‘‘Eat, child, eat!’’ she said. ‘‘You’re here without your mama, and there’s nobody to feed you. Eat.’’
Egorushka began to eat, though after the fruit drops and poppy-seed rolls he ate every day at home, he found nothing good in honey half mixed with wax and bees’ wings. He ate, and Moisei Moiseich and the Jewess watched and sighed.
‘‘Where are you going, child?’’ asked the Jewess.
‘‘To study,’’ replied Egorushka.
‘‘And how many of you does your mama have?’’
‘‘I’m the only one. There’s nobody else.’’
‘‘Och!’’ sighed the Jewess, and she raised her eyes. ‘‘Poor mama, poor mama! How she’s going to weep and miss you! In a year we, too, will take our Nahum to study! Och!’’
‘‘Ah, Nahum, Nahum!’’ sighed Moisei Moiseich, and the skin twitched nervously on his pale face. ‘‘And he’s so sickly.’’
The greasy blanket stirred, and from under it appeared a child’s curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes flashed and stared at Egorushka with curiosity. Moisei Moiseich and the Jewess, without ceasing to sigh, went over to the chest of drawers and began talking about something in Yiddish. Moisei Moiseich talked softly in a low bass, and generally his Yiddish resembled a ceaseless ‘‘gal-gal-gal-gal . . .’’ and his wife answered him in a thin hen-turkey’s voice, and with her it came out something like ‘‘tu-tu-tu-tu . . .’’ While they were conferring, another curly head on a thin neck peeked from under the greasy blanket, then a third, then a fourth ... If Egorushka had possessed a rich fantasy, he might have thought a hundred-headed hydra was lying under the blanket.
‘‘Gal-gal-gal-gal . . .’’ said Moisei Moiseich.
‘‘Tu-tu-tu-tu ...’’ the Jewess replied.
The conference ended with the Jewess sighing deeply, going to the chest of drawers, unfolding some sort of green rag there, and taking out a big rye gingerbread shaped like a heart.
‘‘Take, child,’’ she said, handing Egorushka the gingerbread. ‘‘You’ve got no mama now, there’s nobody to give you a treat.’’
Egorushka put the gingerbread in his pocket and backed towards the door, no longer able to breathe the musty and sour air in which his hosts lived. Returning to the big room, he snuggled up comfortably on the sofa and let his thoughts run freely.
Kuzmichov had just finished counting the money and was putting it back in the sack. He treated it with no particular respect and shoved it into the dirty sack unceremoniously, with such indifference as if it was not money but wastepaper.
Father Khristofor was conversing with Solomon.
‘‘Well, then, my wise Solomon?’’ he asked, yawning and crossing his mouth.12 ‘‘How’s things?’’
‘‘What things are you talking about?’’ asked Solomon and looked at him with great sarcasm, as if he was hinting at some sort of crime.
‘‘Generally ... What are you doing?’’
‘‘What am I doing?’’ Solomon repeated and shrugged his shoulders. ‘‘The same as everybody ... You see, I’m a lackey. I’m my brother’s lackey, my brother is the travelers’ lackey, the travelers are Varlamov’s lackeys, and if I had ten million, Varlamov would be my lackey.’’
‘‘Why would he be your lackey?’’
‘‘Why? Because there’s no such gentleman or millionaire as wouldn’t lick the hands of a scruffy Yid for an extra kopeck. I’m now a scruffy and beggarly Yid, and everybody looks at me like a dog, but if I had money, Varlamov would mince before me like a fool, the way Moisei does before you.’’
Father Khristofor and Kuzmichov exchanged glances. Neither of them understood Solomon. Kuzmichov looked at him sternly and drily and asked:
‘‘How can a fool like you put yourself on a par with Varlamov?’’
‘‘I’m not such a fool as to put myself on a par with Varlamov,’’ Solomon replied, looking his interlocutors over mockingly. ‘‘Varlamov may be a Russian, but in his soul he’s a scruffy Yid; his whole life is money and gain, but I burned up my money in the stove. I don’t need money, or land, or sheep, and I don’t need to be feared and have people take their hats off when I drive by. Meaning I’m smarter than your Varlamov and more like a human being!’’
A little later, Egorushka, through half-sleep, heard Solomon speaking about the Jews in a voice hollow and hoarse from the hatred that choked him, hurrying and swallowing his R’s; at first he spoke correctly, in Russian, then he lapsed into the tone of raconteurs of Jewish life and began speaking with an exaggerated Jewish accent, as he used to in the show booth.
‘‘Wait . . .’’ Father Khristofor interrupted him. ‘‘If you don’t like your faith, change it, but it’s a sin to laugh at it; he’s the lowest of men who derides his own faith.’’
‘‘You don’t understand anything!’’ Solomon rudely cut him short. ‘‘I’m talking to you about one thing, and you’re talking about another ...’’
‘‘It’s obvious at once that you’re a stupid man,’’ Father Khristofor sighed. ‘‘I admonish you the best I can, and you get angry. I talk to you as an old man, quietly, but you’re like a turkey: blah-blah-blah! An odd fellow, really ...’’
Moisei Moiseich came in. He looked in alarm at Solomon and his guests, and again the skin on his face twitched nervously. Egorushka shook his head and looked around him; he caught a fleeting glimpse of Solomon’s face just at the moment when it was turned three-quarters towards him and the shadow of his long nose crossed his whole left cheek; his contemptuous smile, mingled with this shadow, his glittering, mocking eyes, his haughty expression, and his whole plucked little figure, doubling and flashing in Egorushka’s eyes, now made him resemble not a buffoon but something one occasionally dreams of, probably an unclean spirit.
‘‘Some kind of demoniac you’ve got here, Moisei Moiseich, God help him!’’ Father Khristofor said with a smile. ‘‘You’d better set him up somewhere, get him married or something ... He’s not like a human being ...’’
Kuzmichov frowned angrily. Moisei Moiseich again gave his brother and his guests an alarmed and quizzical look.
‘‘Solomon, get out of here!’’ he said sternly. ‘‘Get out.’’
And he added something else in Yiddish. Solomon laughed abruptly and went out.
‘‘But what is it?’’ Moisei Moiseich fearfully asked Father Khristofor.
‘‘He forgets himself,’’ replied Kuzmichov. ‘‘He’s a rude one and thinks a lot of himself.’’
‘‘I just knew it!’’ Moisei Moiseich was horrified and clasped his hands. ‘‘Ah, my God! My God!’’ he murmured in a low voice. ‘‘Be so kind, forgive and don’t be angry. He’s such a man, such a man! Ah, my God! My God! He’s my own brother, but I’ve never had anything but grief from him. You know, he’s ...’’
Moisei Moiseich twirled his finger near his forehead and went on:
‘‘Not in his right mind ... a lost man. And what I’m to do with him, I don’t know! He doesn’t love anybody, he doesn’t esteem anybody, he’s not afraid of anybody ... You know, he laughs at everybody, says stupid things, throws it in everybody’s face. You won’t believe it, but once Varlamov came here, and Solomon said such things to him that the man struck both him and me with his whip ... But why me? Is it my fault? God took away his reason, that means it’s God’s will, and is it my fault?’’
Some ten minutes passed, and Moisei Moiseich still went on murmuring in a low voice and sighing.
‘‘He doesn’t sleep nights and keeps thinking, thinking, thinking, and what he thinks about, God knows. You come to him at night, and he’s angry and he laughs. He doesn’t love me, either ... And he doesn’t want anything! Father, when he was dying, left us six thousand roubles each. I bought myself an inn, got married, and now have children, but he burned up his money in the stove. Such a pity, such a pity! Why burn it? If you don’t need it, give it to me, why burn it?’’