sam was pleased with himself because he imagined audience roaring his name, lionizing- and scores of scores of women adoring his very image and voice. Thus began Sam's foray into the footlights.
Thanks so much for posting this awesome commission you did for me a few years back!
Sam is delightfully portrayed here and I love how Lera wants to mould him after an idealized image of himself. As you've told me before, Lera always wanted to be a performer who exuded gravitas, and he hopes Sam could achieve this. However, Sam's a very light-hearted guy, so he does find it difficult to exude the kind of gravity that Lera finds appropriate for these kind of performances.
Love how Sam talks back to the professor and how he isn't really invested in law school. The Dean makes his first-ever appearance here...I think he's now been fused with Smythe in my graphic novel,…