"Marek, you promised to be home for dinner," Pani Felicia was reproaching to the young man. "Pan Kazimir has already come and what about you? Where are you hanging around? Take the trouble to answer for your words."
Marek was leaning on the desk of the counter. His hands were gripping the edge of the desk. His trousers slid down his legs and lowered to the floor and his underpants were down to his knees.
"Pani Felicia! Do forgive me! I've forgotten all about it."
Pan Kazimir was sitting at the table and eating solyanka soup. He was a solid man of about fifty, in a brown coat and white shirt. Pan Kazimir had a shaved head, red mustache and beard. A monocle glittered in his eye. There was a red-checked bow tie his neck.
The aunt pushed back her bangs to keep them out of her eyes. Pursing her lips firmly, she pulled back the hand, paused for few moments then slapped Marek's buttocks.
"And be nice to count!"
She whipped the boy again with her belt. Again the pain burned his buttocks. Marek moaned, gritting his teeth. The young man imagined the wide crimson stripes of the belt marks appearing one after the other on his pale ass.
"Two!" began to count Marek, "Three!… Four! Aunt Felicia, I'm sorry! I am to blame… Five!"
While his aunt was whipping Marek with a belt pan Kazimir calmly sipped the solyanka. Gracia, the maid, sat on the edge of the table, her chin propped on her fist. She was smiling softly and looking out the window thoughtfully.
After counting out a dozen strokes pani Felicia hung the belt on a nail in the wall and sat down at the table. Marek sobbed softly and wiped the tears from his eyes. The young man winced and pulled on his underpants. He bent down and picked up the trousers that had fallen off his legs, then straightened his clothes and sat down at the table. The maid placed a plate of solyanka in front of Marek. His buttocks burned from the flogging, and the young man squirmed in his chair.
"I love the countryside," said Pan Kazimir turning in his fingers a glass of plum brandy, "I teach physics at a local school almost a quarter of a century. Yes, a quarter of a century…"
And pan downed his glass.
"Tell me," said the aunt, "do you think it is possible to teach a young man the sciences without being whipped?"
"I believe that nothing can be taught without rods," replied Pan Kazimir gravely, looking at Marek from under his bushy brows. "Yes, sir, it is absolutely necessary … and you yourself, young man, what do you think?"
Marek didn't know what to say.
After dinner, the aunt led Pan Kazimir and Marek to the back of a large country house.
"There was a sort of schoolroom here when I was a child," said the aunt, "and I didn't go to high school. My parents hired tutors for me. This room hasn't been used for many years. I told the maids to clean it up."
Pani Felicia pushed the door to a spacious room with a large window overgrown with green ivy on the street side. There were a desk and a chair for a teacher, and there was a blackboard near the window. Marek felt awkward when he saw the whipping box in the corner of the room. Pan Kazimir also saw the box and smiled at Pani Felicia.
"Absolutely necessary thing for studying physics," the teacher joked.
"I ordered them to cut up some fresh rods."
Pan Kazimir looked around and noticed a bucket with birch rods standing near the door.
"Great!" said Pan Kazimir, smiling through his moustache. "Well, I guess we can start the lesson."