Chyenke and her parents were in glee at the wedding, for her dowry of
five hundred roubles had in the meantime increased to seven hundred.
Chyenke felt like a wealthy woman, and her parents congratulated
themselves upon being the father and mother of a rich lady.
Drabkin, however, was not in good humour. A certain fear hovered over
him. After the wedding he foresaw war....
And surely enough, five months later the war began. They had decided
to go into manufacturing their own goods, without waiting for work
to be brought in to them from the shops. This would require an
independent establishment with a number of employés.
He had seen several workingmen, old friends and former shopmates.
“What do you say, boys? Will you come to work for me?”
“You don’t say, Drabkin! So you’re really becoming a boss?”
“Listen to him. He doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet!”
“Well. Will you work for me?”
“Why not? You’ll pay wages twice as high as the regular rate, of
course,” laughed the workingmen.
“You don’t have to worry about such matters when you deal with me,”
he assured them, at the same time thinking of his wife.
“You’ll really pay twice the regular wages?”
“I told you not to worry about that, you blockheads! You’ll
get higher pay from me than from anybody else, and you’ll work
considerably less.”
They all parted in great contentment. And Drabkin told himself that
he had won a victory over his wife after all....
“To-morrow four operators will come here,” he announced to Chyenke
when he came home that night. And he began to recite their names.
“Abraham, who used to work for Abraham Baer; Labke, who....”
“What are you going to pay them?” she interrupted, scrutinising him
closely from under her furrowed brows.
He was silent. He wondered what figure he could name.
“Why don’t you speak?” she asked, more sternly than before, eyeing
him more closely.
Suddenly he became bold and self-assertive. Why need he fear her?
He’d tell her point-blank! And if she didn’t like it, she’d have to
... that’s all! With a smiling countenance he repeated the details of
his arrangements with the workingmen.
“May evil dreams descend upon the heads of all my enemies,” she
shrieked, slapping her palms indignantly together. “Are you drunk, or
crazy? There’s a millionaire for you! What’s a few hundred roubles to
you? Here! Take my dowry and give it away!...”
“You don’t like it? Then don’t!” he answered gruffly. “I refuse to
be like the rest of them. I will not be a cut-purse!”
“Look at him!—A cut-purse!” she snarled venomously. “Fine business
man you are! Am I, a proprietor, and now with child, to work fourteen
and fifteen hours a day, and have my own employés go around in my
place like men of leisure? My enemies won’t live to see it! May they
waste in illness as long as such a thing never was and never will
be!” ...
“I’ve already told you,” he interrupted incisively, “if you don’t
like it, then don’t!”
“What kind of words are those!” she screamed. “I’ll have you
understand that meanwhile _I_ am the boss, and the money is
_mine_!... Did you bring such a pile to it? Then things will be as I
wish them to be. You’ll see whether they work for me or not. What do
you think of the fellow? Wants to be a public benefactor! H’m!”
“Listen to me, Chyenke. None of your tricks, now!”
“None of _your_ tricks! What are you going to do about it? Beat me?
I’m not afraid of such trifles!...” She was now shrieking shrilly.
He looked at her angrily and gnashed his teeth.
Suddenly she threw on her coat and ran off to her parents....
An hour later, her father, her mother, her father’s brother Jonah the
tailor, and her mother’s brother Jehiel the cobbler, stalked into the
room, preceded by Chyenke, whose face shone with triumph. Drabkin
greeted them with none too happy a countenance, and continued his
work at the machine.
“What’s the trouble here between you?” began Grunim the glazier.
“What are you so angry about?” asked his mother-in-law, venomously.
“I suppose you imagine you’re in the right?”
“I’m not asking anybody whether I’m right or wrong,” he replied, even
more venomously.
“A fine answer!” responded the mother-in-law, indignantly.
“It’s good enough for me,” said Drabkin, pushing the treadle.
“Just the same you needn’t be impudent about it,” interposed Grunim,
beginning to lose his temper.
But Chyenke interceded and prevented a quarrel.
“Just reckon it out for him. Reckon it out,” she said, turning to her
Uncle Jonah. “Let him hear.”
“Drop your work,” suggested Uncle Jehiel, “and listen to reason.”
“I’ve got nothing to listen to.”
“Don’t be a child!”
“What is there to discuss, what?” He rose from his place. “I said
once and for all that I refuse to be a cut-purse.”
“You talk like a child,” began Uncle Jonah. “I’m no cut-purse myself,
and I get along first rate with my employés! But everything must be
done with foresight, with a reckoning! You, my dear child,—you,” he
began, falling into the sing-song intonation of the Gemara, “you’re
starting out as a manufacturer,—you’re a new competitor in the
market. Then you must try to sell your goods cheaper. But how are you
going to do this when your labour is going to cost you more than it
costs anybody else?” he ended, ironically, his arms akimbo, looking
from face to face with an air of triumph.
“I know the reckoning!” retorted Drabkin, obstinately.
“No, you don’t!” shouted the tailor, waving his right hand in the
air and then bringing it back to his hips. “You don’t know! If you
did, you wouldn’t do as you wish to do!... Let me repeat it to
you, my youngster, you ...” and again he lapsed into the Talmudic
sing-song—“Wages will cost you practically twice as much as any
other, and your workingmen will produce half as much per day as in
any other shop. Well, where’s your brains? Your goods will cost four
times as dear!... Who’s going to buy it of you? Is it going to be
covered with spangles?”
“I tell you, I don’t care to hear any reckonings!” cried Drabkin.
“Then you’re a fool, a jackass, a simpleton!” replied Jonah, heatedly.
“It’s the first time in my life I see such a person!” asserted
Jehiel, shrugging his shoulders.
“Shut up. It’s no worry of yours,” scowled Drabkin. “I’ll do exactly
as I please.”
“What do you mean,—exactly as you please?” shrilled Grunim. “You’re
not the boss yet. Meanwhile Chyenke has the say here!”
“Certainly!” corroborated the mother-in-law.
“Certainly!” echoed Chyenke.
“And you’re an impudent rascal, a loafer!” scolded Grunim.
“A know-nothing, a dunce, who doesn’t understand from here to there,”
cried Jonah. “The goods will cost him....”
“He ought to be put into the insane asylum with all the other
lunatics!” chimed Jehiel, falling into Jonah’s sing-song.
“Fine pleasure we’ve lived to enjoy!” grumbled the mother-in-law to
herself.
“What do you think of the fellow!” cried Chyenke, casting a venomous
glance in Drabkin’s direction. “A public benefactor!”
Drabkin seized his coat and dashed through the door.