Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/253



IKOLAI TCHIKILDEYEFF, waiter, of the Slaviansky Bazaar Hotel at Moscow, lost his health. His numbed legs betrayed him, and once in a corridor he stumbled and fell with a tray-load of ham and peas. He had to throw up his work. What money he had, his own and his wife's, soon went on treatment; nothing remained to live on; he was tired of idleness; and he saw that nothing remained but to return to his native village. It was cheaper to live at home, after all, and the best place for invalids; and there is some truth in the proverb, “At home even the walls help.”

He arrived at Zhukovo towards evening. When he recalled his childhood he pictured his birthplace as bright, cosy, and comfortable; but now when he entered the hut he felt something like fright, so dark, so close, so dirty was it inside. And his wife Olga and little daughter Sasha looked questioningly at the big, untidy stove, black from smoke and flies, which took up half the hut. What flies! The stove was Rh