“May a thunder strike me! See how we have been carried away with our talk. Well, what will you take from me for the corals, Freidel? You must not charge me dear, Freidel. With me you ought to deal as with a business woman.”
“On my word of honor, Dvossa-Malka — may I be choked as with the first bite I eat if I am telling you a lie — I had to pay eighteen roubles myself for that row of corals; but, Dvossa-Malka, I will let you have them for fifteen roubles.
“Fifteen! Rubbish! Fifteen! I will give you twelve roubles, cash down.”
“Oh, may you be strong and healthy, Dvossa-Malka,” was Freidel’s answer, speaking with much warmth, and taking Dvossa-Malka by both hands, as women take hold of one another when they are going to dance.
Meanwhile, Rochalle and Stempenyu took advantage of the opportunity they now had to exchange a few words.
“I wish to say something to you, Stempenyu.”
“And I wish to say something to you, Rochalle.”
“You have said it already.”
“When?”
“In your letter.”
“It was too little.”
“It was too much.”
“No, not by a hundredth part too much.”
“You are mistaken.”
“I swear to you by my life. Where can I see you?”
“I do not know where we can meet.”
“Perhaps one evening.”
“Where?”
“On the Monastery Road.”
“What time?”
“On Saturday evening. You will come from the other side of the monastery garden.”
“I cannot, I will not.”
“You must, Rochalle. I beg of you to come and meet me for a minute. Be thou there. I will be there surely. Saturday evening without fail, Rochalle.”
“I will not be there.”
“You will be there, Rochalle — you will.”
“Well daughter,” put in Dvossa-Malka at this juncture, “let us go home. Come! I have just managed to get the corals for fourteen roubles. Oh, I never thought that Freidel was such a keen business woman.”
“Oh, Dvossa-Malka, God preserve you! You know how to secure a bargain. I wish you a good day. Go in peace! Wear it in peace! Use it in peace, and break it in peace!”
“To the devil with her! How she excited me!” said Freidel to Stempenyu, as she stood near him after having closed the door behind Rochalle and Dvossa-Malka. “And, she, the daughter-in-law — the white devil — sat quite still and silent. And, the corals suited her as a nose ring suits a swine!”
XX THE CORALS AGAIN
When Rochalle arrived home with the string of corals still hanging about her neck, where Freidel had put them, her mother-in-law, Dvossa-Malka, brought her over to Isaac-Naphtali, with a smile of satisfaction, as if she had just achieved goodness only knew what victory.
“What do you say to these corals, Isaac-Naphtali?” she asked. “They are a bargain — a real bargain!”
Isaac-Naphtali poked his head forward so that he might scrutinize the corals with greater care — with the alert eyes of a connoisseur. He sniffed with an air of mild caution and asked:
“What did you pay for them? How much?”
“Guess. Give a guess. You consider yourself a judge — then guess,” said Dvossa-Malka, smiling at him significantly.
“I don’t know whether you mean me to say how cheap or how dear they were.”
“Didn’t I tell you I bought them at a bargain, fool? A desperate bargain. You can just imagine that they were a bargain when I tell you that I had to sweat and toil before I got them out of that terrible Freidel, the wife of the musician. She knows how to fight for a kopek. The devil only knows where she learned how to do it. And, she has a tongue that is like sulfur and brimstone. And, when she is talking to a customer she wails and weeps — the devil take her — the Stempenyu woman! Nu! Speak, Isaac Naphtali. Let me hear your verdict! Well, why are you silent? Tell me what you think these corals ought to cost.”
“What these corals ought to have cost you, you want to know,” was Isaac-Naphtali’s reply, as he took the ends of his beard and bit them between his teeth. They ought to have cost you — wait, let me try to guess accurately. I do not want to make a fool of myself. You said a bargain — didn’t you? If you got them a bargain you ought to have paid for them no less than six and a half roubles. But, they are worth the whole seven.
“Idiot!” shrieked Dvossa-Malka in a voice that was loud as cannon-shot. At this Isaac-Naphtali took fright and shrunk away to one side. “You idiot! You beast with a horse’s face! A row of corals like this for six and a half roubles. Mad fool! A dumb creature would not have uttered such stupid words in a year as you who can speak have uttered just now. Have you got eyes or have you not? Here! Look at them again, you fool! You plucked idiot you!”
And, Dvossa-Malka took Rochalle by the hand and led her over to Isaac-Naphtali. She lifted Rochalle’s head so that the corals might be seen all the plainer. And, while Isaac-Naphtali was examining them for the second time, she thrust at him again and again with her biting sarcasm. Isaac-Naphtali, poor man! only sniffed hard and blinked his eyes. He was afraid to say a word. But, Heaven had pity on him, and at that moment sent in Moshe-Mendel, stick in hand. He had just come from the market, and was still full of bargains and bargaining. Without a moment’s hesitation, he took to valving the corals which were hanging around Rochalle’s beautiful white throat. He said that they must have cost, at the very least, three roubles, at which Dvossa-Malka was so enraged that she burst out crying like a little child. No one had appreciated the wonderful bargain she had secured at such great pains. And, it may be that she cried also because of the heartache which had smitten her at the thought she had been fooled by Freidel.
“You are indeed a clever merchant,” she said at last to Moshe-Mendel. “You are quite as clever as that father of yours. Why three roubles? Why not less?”
“Because they are worth no more. Because the corals are poor in quality. I have seen corals, mother — I’ve seen a fine lot of strings of corals, I can tell you. And I know.”
And, throughout the whole of that day the three of them fought and argued and disputed about the value of the corals.
“If he had short me in the heart with a pistol,” wailed Dvossa-Malka, “I should not have been so hurt as I was when I heard the words, ‘six and a half’! Let it be that the woman did fool me. (And nobody has ever fooled me yet.) Let it be that she did fool me! May she and Stempenyu together have a black year! But, what good is it to throw salt on another’s wounds? What good has it done him that he came out with ‘six and a half’? May she have six and a half dozen wounds on her body! I will get back from her my money, if I have to drag it out of her as one drags a bone from the mouth of a dog! But, just picture to yourself how he had the heart — the check to bring himself to say, ‘six and a half’!”
The whole scene was so despicable to Rochalle that she snatched off the corals the very instant she found herself alone in her own room. And, she made up her mind that she would never wear them again as long as she lived. More than all, she was annoyed with Moshe-Mendel because he had been so much taken up with the value of the corals that he had never even looked at her or taken notice of her, thought he looked at the corals that were around her neck with great care. He never even said to her, after the usual custom, “Rochalle, I wish you well to wear them!” The three of them had dragged her backwards and forwards all day long, looking at the corals, just as if they could not have examined them if she had taken them off. They seemed to regard her as of no more value than a cow that one takes to the market. Each of them in turn went over to her and raised her head, and felt the corals, and scrutinized them with narrow eyes. But, they all forgot about Rochalle herself. Though she was not by nature either hot tempered or ill-natured, she stormed inwardly at everybody, especially at Moshe-Mendel who afterwards took his supper with the utmost unconcern. Then he went off to the House of Learning, where there was a meeting, from which he did not return till the small hours of the morning, as had happened with him many times before.