'It's my sister Olga's son,' answered Kuzmichov.
'Where is he going then?'
'To school. We're taking him to the high school.'
Out of politeness Moses registered surprise, sagely twisting his head. 'Is very good.' He wagged his finger at the samovar. 'And such a fme gentlemans you'll be when you leave school, we'll all take our hats off to you. You'll be clever, rich, and oh so grand. Now, won't your Mummy be pleased? Is good, good.'
He was silent for a while and stroked his knee. 'Forgive me, Father Christopher.' He spoke with a deferential, jocular air. 'I'm going to report you to the Bishop for robbing the merchants of their living. I'll get an official application form, and write that Father Christopher can't have much moneys of his if he has turned to trade and started selling wool.'
'Yes, it's a notion I've taken in my old age,' Father Christopher laughed. 'I've turned from priest to merchant, old son. I should be at home saying my prayers, but here I am galloping about in my chariot, even as a very Pharaoh. Ah, vanity!'
'Still, you will make much moneys.'
'A likely tale. I'll get more kicks than halfpence. The wool isn't mine, you know, it's my son-in-law Michael's.'
'Then why hasn't he gone himself?'
'Why, because—. He's only a young shaver. He bought the wool all right, but as for selling it—he has no idea, he's too young. He spent all his money, counted on making a packet and cutting a bit of a dash, but he's tried here and he's tried there, and no one will even give him what he paid for it. Well, the lad messes around with it for a twelve- month, and then he comes to me. "Dad," says he, "you sell the wool, be so kind. I'm no good at these things." Well, that's true enough. As soon as things go wrong he runs to his dad, but till then he could manage without his dad. Doesn't consult me when buying it, oh no, but now things have come unstuck it's daddy this and daddy that. But what can daddy do? If it wasn't for Ivan Kuzmichov daddy could have done nothing. What a nuisance they are.'
'Yes, childrens are a lot of trouble, believe me,' sighed Moses. 'I have six myselЈ It's teach the one, dose the other, carry the third round in your arms, and when they grow up they're even more nuisance. There ain't nothing new about it, it was the same in Holy Scripture.
When Jacob had small childrcns he wept, but when they grew up he wept more than ever.'
Father Christopher agreed, looking pensively at his glas. 'H'm, yes. Now, me, I haven't really done anything to anger God. I've lived out my span as lucky as could be. I've found good husbands for my daughters, I've set my sons up in life, and now I'm free, I've done my job, I can go where I like. I live quietly with my wife, eat, drink. sleep, enjoy my grandchildren, say my prayers—and that's all I need! Live on the fat of the land I do, and I don't need any favours. There has been no griefin my life. Suppose the Tsar asked me what I needed and wanted now—there isn't anything! I have ev^^^mg, thanks be to There's no happier man in all our True, I'm a great sinner, but then—only God's without sin, eh?'
'Aye, true enough.'
'I've lost my teeth ofcourse, my poor old back aches and so on, I'm shon of breath and all that. I fall ill, the flesh is weak, but I have lived, haven't I? You can see that for yourselЈ In my seventies, I am. You can't go on for ever—mustn't outstay your welcome.'
Struck by a sudden thought, Father Christopher snorted into his glaw, and then laughed himselfinto a coughing fit. Moses, too, laughed and coughed out of politenes.
'It was so funny!' Father Christopher made a helples gesture. 'My eldest son Gabriel comes to stay with me. He's in the medical line, a doctor with the rural council downwn Chernigov way. Well, now. "I'm short of breath and so on," I tell him. "Now, you're a doctor, so you cure your father." So he undresses me there and then, he does a bit of tapping and listening—the usual trick——squeezes my stomach. "Com- preHed air treatment's what you need, Dad," says he.'
Father Christopher laughed convulsively until he cried, and stood up.' "Confound your compressed air," says I. "Confound your air!" ' He laughed as he brought out the words and made a derisive gesture with both hands.
Moses also stood up, clutched his stomach and uttered a shrill peal of minh like the yap of a pekinese.
'Confound your compr^«d air!' the chortling Father Christopher repeated.
Laughing two notes higher, Moses unered a cackle so explosive that he almost lost his footing. 'Oh, my God,' groaned he in mid-guffaw. 'Let me get my breath back. Oh, such a scream you are—you'U be the death of me, you will.'
While laughing and speaking he cast apprehensive, suspicious glances at Solomon, who stood in his formcr posture, smiling. To judge from his eyes and grin his scorn and hatred werc genuine, but so incompatible were they with his plucked-hen look that Yegorushka interpreted the ch:^llenging mien and air of blistering contempt as buffoonery deliberately designed to amuse the honoured giests.
After silently drinking half a dozen glasses of tea Kuzmichov cleared a space on the table in front of him, took his bag—the same one that he had kept under his head when sleeping beneath the carriage—untied thc string and shook it. Bundles ofbanknotes tumbled out on the table.
'Let's count them while thcre's time, Father,' said Kuzmichov.
On seeing the money Moses showed embarrassment, stood up, and —as a sensitive man not wanting to know others' secrete—tiptoed from the room, balancing with his arms. Solomon stayed where he was.
'How much in the one-rouble packets?' began Father Christopher.
'They're in fifties, and the three-rouble notes are in ninety-rouble packets. The twenty-fives and the hundreds come in thousands. You count out seven thousand eight hundred for Varlamov and I'll count Gusevich's. And mind you get it right.'
Never in his life had Yegorushka seen such a pile of moncy as that on the table. It must have been a vast amount indeed, because the bundle of seven thousand eight hundred put aside for Varlamov seemed so small compared to the pile as a whole. All this money might have impressed Yegorushka at any other time, moving him to ponder how many bagels, dough rolls and poppy-seed cakes you could buy with it. But now he looked at it unconcernedly, aware only of the foul smcll of rotten apples and paraffin that it gave off. Exhausted by the jolting ride in the britzka, he was worn out and slecpy. His head felt heavy, his eyes would scarcely stay open, and his thoughts werc like tangled threads. Had it been possible he would have been glad to lay his head on the tablc and close his eyes to avoid seeing the lamp and the fingers moving above the heap ofnotes, and he would have allowed his listless, slecpy thoughts to become more jumbled still. As he struggled to stay awake he saw everything double—lamplight, cups, fingers. The samovar throbbed, and the smell of rotten apples seemed yet more acrid and foul.
'Money, money, money!' sighed Father Christopher, smiling. 'What a nuisance you are! Now, I bet young Michael's asleep, dream- ing of me bringing him a pile like this.'
'Your Michael has no sense.' Kuzmichov spoke in an undertone.
'Right out ofhis depth, he is. But you are sensible and open to reason. You'd better let me have your wool, like I said, and go back home. Very well, then—1'd give you half a rouble a bale over and above your price, and that just out of respect '
'No thanks,' Father Christopher sighed. 'I'm grateful for your con- cern, and I wouldn't think twice about it, of course, ifl had the choice. But you see, it's not my wool, is it?'
In tiptoed Moses. Trying not to look at the heap of money out of delicacy, he stole up to Yegorushka and tugged the back of his shin. 'Come on, little gentlemans,' said he in a low voice. Tll show you such a nice little bear. He's oh such a fierce, cross little bear, he is.'
Sleepy Yegorushka stood up and sluggishly plodded after Moses to look at the bear. He entered a small room where his breath was caught, before he saw anything, by the sour, musty smell that was much stronger than in the big room, and was probably spreading through the house from here. One half of the room was dominated by a double bed covered with a greasy quilt, and the other by a chest of drawers and piles of miscellaneous clothing, beginning with stiffly starched skirts and ending with children's trousers and braces. On the chest of drawers a tallow candle b^rct, but instead ofthe promised bear Yegorushka saw a big fatJewess with her hair hanging loose, wearing a red fl^rnel dre» with black dots.