_A Novelette of Proletarian Life_
I
Drabkin was an excellent workman,—a pocketbook maker whose handiwork
was the talk of the town. Folks praised him in his presence and in
his absence; he knew his worth and held his head proudly erect. It
seemed to him that he had been created for the express purpose of
speaking the truth to all employers right before their very faces,
and upon the slightest provocation he would let them know that they
were living off his sweat and blood,—that they were exploiters,
bloodsuckers, cannibals, and so forth and so on. So that he never
could find a steady place, and through the year he spent more days
idle than at his employment.
The bosses pitied him. “He’s a devil with claws,” they would say.
“May no good Jew know him!... But he has golden hands!”
“If it weren’t for his crazy notions he’d be rolling in money. Such a
workman! His fingers fly, as if by magic!”
Yet they could not suffer him in their shops. They even feared him.
He was as widely known as a bad shilling, yet he was hired in the
hope that perhaps he had changed for the better; perhaps he had
calmed down and become quieter. Moreover, it was a pity to let a
hand go around idle, when he could do more work in twelve hours than
another could accomplish in twenty-four. But in a couple of days the
employer would have to confess with a groan that Drabkin was the same
insolent chap as ever, that it was dangerous to have him in a Jewish
shop, because he would spoil the rest of the men. So he was shown the
door.
He did not take this to heart. It had already become a game to him.
He was certain that the employers would finally be forced to come
to him, because they needed him and must have him. For “his fingers
fly, as if by magic.” And he would simply smile in ironic fashion and
pierce the bosses with a look that caused them to shiver in their
boots.
“What? You don’t like my ditty?” he would ask. “You’re punishing me
for telling the truth, ha? Exploiters! Vampires!”
“You ought to be put into prison, or into the madhouse,” they would
reply. “You’re a dangerous character. You’re a mad dog!...”
“Ah, ahem, tra-la!” he would mock, in delight. “But how do you like
my work? I’m a fast worker, ha?”
And how this truthful boast cut the bosses!
“May your hands be paralysed!” they would answer. “If your character
were only as good as your workmanship, you’d be rolling in money.”
“Working for you people!” he would suddenly revert to his favourite
theme. “With a fourteen-hour day at the wages you pay, grass will
soon be growing over my head. Exploiters! Vampires! Cannibals!...”
“There he goes again!” they would break in. “March! Off with you. Go
shout it from the house-tops!”
“Ah, ahem, tra-la!” he would grunt again. “You don’t like it? Wait!
Just wait!...”
At the last words he would point a warning finger at them. Just what
they were to wait for he himself did not know, but he had a feeling
that something or other was bound to happen that would be not at all
to the bosses’ taste.
He would leave the employers triumphantly, his eyes beaming with
happiness, as if he had just won a significant victory; with his
glance, as he passed along the street, he would transfix every heavy
paunched Jew who looked like an employer of labour. And his brain
teemed with cutting remarks that he should have used and which
he would be sure to employ in the very next encounter with those
exploiters, those bloodsuckers, those cannibals. He saw himself
surrounded by a host of toilers who raised their eyes to him as
their guardian and defender. His breast swelled with pride and
self-confidence and he was contented with himself....
“Jilted again!” was his jocular greeting to his landlady, a thin old
woman, as he entered the house.
She looked at him in surprise. “From what gallows has he escaped in
broad daylight?” she queried to herself.
“Fired again?” she scolded loudly, eyeing him with scorn. “The Lord
protect us, what a man you are!”
She shook her head, as if she had long ago decided that he was a
hopeless case; he was a good-for-nothing in the first place and a
good-for-nothing he would remain. She turned away with a depreciatory
curl of her lips. The wrinkles on her face, which was as dry and
yellow as parchment, became even deeper.
“I gave them a bawling-out, all right!” he chuckled, while his eyes
sparkled with joy.
“Much satisfaction that is!” replied the old woman, sarcastically.
“They must have taken it terribly to heart! Upon my word!”
“Such exploiters,—vampires,—cannibals. The world isn’t enough for
them!” he continued, unmindful of her words. “Do you think I’m going
to be afraid of them? What? Do you imagine we’re going to let them
fatten on our sweat and blood, and look on in silence? Bah! Not a bit
of it! I refuse to be silent! Such exploiters, cut-purses! I refuse
to be silent!...”
“Psh! As bold as a Cossack!” she ridiculed. “But what satisfaction
did you get? It was _you_ who was chased out! You, with your
‘sploiters’ and your ‘poiters’!...”
She was angry with the word, which she did not understand. She even
thought that if it had not been for that word Drabkin would not have
come to sorrow.
She was ready to spit contemptuously upon the floor and leave him.
But Drabkin seized upon her last words.
“Chased out? Not so quick, my dear! They don’t chase _me_ out in a
hurry!”
“They’re afraid of you, I suppose!” she snarled. “I wouldn’t let you
cross my threshold!”
“Well, you see that they do!” he boasted.
“Wild man!” she commented in disgust.
“Aha!” was his victorious response.
After that “aha” the old woman spoke no more. She spat out in scorn,
adjusted the scarf over her wig and walked away from him.
“‘Sploiters, poiters.’” She continued to repeat the evil word to
herself with anger.