Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/290

 “Orthodox men who believe in God! Batiushki, they're wronging me! Kinsmen, they've robbed me. Oi, oi, will no one help me!”

“Grandmother, grandmother!” said the starosta severely, “have some reason in your head!”

With the loss of the samovar, things in the TehikildeyefTs' hut grew even worse. There was something humiliating and shameful in this last privation, and it seemed that the hut had suddenly lost its honour. The table itself, the chairs, and all the pots, had the starosta seized them, would have been less missed. Grandmother screamed, Marya cried, and the children, listening, began to cry also. The old man, with a feeling of guilt, sat gloomily in the corner and held his tongue. And Nikolai was silent. As a rule grandmother liked him and pitied him; but at this crisis her pity evaporated, and she cursed and reproached him, and thrust her fists under his nose. She screamed that he was guilty of the family's misfortunes and asked why he had sent so little home, though he boasted in his letters that he earned fifty roubles a month at the Slaviansky Bazaar. Why did he come home, and, still worse, bring his family? If he died whence would the money come for his funeral? . . . And it was painful to look at Nikolai, Olga, and Sasha.

The old man grunted, took his cap, and went to the starosta's. It was getting dark. Antip Siedelnikoff,