She had difficulty in t^rong in the narrow space between bed and chest of drawers, and emitted protracted groaning sighs as if from toothache. Seeing Yegorushka, she assumed a woebegone air, heaved a lengthy sigh, and—before he had time to look round—put a slice of bread and honey to his lips. 'Eat, sonny, eat. Your Mummy's not here, and there's no one to feed you. Eat it up.'
Yegorushka did so, though after the fruit-drops and honey cakes that he had at home every day he thought little of the honey, half of which was wax and bees' wings. While he ate, Moses and the Jewcss watched and sighed. 'Where are you going, sonny?' she asked.
'To school.'
'And how many childrens d^ your M^my have?'
'Only me, there's no others.'
'Ah me!' sighed the Jewess, turning up her eyes. 'Your poor, poor Mummy. How she will mis you, how she will cry! In a year we shall be taking our Nahum to school too. Ah me!'
'Oh, Nahum, Nahum!' sighed Moses, the loose skin ofhis pale face twitching nervously. 'And he is so poorly.'
The greasy quilt moved, and from it emergcd a child's curly head on a very thin neck. Two black eyes gleamed, staring quizzically at Yegorushka. Still sighing, Moses and the Jewess went up to the chest of drawers and began a discussion in Yiddish. Moses spoke in a deep undertone, and his Yiddish sounded likc a non-stop boom, boom, booming, while his wife answered in a thin voice like a turkey hen's with a twitter, twitter, twitter. While they were conferring a second curly head on a thin neck peeped out from the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth. Had Yegorushka possessed a vivid imagination he might have thought that the hundred-headed hydra lay beneath that quilt.
'Boom, boom, boom,' went Moses.
'Twitter, twitter, twitter,' answered his wife.
The conference ended with her diving with a deep sigh into the chest of drawen, unwrapping some kind of green rag there, and taking out a big, heart-shaped honey-cake. 'Take it, sonny.' She gave Yego- rushka the cake. 'You have no Mummy now, isn't it? Is no one to give you nice things.'
Yegorushka put the cake in his pocket and backed towards the door, unable to continue breathing the musty, sour air in which the inn- keeper aind his wife lived. Going back to the big room, he comfortably installed himself on the sofa and let his thoughts wander.
Kuzmichov had just finished counting the banknotes and was put- ting them back in his bag. He treated them with no particular respect, stuffmg them in the dirty bag without ceremony, as unconcernedly as if they had been so much waste paper.
Father Christopher was talking to Solomon. 'Well, now, Solomon thc Wise.' He yawned and made the sign of the cross over his mouth. 'How's business?'
'To what business do you allude?' Solomon stared at him as viciously as if some crime had been implied.
'Things in general. What are you up to?'
'Up to?' Solomon repe.ited the question with a shrug. 'Samc as everyone else. I am, you see, a servant. I am my brother's servant. My brother is his visitors' servant. His visitors are Varlamov's servants. And ifl had ten million Varlamov would be my servant.'
'But why should that be?'
'Why? Because ihere's no gentleman or millionaire who wouldn't lick the hand ofa dirty Yid to make an extra copeck. As it is I'm a dirty Yid and a beggar, and everyone look at me as if I was a dog. But if I had moneys, Varlamov would make as big a fool ofhimself for me as Moses docs for you.'
Father Christopher and Kuzmichov looked at each other, neither of them understanding Solomon.
'How cancan you compare yourselfto Varlamov, you idiot?' Kuzmichov gave Solomon a stcni, dour look.
'I'm not such an idiot as to compare myself to Varlamov.' Solomon looked at the others scornfully. 'Varlamov may be a Rusian, but he's a dirty Yid at heart. Moneys and gain are his whole life, but I b^t mine in the stove. I don't need moneys or land or sheep, and I don't need people to fear me and take off their hats when I pau. So I am wiser than your Varlamov and more of a man.'
A little latcr Yegorushka, half asleep, heard Solomon discussing Jcws in a hollow, lisping, rapid voice hoarse from the hatred that choked him. Having begun by speaking correctly, he had later lapsed into the style of a raconteur telling Jewish fi^y stories, employing the same exaggerated Yiddish accent that he had used at the fair.
Father Christopher inte^pted him. 'Just one moment. If your faith displeases you, change it. But to laugh at it is sinful. The man who mocks his faith is the lowest of the low.'
'You don't understand,' Solomon ruddy cut him short. 'That has nothing to do with what I was saying.'
'Now, that just shows what a stupid fellow you are.' Father Christo- pher sighed. 'I instruct you as best I can and you become angry. I speak to you as an old man, quietly, and you go off like a turkey— cackle, cackle, cackle. You really are a funny chap.'
In came Moses. He looked anxiously at Solomon and his guests, and again die loose skin on his face twitched nervously. Yegorushka shook his head and looked around him, catching a glimpse of Solomon's face just whcn it was turned three-quarters towards him and when the shadow of his long nose bisected his whole left cheek. The scornful smile half in shadow, the glittering, sncering cycs, the arrogant ex- preuion and the whole plucked hen's figure^^oubling and dancing before Yegorushka's eyes, they made Solomon look less like a clown than some nightmare fantasy or evil spirit.
'What a devil of a fellow he is, Moses, God help him.' Father Chris- topher smiled. 'You'd better get him a job, find him a wife or some- thing. He's not human.'
Kuzmichov frownwned angrily while M^^ cast another apprehensive,
quizzical look at his brother and the guests. 'Lcave the room, Solomon,' he said sternly. 'Go away.' And he added something in Yiddish. With a brusque laugh Solomon went out. 'What was it?' Moses fcarfully asked Father Christopher. 'He forgets himself,' Kuzmichov ^wered. 'He is rude and thinks too highly ofhimselЈ'
'I knew it!' Moses threw up his arms in horror. 'Oh, goodness gracious me!' he muttered in an undertone. 'Be so kind as to forgive him, don't be angry. That's what he's like, he is. Oh, goodness me! He's my ■ brothers, and he's been nothing but trouble to me, he
has. Why, do you know, he '
Moses tapped his forehcad. 'He's out of his mind—a hopeless casc, he is. I really don't know what I'm to do with him. He cares for no one, respects no one, fears no one. He laugh at everybody, you k:tow, he say silly things, he get on people's nerves. You'll never believe it, but when Varlamov was here once, Solomon made some remark to him and he gave us both a taste of his whip! What for he whip me, eh? Was it my fault? IfGod has robbed my brother ofhis wits, it must be God's will. How is it my fault, eh?'
About ten minutes passed, but Moses still kept up a low muttering and sighing. 'He doesn't sleep of a night, he keeps thinking, thinking, thinking, but what he thinks about, God knows. If you go near him at night he get angry and he laugh. He doesn't like me either. And there's nothing he wants. When our Dad dicd he left us six thousand roubles apiece. I bought an iim, I married, and now I have childrens, but he burnt his moneys in the stove. Such a pity. Why he burn it? If he not need it, why he not give it me? Why he burn it?'
Suddenly the door squeaked on its counterweight, and the floor vibrated with footsteps. Yegorushka felt a draught of air and had the imprcssion ofa big black bird swooping past and beating its wings right by his face. He opencd his eycs. His uncle had his bag in his hand, and stood near the sofa ready to lcave. Holding his broad-brimmcd top hat, Father Christopher was bowing to somcone and smiling—not softly and tenderly as was his wont, but in a respectful, strained fashion that ill suited him. Meanwhile Moses was doing a sort of balancing act as if his body had been broken in three parts and he was trying his best not to disintegrate. Only Solomon seemcd unaffectcd, and stood in a corner, his arms folded, his grin as disdainful as cver.