'No?'
'No.'
'Your honour,' he began muttering; 'look, your honour, look... she, this
girl, see--you know--she's my daughter.'
'I know,' I answered, and turned away again.
'Your honour,' he shrieked, 'I never went away from the tent! I wouldn't
for anything...'
He stopped, and closed his eyes for an instant.... 'I wanted your money,
your honour, I must own... but not for anything....'
I was silent. Girshel was loathsome to me, and she too, his
accomplice....
'But now, if you save me,' the Jew articulated in a whisper, 'I'll
command her... I... do you understand?... everything... I'll go to every
length....'
He was trembling like a leaf, and looking about him hurriedly. Sara
silently and passionately embraced him.
The adjutant came up to us.
'Cornet,' he said to me; 'his Excellency has given me orders to place
you under arrest. And you...' he motioned the soldiers to the Jew...
'quickly.'
Siliavka went up to the Jew.
'Fiodor Karlitch,' I said to the adjutant (five soldiers had come with
him); 'tell them, at least, to take away that poor girl....'
'Of course. Certainly.'
The unhappy girl was scarcely conscious. Girshel was muttering something
to her in Yiddish....
The soldiers with difficulty freed Sara from her father's arms, and
carefully carried her twenty steps away. But all at once she broke from
their arms and rushed towards Girshel.... Siliavka stopped her. Sara
pushed him away; her face was covered with a faint flush, her eyes
flashed, she stretched out her arms.
'So may you be accursed,' she screamed in German; 'accursed, thrice
accursed, you and all the hateful breed of you, with the curse of Dathan
and Abiram, the curse of poverty and sterility and violent, shameful
death! May the earth open under your feet, godless, pitiless,
bloodthirsty dogs....'
Her head dropped back... she fell to the ground.... They lifted her up
and carried her away.
The soldiers took Girshel under his arms. I saw then why it was they had
been laughing at the Jew when I ran up from the camp with Sara. He was
really ludicrous, in spite of all the horror of his position. The
intense anguish of parting with life, his daughter, his family, showed
itself in the Jew in such strange and grotesque gesticulations, shrieks,
and wriggles that we all could not help smiling, though it was
horrible--intensely horrible to us too. The poor wretch was half dead
with terror....
'Oy! oy! oy!' he shrieked: 'oy... wait! I've something to tell you... a
lot to tell you. Mr. Under-sergeant, you know me. I'm an agent, an
honest agent. Don't hold me; wait a minute, a little minute, a tiny
minute--wait! Let me go; I'm a poor Hebrew. Sara... where is Sara? Oh, I
know, she's at his honour the quarter-lieutenant's.' (God knows why he
bestowed such an unheard-of grade upon me.) 'Your honour the
quarter-lieutenant, I'm not going away from the tent.' (The soldiers
were taking hold of Girshel... he uttered a deafening shriek, and
wriggled out of their hands.) 'Your Excellency, have pity on the unhappy
father of a family. I'll give you ten golden pieces, fifteen I'll give,
your Excellency!...' (They dragged him to the birch-tree.) 'Spare me!
have mercy! your honour the quarter-lieutenant! your Excellency, the
general and commander-in-chief!'
They put the noose on the Jew.... I shut my eyes and rushed away.
I remained for a fortnight under arrest. I was told that the widow of
the luckless Girshel came to fetch away the clothes of the deceased. The
general ordered a hundred roubles to be given to her. Sara I never saw
again. I was wounded; I was taken to the hospital, and by the time I was
well again, Dantzig had surrendered, and I joined my regiment on the
banks of the Rhine.