‘‘Yes, children are a bother, I can tell you!’’ sighed Moisei Moiseich. ‘‘I myself have six of them. One to be taught, another to be doctored, the third to be carried in your arms, and when they grow up, there’s still more bother. Not only now, it was so even in Holy Scripture. When Jacob had little children, he wept, and when they grew up, he wept still worse!’’10
‘‘Mm, yes . . .’’ agreed Father Khristofor, gazing pensively at his glass of tea. ‘‘Personally, as a matter of fact, I’ve got no business angering God, I’ve reached the limit of my life, as God grant everybody ... I’ve married my daughters to good men, I’ve set my sons up, now I’m free, I’ve done my duty, and I can go any which way. I live quietly with my wife, eat, drink, and sleep, rejoice in my grandchildren, and pray to God, and I don’t need anything else. I’m rolling in clover and I answer to no one. In all my born days, I’ve never known any grief, and if, say, the tsar now asked me: ‘What do you need? What do you want?’ Well, there’s nothing I’m in need of! I have everything and thank God. There’s no happier man than I in the whole town. Only I have many sins, but then they say only God is without sin. Isn’t that right?’’
‘‘Must be right.’’
‘‘Well, of course, I’ve got no teeth, my back aches from old age, this and that ... shortness of breath and so forth ... Illnesses, the flesh is weak, but you must agree I’ve lived enough! I’m in my seventies! You can’t go on forever, enough’s enough!’’
Father Khristofor suddenly recalled something, burst out laughing into his glass, and got into a coughing fit from laughter. Moisei Moiseich, out of politeness, also laughed and coughed.
‘‘So funny!’’ said Father Khristofor and waved his hand. ‘‘My older son Gavrila comes to visit me. He works in the medical line and serves in Chernigov province as a zemstvo11 doctor . . . Very well, sir ... I say to him: ‘See here,’ I say, ‘I’m short of breath, this and that ... You’re a doctor, treat your father!’ He got me undressed at once, tapped, listened, various other things ... kneaded my stomach, and then says: ‘Papa,’ he says, ‘you need treatment with compressed air.’ ’ ’
Father Khristofor laughed convulsively, to tears, and stood up.
‘‘And I say to him: ‘God help it, this compressed air!’ ’’ he brought out through his laughter and waved both hands. ‘‘God help it, this compressed air!’’
Moisei Moiseich also stood up and, clutching his stomach, also dissolved in high-pitched laughter, resembling the yelping of a lapdog.
‘‘God help it, this compressed air!’’ Father Khristofor repeated, laughing loudly.
Moisei Moiseich rose two notes higher and rocked with such convulsive laughter that he barely kept his feet.
‘‘Oh, my God ...’’ he moaned amid his laughter. ‘‘Let me catch my breath ... You’ve made me laugh so much that ... oh! ... it’s the death of me.’’
He laughed and talked and meanwhile kept glancing timorously and suspiciously at Solomon. The latter stood in the same pose and smiled. Judging by his eyes and smile, his contempt and hatred were serious, but they were so unsuited to his plucked little figure that it seemed to Egorushka that he assumed this defiant pose and sarcastic, contemptuous expression on purpose in order to play the buffoon and make the dear guests laugh.
Having silently drunk some six glasses, Kuzmichov cleared a space before him on the table, took his sack, the same one that lay under his head while he slept under the britzka, untied the string on it, and shook it. Stacks of banknotes spilled from the sack onto the table.
‘‘Come, Father Khristofor, let’s count it while there’s time,’’ said Kuzmichov.
Seeing the money, Moisei Moiseich became embarrassed, got up, and, as a tactful man who does not want to know other people’s secrets, left the room on tiptoe, balancing himself with his arms. Solomon stayed where he was.
‘‘How many are there in the one-rouble stacks?’’ Father Khristofor began.
‘‘Fifty in each ... In the three-rouble stacks, ninety . . . The twenty-fives and hundreds are by the thousands ... You count out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov, and I’ll count out for Gusevich. And see that you don’t miscount ...’’
Never since the day he was born had Egorushka seen such a pile of money as now lay on the table. It was probably a great deal of money, because the stack of seven thousand eight hundred that Father Khristofor set aside for Varlamov seemed very small compared to the whole pile. Another time such a mass of money might have struck Egorushka and prompted him to reflect on how many bagels, babas, and poppy-seed rolls could be bought with this pile; but now he looked at it impassibly and sensed only the smell of rotten apples and kerosene that the pile gave off. He was worn out from the jolting ride on the britzka, was tired and wanted to sleep. His head was heavy, his eyes kept closing, and his thoughts were tangled like threads. If it had been possible, he would gladly have lowered his head to the table, closed his eyes so as not to see the lamp and the fingers moving over the pile, and let his sluggish, sleepy thoughts tangle still more. When he made an effort not to doze off, the flame of the lamp, the cups, and the fingers went double, the samovar swayed, and the smell of rotten apples seemed still sharper and more repellent.
‘‘Ah, money, money!’’ sighed Father Khristofor, smiling. ‘‘Nothing but woe! Now my Mikhailo is surely sleeping and dreaming of me bringing him such a pile.’’
‘‘Your Mikhailo Timofeich is a man of no understanding,’’ Kuzmichov said in a low voice, ‘‘he took up a business that’s not right for him, but you understand and can reason. Why don’t you give me your wool, as I said, and go back home, and I—very well—I’ll give you fifty kopecks over your asking price, and that only out of respect . . .’’
‘‘No, Ivan Ivanovich,’’ sighed Father Khristofor. ‘‘Thank you for the offer ... Of course, if it were up to me, there’d be no discussion, but as you know, the goods aren’t mine . . .’’
Moisei Moiseich came in on tiptoe. Trying out of delicacy not to look at the pile of money, he crept up to Egorushka and tugged him by the shirt from behind.
‘‘Come along, little lad,’’ he said in a low voice, ‘‘I’ve got a bear cub to show you! Such a terrible, angry one! Ohh!’’
Sleepy Egorushka got up and lazily plodded after Moisei Moiseich to look at the bear. He went into a small room where, before he saw anything, his breath was taken away by the smell of something sour and musty, which was much more dense here than in the big room and had probably spread from here all over the house. One half of the room was occupied by a big bed covered with a greasy quilted blanket, and the other by a chest of drawers and heaps of all possible rags, beginning with stiffly starched petticoats and ending with children’s trousers and suspenders. A tallow candle was burning on the chest of drawers.
Instead of the promised bear, Egorushka saw a large, very fat Jewess with loose hair and in a red flannel dress with black specks; she was turning heavily in the narrow passage between the bed and the chest of drawers and letting out long, moaning sighs, as if she had a toothache. Seeing Egorushka, she made a tearful face, heaved a long sigh, and, before he had time to look around, brought to his mouth a chunk of bread smeared with honey.