Yakob also lost his temper, and grew purple in the face; but he said
nothing more and took Marfa under his arm and led 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
Yakob would begin to complain about his losses, and abuse her for lying
in bed and doing no work. And Yakob looked at her with tedium in his
soul and remembered that to-morrow was John the Baptist, and the day
after Nikolai the Miracle-worker, and then came Sunday, and after that
Monday--another idle day. For four days no 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 the iron yardwand, went up to the old woman and
took her measure. After that she lay down, and Yakob crossed himself,
and began to make a coffin.
When the work was finished, Bronza put on his spectacles and wrote in
his book of losses:
"Marfa Ivanova's coffin--2 roubles, 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, Yakob?" 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 Yakob.
Later on came the priest, administered to Marfa the Sacrament and
extreme unction. Marfa began to mutter something incomprehensible, and
towards morning, died.
The old-women neighbours washed her, wrapped her in her winding sheet,
and laid her out. To avoid having to pay the deacon's fee, Yakob
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 Yakob 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 was 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 pity 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 Yakob smiling and bowing came Rothschild. "I was looking for
you, uncle," he said. "Moses Ilitch sends his compliments, and asks you
to come across to him at once."
Yakob felt inclined to cry.
"Begone!" he shouted, and continued his path.
"You can't mean that," cried Rothschild in alarm, running after him.
"Moses Hitch 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 Yakob 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 Yakob, 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 frozen 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, fleshless 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.
Yakob walked past the common, and then along the outskirts 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.
Yakob 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 maliciously, "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 Yakob'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. Yakob closed his eyes, and in
imagination saw flying towards him an immense flock of white geese.
He began to wonder how it was that in the last forty or 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 roubles a year. But he had yawned
away his life, and done nothing. What losses! Akh, what losses! and if
he hod done all together--caught fish, played on the fiddle, acted as
bargee, and kept geese--what a sum he would have amassed! But he had
never even dreamed of this; life had passed without 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 unused? 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.
Evening and night, twinkled in Yakob's brain the willow, the fish, the
dead geese, Marfa with her profile like that of a bird about to drink,
the pale, pitiable face of Rothschild, and an army of snouts thrusting
themselves out of the darkness and muttering about losses. He shifted
from side to side, and five times in the night rose from his bed and
played on the fiddle.
In the morning he rose with an effort and went to the hospital.
The same Maxim Nikolaitch ordered him to bind his head with a cold
compress, and gave him powders; and by the expression of his face and
by his tone Yakob saw that it was a bad business, and that no powders
would make it any better. But upon his way home he reflected that
from death at least there would be one profit; it would no longer be
necessary to eat, to drink, to pay taxes, or to injure others; and as
a man lies in his grave not one year, but hundreds and thousands of
years, the profit was enormous. The life of man was, in short, a loss,
and only his death a profit. Yet this consideration, though entirely
just, was offensive and bitter; for why in this world is it so ordered
that life, which is given to a man only once, passes by without profit?
He did not regret dying, but as soon as he arrived home and saw his
fiddle, his heart fell, and he felt sorry. The fiddle could not be
taken to the grave; it must remain an orphan, and the same thing would
happen with it as had happened with the birch wood and the pineforest.
Everything in this world decayed, and would decay! Yakob went to the
door of the hut and sat upon the thresholdstone, pressing his fiddle
to his shoulder. Still thinking of life, full of decay and full of
losses, he began to play, and as the tune poured out plaintively
and touchingly, the tears flowed down his cheeks. And the harder he
thought, the sadder was the song of the fiddle.
The latch creaked twice, and in the wicket door appeared Rothschild.
The first half of the yard he crossed boldly, but seeing Yakob, he
stopped short, shrivelled up, and apparently from fright began to make
signs as if he wished to tell the time with his fingers.
"Come on, don't be afraid," said Yakob kindly, beckoning him. "Come!"
With a look of distrust and terror Rothschild drew near and stopped
about two yards away. "Don't beat me, Yakob, it is not my fault!" he
said, with a bow. "Moses Hitch has sent me again. 'Don't be afraid!'
he said, 'go to Yakob again and tell him that without him we cannot
possibly get on.' The wedding is on Wednesday. Shapovaloff's daughter
is marrying a wealthy man.... It will be a first-class wedding," added
the Jew, blinking one eye.
"I cannot go," answered Yakob, breathing heavily. "I am ill, brother."
And again he took his bow, and the tears burst from his eyes and fell
upon the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing by his side
with arms folded upon his chest. The distrustful, terrified expression
upon his face little by little changed into a look of suffering
and grief, he rolled his eyes as if in an ecstacy of torment, and
ejaculated "Wachchch!" And the tears slowly rolled down his cheeks and
made little black patches on his green frock-coat.
All day long Yakob lay in bed and worried. With evening came the
priest, and, confessing him, asked whether he had any particular sin
which he would like to confess; and Yakob exerted his fading memory,
and remembering Marfa's unhappy face, and the Jew's despairing cry when
he was bitten by the dog, said in a hardly audible voice:
"Give the fiddle to Rothschild."
And now in the town everyone asks: Where did Rothschild get such an
excellent fiddle? Did he buy it or steal it ... or did he get it in
pledge? Long ago he abandoned his flute, and now plays on the fiddle
only. From beneath his bow issue the same mournful sounds as formerly
came from the flute; but when he tries to repeat the tune that Yakob
played when he sat on the threshold stone, the fiddle emits sounds so
passionately sad and full of grief that the listeners weep; and he
himself rolls his eyes and ejaculates "Wachchch!" ... But this new song
so pleases everyone in the town that wealthy traders and officials
never fail to engage Rothschild for their social gatherings, and even
force him to play it as many as ten times.