Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/243

 for words. On two evenings a week up there galloped thirty-five thousand couriers to announce that to-morrow the princess — that is you — would visit the home. Which meant that to-morrow I must neglect my patients, dress myself up, and go on parade. Very well! I would arrive. The old women would sit in a row in clean, new dresses and wait. Near them would walk that retired garrison rat — the inspector — with his sugary, informer's grin. The old women would yawn and look at one another, afraid even to grumble! And we would all wait. Then up gallops the under-steward, half an hour later the senior steward, then the factor, then some one else, and yet another. . . gallopers without end! And all with the same severe, ceremonial faces! We would wait and wait, stand on one leg, then on the other, look at our watches — all this, of course, in dead silence, for we all hated one another. A whole hour would pass, then another hour, at last a caliche would appear far off, and. . . and. . .”

The doctor laughed dryly, and continued in a thin tenor —

“Down you'd get from your carriage; and the old witches, at a signal from the garrison rat, would sing, ‘How glorious is our Lord in Zion, The tongue cannot express. . .’ It was too delightful!”

The doctor laughed in a bass note, and waved his arm to imply that amusement forbade him to continue. His laugh was hard and heavy as the laugh of a bad