Therefore the starosta shook his head at the sunset, and forgot to
regret the badness of the times from a commercial point of view. He had
done all he could. He had notified to the Zemstvo the condition of his
village. He had made the usual appeal for help, which had been forwarded
in the usual way to Tver, where it had apparently been received with the
usual philosophic silence.
But Michael Roon had also telegraphed to Karl Steinmetz, and since the
despatch of this message had the starosta dropped into the habit of
standing at his doorway in the evening, with his hands clasped behind
his back and his beady black eyes bent westward along the prince's
high-road.
On the particular evening with which we have to do the beady eyes looked
not in vain; for presently, far along the road, appeared a black speck
like an insect crawling over the face of a map.
"Ah!" said the starosta. "Ah! he never fails."
Presently a neighbor dropped in to buy some of the dried leaf which the
starosta, honest tradesman, called tea. He found the purveyor of
Cathay's produce at the door.
"Ah!" he said, in a voice thick with vodka. "You see something on the
road?"
"Yes."
"A cart?"
"No, a carriage. It moves too quickly."
A strange expression came over the peasant's face, at no time a pleasing
physiognomy. The bloodshot eyes flared up suddenly like a smouldering
flame in brown paper.
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