Essay 104. Despotic and wilful person

Despotic and wiful person is a person who acts by its whim and self-will, humiliating dignity of others (from Wikipedia)

Former students, when they become imposing and pompous after graduating from their institutes, forget various situations they had had in those happy, and nevertheless, not careless years. However when they are in a certain situation, for instance in a company of their fellow students, then it starts: “And you remember how…” or “Do you remember that…”. So Victor Kiss found himself in the situation when memories came flooding back after he had read my Humorous Essays. His memories were so bright and vivid that he could not resist immediately writing about them to me. And he had a lot to remember. You will laugh, but again the main character of the reminiscences about the second year at the institute is a great figure on a scale of the Kemerovo medical institute of those days. I wrote more than once about that distinguished and ambiguous person, who combined rough manners to students with thorough knowledge of his subject and incredible love of it.

Of course, this is Timofey Fadyeyevitch Ryzhkov or “Faradey” in student everyday life. He was loved and hated.  He invoked those feelings, because he was a genius of anatomy, but an incredibly despotic and wiful person. So Vitya happened to be among those who were re-taking the tests they had failed; the guys were nice in everyday life, but poor students in anatomy. Please, do not judge neither Vitya nor the other too strictly, because to be a poor student was not very unusual or something special with Faradey.  That time Vitya failed to pass the only test he had failed on, even though he thought that he had prepared one hundred per cent for it. He simply even did not have a chance to answer. It happened so that Faradey chose Volodya Kravtchenko to be the fist victim. So to speak about Volodya, he was a strongly built handsome guy; he was a couple of years older than the rest in his group. Volodya was doing his best, but received bad grades on a regular basis, and he had seven of them from Faradey. To re-take the test Vitya came looking like a real dandy, but the main thing was that he had learned everything, at least that was what he thought.

When he started answering everybody grew numb with astonishment. Volodya was giving a detailed answer with using specimen for illustration; he successfully answered five of, if not to exaggerate!!! Faradey’s questions in a row, so the latter one had nothing to do, but circle five out of his seven bad marks. That was a record. Nobody had managed to answer so many questions of Faradey during one class before. However Volodya started rejoicing and dreaming of his future without failed tests at least in anatomy too early. Yes, it was too early. On the sixth question Volodya got really confused. It was as if his mind went blank, he could not even remember the Latin name of a rib. That happens. And there was Faradey’s trademark yell;

sorry that was not a yell, but a roar “Those like you do not belong to the medical institute… You should be sent to the Army!!!” And there Volodya quite calmly went: “But I served in the Army, I am a reserve senior lieutenant…” Hair started moving in Faradey’s nostrils, and there came the roar again: “To the mine!!!...”. And Volodya replied: “And before joining the military forces I had worked in the mine…”. Yeah, that was some situation! The next was not a roar, but a howl: “You should be a yard cleaner…” What’d bitten Volodya, he himself could not understand afterwards; but he gave and answer to that question as well: “I work part time as a yard cleaner now at Sevastopolskaya…”. There was dead silence in the class room, Faradey breathed in, but could not breathe out. Everybody was in panic, what would happen next? And there, how fortunate, was the end of class.

9 April, 2012