Page:The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Tchekhoff, 1908.pdf/93

 had been worn threadbare. Pobiedimsky kept his eyes on Tatiana Ivanovna's face and sighed unceasingly. At that time I misinterpreted these sighs, and missed their real meaning; afterwards they explained much.

When the long shadows merged in the general gloom, Feodor, the steward, returned from shooting or from the farm. Feodor always impressed me as a savage, terrible person. The son of a Russianised gipsy, swarthy, with big black eyes and a curly ill-kept beard, he was nicknamed "devilkin" by the Kotchuefka peasants. His ways were as gipsy as his face. He was restless at home; and whole days wandered about, shooting game, or simply walking across country. Morose, bilious, and taciturn, he feared no one and respected no authority. To my mother he was openly rude, he addressed me as “thou,” and held my tutor's learning in contempt. Looking on him as a delicate, excitable man, we forgave him all this; and my mother liked him, because, notwithstanding his gipsy ways, he was ideally honest and hard-working. He loved his Tatiana Ivanovna with a gipsy's love, but his affection expressed itself darkly, as if it caused him pain. Indeed, in our presence he showed no regard for his wife, but stared at her steadily and viciously and contorted his mouth.

On returning from the farm he set down his gun noisily and viciously in the wing, came out to us on