over the golden rye, and it seemed to the princess that her body
was swaying not on carriage cushions but on clouds, and that she
herself was like a light, transparent little cloud. . . .
"How happy I am!" she murmured, shutting her eyes. "How happy I
am!"
THE CHEMIST'S WIFE
THE little town of B----, consisting of two or three crooked streets,
was sound asleep. There was a complete stillness in the motionless
air. Nothing could be heard but far away, outside the town no doubt,
the barking of a dog in a thin, hoarse tenor. It was close upon
daybreak.
Everything had long been asleep. The only person not asleep was the
young wife of Tchernomordik, a qualified dispenser who kept a
chemist's shop at B----. She had gone to bed and got up again three
times, but could not sleep, she did not know why. She sat at the
open window in her nightdress and looked into the street. She felt
bored, depressed, vexed . . . so vexed that she felt quite inclined
to cry--again she did not know why. There seemed to be a lump in
her chest that kept rising into her throat. . . . A few paces behind
her Tchernomordik lay curled up close to the wall, snoring sweetly.
A greedy flea was stabbing the bridge of his nose, but he did not
feel it, and was positively smiling, for he was dreaming that every
one in the town had a cough, and was buying from him the King of
Denmark's cough-drops. He could not have been wakened now by pinpricks
or by cannon or by caresses.
The chemist's shop was almost at the extreme end of the town, so
that the chemist's wife could see far into the fields. She could
see the eastern horizon growing pale by degrees, then turning crimson
as though from a great fire. A big broad-faced moon peeped out
unexpectedly from behind bushes in the distance. It was red (as a
rule when the moon emerges from behind bushes it appears to be
blushing).
Suddenly in the stillness of the night there came the sounds of
footsteps and a jingle of spurs. She could hear voices.
"That must be the officers going home to the camp from the Police
Captain's," thought the chemist's wife.
Soon afterwards two figures wearing officers' white tunics came
into sight: one big and tall, the other thinner and shorter. . . .
They slouched along by the fence, dragging one leg after the other
and talking loudly together. As they passed the chemist's shop,
they walked more slowly than ever, and glanced up at the windows.
"It smells like a chemist
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