He had notified to the Zemstvo the condition of his village.

He had made the usual appeal for help, which had been forwarded in the usual way to Tver, where it had apparently been received with the usual philosophic silence.
But Michael Roon had also telegraphed to Karl Steinmetz, and since the despatch of this message had the starosta dropped into the habit of standing at his doorway in the evening, with his hands clasped behind his back and his beady black eyes bent westward along the prince's high-road.
On the particular evening with which we have to do the beady eyes looked not in vain; for presently, far along the road, appeared a black speck like an insect crawling over the face of a map.
"Ah!" said the starosta.

"Ah! he never fails." Presently a neighbor dropped in to buy some of the dried leaf which the starosta, honest tradesman, called tea.

He found the purveyor of Cathay's produce at the door.
"Ah!" he said, in a voice thick with vodka.

"You see something on the road ?" "Yes." "A cart ?" "No, a carriage.