ison
and from the canting exhortations of the sleek rascals to whose
care you committed them. And what did the managers do? It was simply
charming! About twice a week there would be thirty-five thousand
messages to say that the princess--that is, you--were coming
to the home next day. That meant that next day I had to abandon my
patients, dress up and be on parade. Very good; I arrive. The old
women, in everything clean and new, are already drawn up in a row,
waiting. Near them struts the old garrison rat--the superintendent
with his mawkish, sneaking smile. The old women yawn and exchange
glances, but are afraid to complain. We wait. The junior steward
gallops up. Half an hour later the senior steward; then the
superintendent of the accounts' office, then another, and then
another of them . . . they keep arriving endlessly. They all have
mysterious, solemn faces. We wait and wait, shift from one leg to
another, look at the clock--all this in monumental silence because
we all hate each other like poison. One hour passes, then a second,
and then at last the carriage is seen in the distance, and . . .
and . . ."

The doctor went off into a shrill laugh and brought out in a shrill
voice:

"You get out of the carriage, and the old hags, at the word of
command from the old garrison rat, begin chanting: 'The Glory of
our Lord in Zion the tongue of man cannot express. . .' A pretty
scene, wasn't it?"

The doctor went off into a bass chuckle, and waved his hand as
though to signify that he could not utter another word for laughing.
He laughed heavily, harshly, with clenched teeth, as ill-natured
people laugh; and from his voice, from his face, from his glittering,
rather insolent eyes it could be seen that he had a profound contempt
for the princess, for the home, and for the old women. There was
nothing amusing or laughable in all that he described so clumsily
and coarsely, but he laughed with satisfaction, even with delight.

"And the school?" he went on, panting from laughter. "Do you remember
how you wanted to teach peasant children yourself? You must have
taught them very well, for very soon the children all ran away, so
that they had to be thrashed and bribed to come and be taught. And
you remember how you wanted to feed with your own hands the infants
whose mothers were working in the fields. You went about the village
crying because the infants were not at your disposal, as the mothers
would take them to the fiel