midday
As a rule he set off for school before nine in the morning , and before ten o'clock he was looking at his watch and pining for his Masha and his new house . In the lower forms he would set some boy to dictate , and while the boys were writing , would sit in the window with his eyes shut , dreaming ; whether he dreamed of the future or recalled the past , everything seemed to him equally delightful , like a fairy tale . In the senior classes they were reading aloud Gogol or Pushkin 's prose works , and that made him sleepy ; people , trees , fields , horses , rose before his imagination , and he would say with a sigh , as though fascinated by the author : `` How lovely ! '' At the midday recess Masha used to send him lunch in a snow-white napkin , and he would eat it slowly , with pauses , to prolong the enjoyment of it ; and Ippolit Ippolititch , whose lunch as a rule consisted of nothing but bread , looked at him with respect and envy , and gave expression to some familiar fact , such as : `` Men can not live without food . '' After school Nikitin went straight to give his private lessons , and when at last by six o'clock he got home , he felt excited and anxious , as though he had been away for a year . He would run upstairs breathless , find Masha , throw his arms round her , and kiss her and swear that he loved her , that he could not live without her , declare that he had missed her fearfully , and ask her in trepidation how she was and why she looked so depressed . Then they would dine together .