office
Gendarme
gendarme
also: zhandarm
A member of the Tsarist-era gendarmerie, charged with keeping order at railway stations and on trains.
Reading notes
- To Speak or to Be Silent? §6 gentleman in the blue suit
A member of the Tsarist-era gendarmerie -- blue was the gendarmerie's uniform color, so a period reader would recognize the 'blue suit' as plainclothes-adjacent officialdom well before the arrest in section 7.
- To D. T. Savelyev, 19 January 1884. Moscow. §7 the gendarme general
A mock threat: if Savelyev strays from his wife, Chekhov jokes he will report him to the gendarmerie, the Tsarist-era police charged with keeping order.
- In the Carriage §8 Zhindarrrme
A gendarme -- a member of the Tsarist-era police charged with keeping order at stations and on trains. The garbled shout mocks the panic of the man who has just been robbed.