"Be off!" he said to Yakov, with a frown.
"At least try the effect of leeches. I will pray God eternally for you."
The feldscher lost his temper, and roared:
"Xot another word."
Yakov also lost his temper, and grew purple in the face; but he said nothing more and took Marfa under his arm and l.ed her out of the room. As soon as he had got her into the cart, he looked angrily and contemptuously at the hospital and said :
"What an artist! He will let the blood of a rich man, but for a poor man grudges even a leech. Herod! "
When they arrived home, and entered the cabin, Marfa stood for a moment holding on to the stove. She was afraid that if she were to lie down Yakov would begin to complain about his losses, and abuse her for lying in bed and doing no work. And Yakov looked at her with tedium in his soul and remembered that to-morrow was John the Baptist, and the day after Nikolay the Miracle-worker, and then came Sunday.
.snd after that Monday—another idle day. For four days na work could be done, and Marfa would be sure to die on one of these days. Her coffin must be made to-day. He took tho iron yardwand, went up to the old woman and took her measure. After that she lay down, and Yakov crossed himself, and began to make a coffin.
WhWhen the work was finished, Bronza put on his spectacle! and wrote in his book of losses:
"Marfa Ivanovna's coffin—2 rubles, 40 kopecks." And he sighed. All the time Marfa had lain silently with her eyes closed. Towards evening, when it was growing dark, she called her husband:
"Rememberest, Yakov?" she said, looking at him joyfully. "Rememberest, fifty years ago God gave us a baby with yellow hair. Thou and I then sat every day by the river . . . under the willow . . . and sang songs." And laughing bitterly she added: "The child died."
"That is all imagination," said Yakov. Later on came the priest, administered to Marfa the Sao rament and extreme unction. Marfa began to mutter some- thing incomprehensible, and towards morning, died.
The old-women neighbours washed her, wrapped her iq her winding sheet, and laid her out. To avoid having to pay the deacon's fee, Yakov himself read the psalms; and escaped a fee also at the graveyard, as the watchman there was his godfather. Four peasants carried the coffin free, out of respect for the deceased. After the coffin walked a procession of old women, beggars, and two cripples. The peasants on the road crossed themselves piously. And Yakov was very satisfied that everything passed off in honour, order, and cheapness, without offence to anyone. When saying good-bye for the last time to Marfa, he tapped the coffin with his fingers, and thought "An excellent piece of work."
But while he was returning from the graveyard he wa,t overcome with extreme weariness. He felt unwell, he breathed feverishly and heavily, he could hardly stand on his feet. His brain was full of unaccustomed thoughts. He remembered again that he had never taken pitv on Marfa and never caressed her. The fifty-two years during which they had lived in the same cabin stretched back to eternity, yet in the whole of that eternity he had never thought of her, never paid any attention to her, but treated her as if she were a cat or a dog. Yet every day she had lighted the stove, boiled and baked, fetched water, chopped wood, slept with him on the same bed; and when he returned drunk from weddings, she had taken his fiddle respectfully, and hung it on the wall, and put him to bed—all this silently with a timid, worried expression on her face. And now he felt that he could take pity on her, and would like to buy her a present, but it was too late. . . .
Towards Yakov, smiling and bowing, came Rothschild.
"I was looking for you, uncle," he said. "Moses Ilyich sends his compliments, and asks you to come across to him at once."
Yakov felt inclined to cry.
"Begone!" he shouted, and continued his path.
"You can't mean that," cried Rothschild in alarm, running after him. "Moses Ilyich will take offence! He wants you at once."
The way in which the Jew puffed and blinked, and the multitude of his red freckles awoke in Yakov disgust. He felt disgust, too, for his green frock-coat, with its black patches, and his whole fragile, delicate figure.
"What do you mean by coming after me, garlic?" he shouted. "Keep off!"
The Jew also grew angry, and cried:
"If you don't take care to be a little politer I will send you flying over the fence."
"Out of my sight!" roared Yakov, rushing on him with clenched fists. "Out of my sight, abortion, or I will beat the soul out of your cursed body! I have no peace with Jews."
Rothschild was frozP.n with terror; he squatted down and waved his arms above his head, as if warding off blows, and then jumped up and ran for his life. While running he hopped, and flourished his hands; and the twitching of his long, flesh- less spine could plainly be seen. The boys in the street were delighted with the incident, and rushed after him, crying, "Jew! Jew!" The dogs pursued him with loud barks. Someone laughed, then someone whistled, and the dogs barked louder and louder. Then, it must have been, a dog bit Rothschild, for there rang out a sickly, despairing cry.
Yakov walked past the common, and then along the out- skirts of the town; and the street boys cried, "Bronza! Bronza!" With a piping note snipe flew around him, and ducks quacked. The sun baked everything, and from the water came scintillations so bright that it was painful to look at. Yakov walked along the path by the side of the river, and watched a stout, red-cheeked lady come out of the bathing- place. Not far from the bathing-place sat a group of boys catching crabs with meat; and seeing him they cried mali- ciously, "Bronza! Bronza!" And at this moment before him rose a thick old willow with an immense hollow in it, and on it a raven's nest. . . . And suddenly in Yakov's mind awoke the memory of the child with the yellow hair of whom Marfa had spoken. . . . Yes, it was the same willow, green, silent, sad. . . . How it had aged, poor thing!
He sat underneath it, and began to remember. On the other bank, where was now a flooded meadow, there then stood a great birch forest, and farther away, where the now bare hill glimmered on the horizon, was an old pine wood. Up and down the river went barges. But now everything was flat and smooth; on the opposite bank stood only a single birch, young and shapely, like a girl; and on the river were only ducks and geese where once had floated barges. It seemed that since those days even the geese had become smaller. Yakov closed his eyes, and in imagination saw flying towards him an im- mense flock of white geese.
He began to wonder how lt was that in the last forty 01 fifty years of his life he had never been near the river, or if he had, had never noticed it. Yet it was a respectable river, and by no means contemptible; it would have been possible to fish in it, and the fish might have been sold to tradesmen, officials, and the attendant at the railway station buffet, and the money could have been lodged in the bank; he might have used it for rowing from country-house to country-house and playing on the fiddle, and everyone would have paid him money; he might even have tried to act as bargee—it would have been better than making coffins; he might have kept geese, killed them and sent them to Moscow in the winter- time—from the feathers alone he would have made as much as ten rubles a year. But he had yawned away his life, and done nothing. What losses! Akh, what losses! and if he had done all together—caught fish, played on the fiddle, acted as bargee, and kept geese—what a sum he would have amassed! But hehad never even dreamed of this; life had passed with- out profits, without any satisfaction; everything had passed away unnoticed; before him nothing remained. But look backward—nothing but losses, such losses that to think of them it makes the blood run cold. And why cannot a man live without these losses? Why had the birch wood and the pine forest both been cut down? Why is the common pasture un- used? Why do people do exactly what they ought not to do? Why did he all his life scream, roar, clench his fists, insult his wife? For what imaginable purpose did he frighten and insult the Jew? Why, indeed, do people prevent one another living in peace? All these are also losses! Terrible losses! If it were not for hatred and malice people would draw from one another incalculable profits.