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It was evident that the family, after the arrival of the mirific Jim Deming, had grown somewhat accustomed to Americans and had at length struck a sentimental attitude. A day or two afterward, another little tragedy visited Villa Elsa, following on the heels of the unfortunate departure of Tekla. Ernst came home at lunch time with his head swollen in reds and purples and hardly able to walk.
With the creaking of the wheels upon the gravel path leading to the house, Jacob awoke and gazed sleepily about him. "See, Tekla; he is awake!" cried the Countess. "Poor child!" The carriage stopped; Ivan opened the door and assisted the ladies to alight. "Carry the little one into the house and take him to the kitchen to dry," commanded the Countess.
She described to me a little two-roomed wooden house, in the suburb of some very small town, hiding within the high plank-fence of a yard overgrown with nettles. He was crippled, ill, getting weaker every day, and Tekla the Samaritan tended him unweariedly with the pure joy of unselfish devotion. There was nothing in that task to become disillusioned about.
Natalia Haldin might have guessed what was the "one thing more" which remained for him to do; but this my western eyes had failed to see. Tekla, the ex-lady companion of Madame de S , haunted his bedside at the hospital. We met once or twice at the door of that establishment, but on these occasions she was not communicative. She gave me news of Mr. Razumov as concisely as possible.
They say, too, that it is not very likely that he will live so very long for Tekla to take care of him." Miss Haldin shook her head. "While there are travellers ready to fall by the way our Tekla shall never be idle. She is a good Samaritan by an irresistible vocation. The revolutionists didn't understand her.
There was that petulance of lip and forehead which marked the dissatisfaction of the coquette married. "Tekla!" Grumbach murmured. He was not conscious that he had paused, but the woman was. She eyed him with the mild indifference of the bovine. Then she dropped her glance and the shining needles clicked afresh. Grumbach forced his step onward. And for this! He laughed discordantly.
While Ivan went to fetch Jacob, the Countess related, with many embellishments and exaggerations, and with frequent appeals to her maid Tekla for corroboration, how she had found the boy on the road, how she had saved his life, and, finally, how she had decided to bring him home as a little playmate for her darling Loris.
She is fat and homely and the mother of seven squalling children." "What a world! To think that Tekla should be at the bottom of all this tangle! What irony! I ruin my life, I break the heart of the grand duke, I nearly cause war between two friendly states why? Tekla, now fat and homely and the mother of seven, would not marry me. The devil rides strange horses." "Good night, Hans."
To my western eyes she seemed to be getting farther and farther from me, quite beyond my reach now, but undiminished in the increasing distance. I remained silent as though it were hopeless to raise my voice. The sound of hers, so close to me, made me start a little. "Tekla saw him picked up after the accident. The good soul never explained to me really how it came about.
I have no use for a name, and I have almost forgotten it myself." Razumov murmured gravely, "Yes, but still..." She went on much slower, with indifference "You may call me Tekla, then. My poor Andrei called me so. I was devoted to him. He lived in wretchedness and suffering, and died in misery. That is the lot of all us Russians, nameless Russians.
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