Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/242

 “Delightful!” cried the doctor. “So you mean to say you regard your charitable work seriously, as something useful, not as a dolls' comedy? It was a comedy from beginning to end, a farce of love-my-neighbour. a farce so transparent that even children and stupid muzhik-women saw through it. Take your — what do you call it? — your hospital for homeless old women, in which you forced me to play the role of chief physician while you yourself played the rôle of patroness! O Lord our God, what a comical institution! You built a house with parquet floors, set a weathercock on the roof, and collected ten old village women, and set them to sleep under frieze counterpanes, between sheets of Dutch linen, and eat sugar-candy!”

The doctor laughed loudly into his hat, and stammered quickly —

“A comedy! The servants kept the sheets and counterpanes under lock and key to prevent the old women soiling them — let them sleep, old devil's pepper-castors, on the floor! And the old women daren't sit on their beds, or wear their jackets, or walk on the polished floor! All was kept for show, and hidden away as if the women were thieves; and the old women were fed and clothed secretly by charity, and day and night prayed to God to save them from prison, from the soul-saving exhortations of the well-fed rascals whom you commissioned to look after them. And the higher authorities, what did they do? It's too delightful