It was a tiny town, worse than a village, inhabited chiefly by old
people who so seldom died that it was really vexatious. Very few coffins
were needed for the hospital and the jail; in a word, business was bad.
If Jacob Ivanoff had been a maker of coffins in the county town, he
would probably have owned a house of his own by now, and would have been
called Mr. Ivanoff, but here in this little place he was simply called
Jacob, and for some reason his nickname was Bronze. He lived as poorly
as any common peasant in a little old hut of one room, in which he and
Martha, and the stove, and a double bed, and the coffins, and his
joiner’s bench, and all the necessities of housekeeping were stowed
away.
The coffins made by Jacob were serviceable and strong. For the peasants
and townsfolk he made them to fit himself and never went wrong, for,
although he was seventy years old, there was no man, not even in the
prison, any taller or stouter than he was. For the gentry and for women
he made them to measure, using an iron yardstick for the purpose. He was
always very reluctant to take orders for children’s coffins, and made
them contemptuously without taking any measurements at all, always
saying when he was paid for them:
“The fact is, I don’t like to be bothered with trifles.”
Beside what he received for his work as a joiner, he added a little to
his income by playing the violin. There was a Jewish orchestra in the
town that played for weddings, led by the tinsmith Moses Shakess, who
took more than half of its earnings for himself. As Jacob played the
fiddle extremely well, especially Russian songs, Shakess used sometimes
to invite him to play in his orchestra for the sum of fifty copecks a
day, not including the presents he might receive from the guests.
Whenever Bronze took his seat in the orchestra, the first thing that
happened to him was that his face grew red, and the perspiration
streamed from it, for the air was always hot, and reeking of garlic to
the point of suffocation. Then his fiddle would begin to moan, and a
double bass would croak hoarsely into his right ear, and a flute would
weep into his left. This flute was played by a gaunt, red-bearded Jew
with a network of red and blue veins on his face, who bore the name of a
famous rich man, Rothschild. This confounded Jew always contrived to
play even the merriest tunes sadly. For no obvious reason Jacob little
by little began to conceive a feeling of hatred and contempt for all
Jews, and especially for Rothschild. He quarrelled with him and abused
him in ugly language, and once even tried to beat him, but Rothschild
took offence at this, and cried with a fierce look:
“If I had not always respected you for your music, I should have thrown
you out of the window long ago!”
Then he burst into tears. So after that Bronze was not often invited to
play in the orchestra, and was only called upon in cases of dire
necessity, when one of the Jews was missing.
Jacob was never in a good humour, because he always had to endure the
most terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on a Sunday or
a holiday, and Monday was always a bad day, so in that way there were
about two hundred days a year on which he was compelled to sit with his
hands folded in his lap. That was a great loss to him. If any one in
town had a wedding without music, or if Shakess did not ask him to play,
there was another loss. The police inspector had lain ill with
consumption for two years while Jacob impatiently waited for him to die,
and then had gone to take a cure in the city and had died there, which
of course had meant another loss of at least ten roubles, as the coffin
would have been an expensive one lined with brocade.
The thought of his losses worried Jacob at night more than at any other
time, so he used to lay his fiddle at his side on the bed, and when
those worries came trooping into his brain he would touch the strings,
and the fiddle would give out a sound in the darkness, and Jacob’s heart
would feel lighter.
Last year on the sixth of May, Martha suddenly fell ill. The old woman
breathed with difficulty, staggered in her walk, and felt terribly
thirsty. Nevertheless, she got up that morning, lit the stove, and even
went for the water. When evening came she went to bed. Jacob played his
fiddle all day. When it grew quite dark, because he had nothing better
to do, he took the book in which he kept an account of his losses, and
began adding up the total for the year. They amounted to more than a
thousand roubles. He was so shaken by this discovery, that he threw the
counting board on the floor and trampled it under foot. Then he picked
it up again and rattled it once more for a long time, heaving as he did
so sighs both deep and long. His face grew purple, and perspiration
dripped from his brow. He was thinking that if those thousand roubles he
had lost had been in the bank then, he would have had at least forty
roubles interest by the end of the year. So those forty roubles were
still another loss! In a word, wherever he turned he found losses and
nothing but losses.
“Jacob!” cried Martha unexpectedly, “I am going to die!”
He looked round at his wife. Her face was flushed with fever and looked
unusually joyful and bright. Bronze was troubled, for he had been
accustomed to seeing her pale and timid and unhappy. It seemed to him
that she was actually dead, and glad to have left this hut, and the
coffins, and Jacob at last. She was staring at the ceiling, with her
lips moving as if she saw her deliverer Death approaching and were
whispering with him.
The dawn was just breaking and the eastern sky was glowing with a faint
radiance. As he stared at the old woman it somehow seemed to Jacob that
he had never once spoken a tender word to her or pitied her; that he had
never thought of buying her a kerchief or of bringing her back some
sweetmeats from a wedding. On the contrary, he had shouted at her and
abused her for his losses, and had shaken his fist at her. It was true
he had never beaten her, but he had frightened her no less, and she had
been paralysed with fear every time he had scolded her. Yes, and he had
not allowed her to drink tea because his losses were heavy enough as it
was, so she had had to be content with hot water. Now he understood why
her face looked so strangely happy, and horror overwhelmed him.
As soon as it was light he borrowed a horse from a neighbour and took
Martha to the hospital. As there were not many patients, he had not to
wait very long—only about three hours. To his great satisfaction it was
not the doctor who was receiving the sick that day, but his assistant,
Maksim Nicolaitch, an old man of whom it was said that although he
quarrelled and drank, he knew more than the doctor did.
“Good morning, your Honour,” said Jacob leading his old woman into the
office. “Excuse us for intruding upon you with our trifling affairs. As
you see, this subject has fallen ill. My life’s friend, if you will
allow me to use the expression——”
Knitting his grey eyebrows and stroking his whiskers, the doctor’s
assistant fixed his eyes on the old woman. She was sitting all in a heap
on a low stool, and with her thin, long-nosed face and her open mouth,
she looked like a thirsty bird.
“Well, well—yes—” said the doctor slowly, heaving a sigh. “This is a
case of influenza and possibly fever; there is typhoid in town. What’s
to be done? The old woman has lived her span of years, thank God. How
old is she?”
“She lacks one year of being seventy, your Honour.”
“Well, well, she has lived long. There must come an end to everything.”
“You are certainly right, your Honour,” said Jacob, smiling out of
politeness. “And we thank you sincerely for your kindness, but allow me
to suggest to you that even an insect dislikes to die!”
“Never mind if it does!” answered the doctor, as if the life or death of
the old woman lay in his hands. “I’ll tell you what you must do, my good
man. Put a cold bandage around her head, and give her two of these
powders a day. Now then, good-by! Bon jour!”
Jacob saw by the expression on the doctor’s face that it was too late
now for powders. He realised clearly that Martha must die very soon, if
not to-day, then to-morrow. He touched the doctor’s elbow gently,
blinked, and whispered:
“She ought to be cupped, doctor!”
“I haven’t time, I haven’t time, my good man. Take your old woman, and
go in God’s name. Good-by.”
“Please, please, cup her, doctor!” begged Jacob. “You know yourself that
if she had a pain in her stomach, powders and drops would do her good,
but she has a cold! The first thing to do when one catches cold is to
let some blood, doctor!”
But the doctor had already sent for the next patient, and a woman
leading a little boy came into the room.
“Go along, go along!” he cried to Jacob, frowning. “It’s no use making a
fuss!”
“Then at least put some leeches on her! Let me pray to God for you for
the rest of my life!”
The doctor’s temper flared up and he shouted:
“Don’t say another word to me, blockhead!”
Jacob lost his temper, too, and flushed hotly, but he said nothing and,
silently taking Martha’s arm, led her out of the office. Only when they
were once more seated in their wagon did he look fiercely and mockingly
at the hospital and say:
“They’re a pretty lot in there, they are! That doctor would have cupped
a rich man, but he even begrudged a poor one a leech. The pig!”
When they returned to the hut, Martha stood for nearly ten minutes
supporting herself by the stove. She felt that if she lay down Jacob
would begin to talk to her about his losses, and would scold her for
lying down and not wanting to work. Jacob contemplated her sadly,
thinking that to-morrow was St. John the Baptist’s day, and day after
to-morrow was St. Nicholas the Wonder Worker’s day, and that the
following day would be Sunday, and the day after that would be Monday, a
bad day for work. So he would not be able to work for four days, and as
Martha would probably die on one of these days, the coffin would have to
be made at once. He took his iron yardstick in hand, went up to the old
woman, and measured her. Then she lay down, and he crossed himself and
went to work on the coffin.
When the task was completed Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote in
his book:
“To 1 coffin for Martha Ivanoff—2 roubles, 40 copecks.”
He sighed. All day the old woman lay silent with closed eyes, but toward
evening, when the daylight began to fade, she suddenly called the old
man to her side.
“Do you remember, Jacob?” she asked. “Do you remember how fifty years
ago God gave us a little baby with curly golden hair? Do you remember
how you and I used to sit on the bank of the river and sing songs under
the willow tree?” Then with a bitter smile she added: “The baby died.”
Jacob racked his brains, but for the life of him he could not recall the
child or the willow tree.
“You are dreaming,” he said.
The priest came and administered the Sacrament and Extreme Unction. Then
Martha began muttering unintelligibly, and toward morning she died.
The neighbouring old women washed her and dressed her, and laid her in
her coffin. To avoid paying the deacon, Jacob read the psalms over her
himself, and her grave cost him nothing, as the watchman of the cemetery
was his cousin. Four peasants carried the coffin to the grave, not for
money but for love. The old women, the beggars, and two village idiots
followed the body, and the people whom they passed on the way crossed
themselves devoutly. Jacob was very glad that everything had passed off
so nicely and decently and cheaply, without giving offence to any one.
As he said farewell to Martha for the last time he touched the coffin
with his hand and thought:
“That’s a fine job!”
But walking homeward from the cemetery he was seized with great
distress. He felt ill, his breath was burning hot, his legs grew weak,
and he longed for a drink. Beside this, a thousand thoughts came
crowding into his head. He remembered again that he had never once
pitied Martha or said a tender word to her. The fifty years of their
life together lay stretched far, far behind him, and somehow, during all
that time, he had never once thought about her at all or noticed her
more than if she had been a dog or a cat. And yet she had lit the stove
every day, and had cooked and baked and fetched water and chopped wood,
and when he had come home drunk from a wedding she had hung his fiddle
reverently on a nail each time, and had silently put him to bed with a
timid, anxious look on her face.
But here came Rothschild toward him, bowing and scraping and smiling.
“I have been looking for you, uncle!” he said. “Moses Shakess presents
his compliments and wants you to go to him at once.”
Jacob did not feel in a mood to do anything. He wanted to cry.
“Leave me alone!” he exclaimed, and walked on.
“Oh, how can you say that?” cried Rothschild, running beside him in
alarm. “Moses will be very angry. He wants you to come at once!”
Jacob was disgusted by the panting of the Jew, by his blinking eyes, and
by the quantities of reddish freckles on his face. He looked with
aversion at his long green coat and at the whole of his frail, delicate
figure.
“What do you mean by pestering me, garlic?” he shouted. “Get away!”
The Jew grew angry and shouted back:
“Don’t yell at me like that or I’ll send you flying over that fence!”
“Get out of my sight!” bellowed Jacob, shaking his fist at him. “There’s
no living in the same town with swine like you!”
Rothschild was petrified with terror. He sank to the ground and waved
his hands over his head as if to protect himself from falling blows;
then he jumped up and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. As
he ran he leaped and waved his arms, and his long, gaunt back could be
seen quivering. The little boys were delighted at what had happened, and
ran after him screaming: “Sheeny! Sheeny!” The dogs also joined barking
in the chase. Somebody laughed and then whistled, at which the dogs
barked louder and more vigorously than ever.
Then one of them must have bitten Rothschild, for a piteous, despairing
scream rent the air.
Jacob walked across the common to the edge of the town without knowing
where he was going, and the little boys shouted after him. “There goes
old man Bronze! There goes old man Bronze!” He found himself by the
river where the snipe were darting about with shrill cries, and the
ducks were quacking and swimming to and fro. The sun was shining
fiercely and the water was sparkling so brightly that it was painful to
look at. Jacob struck into a path that led along the river bank. He came
to a stout, red-cheeked woman just leaving a bath-house. “Aha, you
otter, you!” he thought. Not far from the bath-house some little boys
were fishing for crabs with pieces of meat. When they saw Jacob they
shouted mischievously: “Old man Bronze! Old man Bronze!” But there
before him stood an ancient, spreading willow tree with a massive trunk,
and a crow’s nest among its branches. Suddenly there flashed across
Jacob’s memory with all the vividness of life a little child with golden
curls, and the willow of which Martha had spoken. Yes, this was the same
tree, so green and peaceful and sad. How old it had grown, poor thing!
He sat down at its foot and thought of the past. On the opposite shore,
where that meadow now was, there had stood in those days a wood of tall
birch-trees, and that bare hill on the horizon yonder had been covered
with the blue bloom of an ancient pine forest. And sailboats had plied
the river then, but now all lay smooth and still, and only one little
birch-tree was left on the opposite bank, a graceful young thing, like a
girl, while on the river there swam only ducks and geese. It was hard to
believe that boats had once sailed there. It even seemed to him that
there were fewer geese now than there had been. Jacob shut his eyes, and
one by one white geese came flying toward him, an endless flock.
He was puzzled to know why he had never once been down to the river
during the last forty or fifty years of his life, or, if he had been
there, why he had never paid any attention to it. The stream was fine
and large; he might have fished in it and sold the fish to the merchants
and the government officials and the restaurant keeper at the station,
and put the money in the bank. He might have rowed in a boat from farm
to farm and played on his fiddle. People of every rank would have paid
him money to hear him. He might have tried to run a boat on the river,
that would have been better than making coffins. Finally, he might have
raised geese, and killed them, and sent them to Moscow in the winter.
Why, the down alone would have brought him ten roubles a year! But he
had missed all these chances and had done nothing. What losses were
here! Ah, what terrible losses! And, oh, if he had only done all these
things at the same time! If he had only fished, and played the fiddle,
and sailed a boat, and raised geese, what capital he would have had by
now! But he had not even dreamed of doing all this; his life had gone by
without profit or pleasure. It had been lost for a song. Nothing was
left ahead; behind lay only losses, and such terrible losses that he
shuddered to think of them. But why shouldn’t men live so as to avoid
all this waste and these losses? Why, oh, why, should those birch and
pine forests have been felled? Why should those meadows be lying so
deserted? Why did people always do exactly what they ought not to do?
Why had Jacob scolded and growled and clenched his fists and hurt his
wife’s feelings all his life? Why, oh why, had he frightened and
insulted that Jew just now? Why did people in general always interfere
with one another? What losses resulted from this! What terrible losses!
If it were not for envy and anger they would get great profit from one
another.
All that evening and night Jacob dreamed of the child, of the willow
tree, of the fish and the geese, of Martha with her profile like a
thirsty bird, and of Rothschild’s pale, piteous mien. Queer faces seemed
to be moving toward him from all sides, muttering to him about his
losses. He tossed from side to side, and got up five times during the
night to play his fiddle.
He rose with difficulty next morning, and walked to the hospital. The
same doctor’s assistant ordered him to put cold bandages on his head,
and gave him little powders to take; by his expression and the tone of
his voice Jacob knew that the state of affairs was bad, and that no
powders could save him now. As he walked home he reflected that one good
thing would result from his death: he would no longer have to eat and
drink and pay taxes, neither would he offend people any more, and, as a
man lies in his grave for hundreds of thousands of years, the sum of his
profits would be immense. So, life to a man was a loss—death, a gain. Of
course this reasoning was correct, but it was also distressingly sad.
Why should the world be so strangely arranged that a man’s life which
was only given to him once must pass without profit?
He was not sorry then that he was going to die, but when he reached
home, and saw his fiddle, his heart ached, and he regretted it deeply.
He would not be able to take his fiddle with him into the grave, and now
it would be left an orphan, and its fate would be that of the birch
grove and the pine forest. Everything in the world had been lost, and
would always be lost for ever. Jacob went out and sat on the threshold
of his hut, clasping his fiddle to his breast. And as he thought of his
life so full of waste and losses he began playing without knowing how
piteous and touching his music was, and the tears streamed down his
cheeks. And the more he thought the more sorrowfully sang his violin.
The latch clicked and Rothschild came in through the garden-gate, and
walked boldly half-way across the garden. Then he suddenly stopped,
crouched down, and, probably from fear, began making signs with his
hands as if he were trying to show on his fingers what time it was.
“Come on, don’t be afraid!” said Jacob gently, beckoning him to advance.
“Come on!”
With many mistrustful and fearful glances Rothschild went slowly up to
Jacob, and stopped about two yards away.
“Please don’t beat me!” he said with a ducking bow. “Moses Shakess has
sent me to you again. ‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said, ‘go to Jacob,’ says
he, ‘and say that we can’t possibly manage without him.’ There is a
wedding next Thursday. Ye-es, sir. Mr. Shapovaloff is marrying his
daughter to a very fine man. It will be an expensive wedding, ai, ai!”
added the Jew with a wink.
“I can’t go” said Jacob breathing hard. “I’m ill, brother.”
And he began to play again, and the tears gushed out of his eyes over
his fiddle. Rothschild listened intently with his head turned away and
his arms folded on his breast. The startled, irresolute look on his face
gradually gave way to one of suffering and grief. He cast up his eyes as
if in an ecstasy of agony and murmured: “Ou—ouch!” And the tears began
to trickle slowly down his cheeks, and to drip over his green coat.
All day Jacob lay and suffered. When the priest came in the evening to
administer the Sacrament he asked him if he could not think of any
particular sin.
Struggling with his fading memories, Jacob recalled once more Martha’s
sad face, and the despairing cry of the Jew when the dog had bitten him.
He murmured almost inaudibly:
“Give my fiddle to Rothschild.”
“It shall be done,” answered the priest.
So it happened that every one in the little town began asking:
“Where did Rothschild get that good fiddle? Did he buy it or steal it or
get it out of a pawnshop?”
Rothschild has long since abandoned his flute, and now only plays on the
violin. The same mournful notes flow from under his bow that used to
come from his flute, and when he tries to repeat what Jacob played as he
sat on the threshold of his hut, the result is an air so plaintive and
sad that every one who hears him weeps, and he himself at last raises
his eyes and murmurs: “Ou—ouch!” And this new song has so delighted the
town that the merchants and government officials vie with each other in
getting Rothschild to come to their houses, and sometimes make him play
it ten times in succession.