A
hand seized it and held it high to meet the approaching train. The
engineer saw it, shut the regulator, and reversed steam. The train
came to a standstill.
People jumped out of the carriages and collected in a crowd. They saw
a man lying senseless on the footway, drenched in blood, and another
man standing beside him with a blood-stained rag on a stick.
Vasily looked around at all. Then, lowering his head, he said: "Bind
me. I tore up a rail!"
THE DARLING
BY ANTON P. CHEKOV
Olenka, the daughter of the retired collegiate assessor Plemyanikov,
was sitting on the back-door steps of her house doing nothing. It was
hot, the flies were nagging and teasing, and it was pleasant to think
that it would soon be evening. Dark rain clouds were gathering from
the east, wafting a breath of moisture every now and then.
Kukin, who roomed in the wing of the same house, was standing in the
yard looking up at the sky. He was the manager of the Tivoli, an
open-air theatre.
"Again," he said despairingly. "Rain again. Rain, rain, rain! Every
day rain! As though to spite me. I might as well stick my head into a
noose and be done with it.
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