“Well, we washed our hands of him and let him grow up as he pleased — which meant, you can imagine, as a perfect black sheep. Not that he continued stealing; in any case, there was hardly anything left to steal. It was rather the way he carried on in general, the fine company he kept and all his monkeyshines, plus the getup he went around in: a red blouse hanging down over his pants, high boots up to his knees, hair as long as a priest’s, chin as smooth as a goy’s — quite the young gentleman he was!.. He never had the cheek to come see me himself, though. Whenever he wanted something from me, he put her, his mother, up to it — and she, the widow, was such a cow that she actually went right on loving him, her precious darling couldn’t do wrong! Until one day when I came to my store, my fair-haired boy was waiting there for me.
“ ‘Well, well, a guest!’ I said. ‘Welcome, Danielchik. What’s the good word?’
“ ‘The good word,’ he said, ‘is that I’m getting married.’
“ ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘Who’s the lucky girl?’
“ ‘Osna,’ he said.
“ ‘What Osna?’
“ ‘Our Osna, who worked in our house.’
“ ‘Holy God!’ I said. ‘You’re marrying a housemaid?’
“ ‘Screw that!’ he said. ‘Don’t you think a housemaid’s human too?’
“ ‘God help your poor mother,’ I said. ‘Have you come to invite me to the wedding?’
“ ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to talk to you about clothes. We sat down together, Osna and me, and drew up a list of what we need: for me, one flannel winter suit, one sailcloth summer suit, a dozen undershirts, and half-a-dozen shirts; and for Osna, some calico for a summer dress, a woolen winter dress, a few yards of gingham for house frocks, a fur muff, two shawls, half-a-dozen handkerchiefs,’ etcetera, etcetera, etcetera …
“ ‘And is that all?’ I asked when he was done, doing my best not to smile.
“ ‘That’s all,’ he said.
“Well, I couldn’t hold it in any longer; all of a sudden I burst out laughing so hard that I nearly fell off my seat. My employees took one look at me and began to laugh too. We laughed until the walls shook. And when I had laughed so much that I couldn’t laugh any more, I said to my fine young Romeo:
“ ‘Danielchik, sweetheart, just tell me one thing: is it because you and me are such partners in the store that you think you can hand me a list like this?’
“ ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I can’t tell you exactly what my share of your store is. But if you take my father’s money and divide it five ways, there should be enough to cover the clothes with plenty to spare for after the wedding …’
“Well, what can I tell you? Hearing him say that was like being shot in the heart, or having a fire lit under me, or God only knows what. I saw stars in front of my eyes! Do you get me? As if it wasn’t enough that I had spent all those years of my life supporting a widow and five children, and attending to all their needs, and marrying them all off, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — now along comes this little upstart and thinks he can lecture me about shares he has in my store …
“ ‘What did I tell you?’ said my wife. ‘Didn’t I say they would thank you like a ton of bricks?’
“Well, you may as well know that I gave him everything he asked for. Why argue with a snotnose like that? It was beneath my dignity. Let him take his money and go hang — all I wanted was to get rid of the little pest … Do you think I did, though? Then you better think some more. A month after the wedding he came to see me again, did my clean-cut young friend, to demand the sum of two hundred twenty-three rubles.
“ ‘Just how did you arrive at two hundred twenty-three rubles?’ I asked him.
“ ‘That’s what they’re asking,’ he says to me without batting an eyelash, ‘for the beer hall and the billiard parlor.’
“ ‘What beer hall? What billiard parlor?’
“ ‘I’m going into business,’ he says. ‘I’ve bought a beer hall with a billiard parlor. Osna will run the bar and I’ll keep an eye on the billiard tables. We can make a good living from it.’
“ ‘And a very respectable one too,’ I told my young provider. ‘A beer hall with a billiard parlor — I must say it’s just your style.’
“ ‘Screw that!’ he says, ‘I don’t want to be a sponge, that’s all. I don’t mind eating dry bread once a day, just as long as it’s mine …’
“Introducing Danielchik the philosopher! Isn’t that a scream? ‘Congratulations!’ I said. ‘You can sell beer and play billiards all you want. What does it have to do with me, though?’
“ ‘It has to do with you,’ he says, ‘because of the two hundred twenty-three rubles you’re giving me.’
“ ‘What do you mean, I’m giving you?’ I say. ‘Just where am I supposed to take them from?’
“ ‘From my father’s money,’ he says without a blush.
“Would you believe it? At first I had a powerful urge to grab him by the neck and throw him right to the Devil!.. On second thought, though, I said to myself: for heaven’s sake, who are you rolling in the mud with? Let him have the money and the deuce take him! ‘Tell me, Danielchik,’ I said to him, ‘do you happen to have any idea how much your father left you?’
“ ‘No,’ he says. ‘What do I need to know for? In a year from now, when I turn twenty-one, you and I will go over the books. In the meantime, let me have my money and I’ll go.’
“That made me see more stars. Would you like to know why? It wasn’t because I was afraid of anyone, since what was there to be afraid of? Hadn’t I spent more than enough on them already? I tell you, it was no trifle to have supported a widow and her five children all those years, to have attended to their every need, to have married off each one of them, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera — and now here was this little crumb wanting to go over my books!
“Well, I took out two hundred and twenty-three rubles and gave them to him with the prayer that from now on he would leave me alone … and in fact, quite a while went by without his showing his face again. Until one day when I came home — there he was! My heart sank when I saw him. I’d be blamed, though, if I was going to show it, so I said to him perfectly naturally: