The Tales of Chekhov Author:Anton Pavlovich Chekhov Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE KISS At eight o'clock on the evening of the twentieth of May all the six batteries of the N Reserve Artillery Brigade halted for the night in the vi... more »llage of Myestetchki on their way to camp. When the general commotion was at its height, while some officers were busily occupied around the guns, while others, gathered together in the square near the church enclosure, were listening to the quartermasters, a man in civilian dress, riding a strange horse, came into sight round the church. The little-dun- coloured horse with 3 gnnH nrlc and a short tail came, moving not straight forward, but as it were Sideways-with a snrf nf flaprp sfpp, as though it were being lashed about the legs. When he reached the officers the man on the horse took off his hat and said: " His Excellency Lieutenant-General von Rabbek invites the gentlemen to drink tea with him this minute. . . ." The horse turned, danced, and retired sideways; / the messenger raised his hat once more, and in an jnstant disappeared with his strange horse behind the church. " What the devil does it mean? " grumbled some of the officers, dispersing to their quarters. " One is sleepy, and here this Von Rabbek with his tea ! We know what tea means." The officers of all the six batteries remembered vividly an incident of the previous year, when during manoeuvres they, together with the officers of a Cossack regiment, were in the same way invited to tea by a count who had an estate in the neighbourhood and was a retired army officer: the hospitable and genial count made much of them, fed them, and gave them drink, refused to let them go to their quarters in the village and made them stay the night. All that, of course, was very nice — nothing better could be desired, but the worst of it was, the old army o...« less