Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/101

 “Don't bang the table again! Feodor, stop! And why are you banging the table, Yegor Alexeievitch? What has this to do with you?”

Pobiedimsky staggered back in confusion. Feodor gave him a piercing glance, then looked at his wife, and walked up the room. But the moment my mother left I witnessed what at first I thought must be a dream. I saw Feodor seizing my tutor, lifting him high in the air, and flinging him violently against the door.

When I awoke next morning my tutor's bed was empty. My nurse whispered that he had been taken to hospital that morning and that his arm was broken. Saddened by this news, and with my mind full of the scandal of the night before, I went into the yard. The weather was dull. The sky was veiled with clouds, and a strong wind blew, carrying before it dust, papers, and feathers. I foresaw rain. The faces of men and animals expressed tedium. When I returned to the house I was ordered to walk on tip-toes as my mother had a bad headache and was lying down. What was to be done? I went out to the gate, sat on a bench, and tried to pierce to the meaning of all that I had seen and heard. From our gates ran a road, which, passing the smithy and a pond which never dried up, converged with the post-road. I looked at the telegraph posts and the clouds of dust around them, and at the sleepy birds perched on the