Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/77

 manners of a gentlewoman. And she spoke so cleverly, as if out of a book, smoked cigarettes, and slept till midday. Andrei Andreitch asked her what was her business; and she, looking him straight in the face, said boldly, “I am an actress!” And this frank avowal seemed to the retired footman the height of immodesty. Mashutka began to tell her father of her stage triumphs and of her stage life; but seeing her father's purple face, she stopped suddenly. In silence, without exchanging a glance, they had spent three weeks together until it was time for Mashutka to go. Before leaving, she begged her father to walk with her along the river bank. And, shameful as it was to appear in daylight before honest people with a daughter who was a vagrant play-actress, he conceded her prayer.

“What glorious country you have!” she said ecstatically as they walked. “What ravines, what marshes! Heavens, how beautiful is my native land!”

And she began to cry.

“Such things only take up space,” thought Andrei Andreitch, with a dull look at the ravines. He understood nothing of his child's delight. “There is as much use from them as milk from a goat!”

And she continued to cry, inhaling the air greedily, as if she knew that her breaths were already numbered. . ..