Early next morning, while the dew is still glittering on the grass,
behold the miller dressed and on his way to the village. He found the
people there buzzing like bees in a hive.
“Hey! Have you heard the news?” they cried. “Only a pair of shoes came
back from the city last night instead of the inn-keeper.”
It was the talk of the village that morning, and the amount of gossip
was sinful!
When Yankel’s widow had a pair of shoes returned to her instead of her
husband, she lost her head entirely and didn’t know what in the world
to do. To make matters worse, Yankel had wisely taken all his bonds to
town with him, never dreaming that Khapun would get him that night. How
could the poor Jew guess that out of the whole Hebrew congregation the
devil would happen to choose him?
“That’s the way people always are, they never know, they never feel
when trouble like, for instance, Khapun is hanging over their heads.”
So spoke the village folk, shaking their heads as they left the inn
where the young Jewess and her children were tearing their clothes and
beating their foreheads on the floor. And at the same time each man
thought to himself:
“Well, anyhow, the bond I gave him has gone to the devil!”
To tell you the truth, there were very few in the village whose
consciences whispered to them:
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to return the principal to the Jews, even if
we kept the interest.”
And the fact is no one gave up so much as one crooked penny.
The miller did not pay anything either, but then he thought he was
different.
The widow Yankel begged and implored the townsfolk to help her, and
even made her children throw themselves at their feet, beseeching them
to let her have fifty, or even twenty, copecks on every rouble so that
she shouldn’t starve, and might somehow manage to take her little
orphans to the city. And more than one kind-hearted man was so moved
that the tears trickled down his whiskers, and more than one nudged his
neighbour and said:
“Haven’t you any fear of God in you, neighbour? Didn’t you owe the Jew
money? Why don’t you pay her? Upon my word, you ought to, even if it’s
only a little.”
But the neighbour would only scratch his top-knot under his hat and
answer:
“Why should I pay him, when with my own hands I took him every penny I
owed him the day he went to the city? Would you have me to pay twice?
Now with you, neighbour, it’s different!”
“Why is it different with me when I did exactly what you did? Yankel
came to me just before he went away and begged me to pay him, and I
did.”
The miller listened to all this, and his heart ached to hear it.
“What a bad lot they are!” he thought. “Goodness knows, they’re a bad
lot! There’s absolutely no fear of God in their hearts. I see from
this that they’ll never pay me unless they’re driven to do it. So,
gentlemen, I must take care or I shall get robbed; only a born fool
would put his finger in the mouth of any one of you! No, you needn’t
expect that of me! I’m not going to make a fool of myself. You’ll not
spit in my porridge. If anything, I’ll spit in yours.”
Old Prisia alone took the Jewess two dozen eggs and a piece of cloth,
and paid the inn-keeper’s widow as many copecks as she owed her.
“Take them, dearie, in God’s name,” said she. “If I owe you a little
more I’ll bring it here as God sends it to me. I have brought you all I
have now.”
“There’s a crafty old woman for you!” the miller again commented
angrily. “She wouldn’t pay me a thing yesterday and yet she is able to
pay the Jewess. How wicked these people are! One can’t even trust the
old women. She says she can’t pay a good Christian like me and then
goes and hands over all her money to a nasty Jewess. Wait a bit, old
woman, I’ll get even with you some day!”
Well, Yankel’s widow gathered her children about her, and sold the
inn and the stock of vodka for a song; but there wasn’t much vodka
left, for Yankel had meant to bring back a cask from the city, and
people said, too, that Kharko had filched a cask or two from what had
remained. So she took what she could get and left Novokamensk on foot
with her children. Two she carried in her arms, a third toddled at her
side holding on to her skirt, and the two eldest skipped on ahead.
And again the villagers scratched their heads, while those who had a
conscience thought: “If only I could give the Jewess a wagon for the
money I owe her perhaps I’d feel easier.”
But, you see, each man was afraid that the others would guess he hadn’t
squared his account with the Jew.
And the miller thought again:
“Oh, what wicked people! Now I know how gladly they’d hustle me out of
the way if I should ever stumble or come a cropper.”
So the poor widow crawled away to the city, and heaven only knows what
became of her there. Maybe she and the children found something to do;
maybe they all died of hunger. Everything is possible. But as a matter
of fact, Jews are tenacious creatures. They may live badly, but they
manage to stay alive.
Then the people began to ask themselves who would be the next
inn-keeper in Novokamensk. For though Yankel had gone and the women and
children of the inn had wandered away into the wide world, the tavern
still stood on its hill, and on its doors were still depicted in white
paint a quart measure and a tin mug. And everything else was there in
its proper place.
Even Kharko still sat on the hill smoking his long pipe and waiting to
see whom God would send him for a master.
One evening though, when the village folk were standing in front of
the empty tavern and wondering who would be their next inn-keeper, the
priest came up, and bowing deeply--for the mayor was there, and as he
is a great man it is no sin even for a priest to bow to him--began to
say what a good thing it would be if a meeting could be arranged to
close up the tavern for good and all. He, the priest, would write a
letter with his own hand and send it to the bishop. And this would be a
splendid, beautiful thing, and beneficial to the whole village.
The old men and the women answered that what the priest had said was
the honest truth, but the miller thought the priest’s idea absolutely
worthless and even insulting.
“What a wicked priest!” he thought with indignation. “There’s a friend
for you! Just you wait a bit, though, holy Father, you’ll see what’ll
happen.”
“You are quite right, Father,” he answered in oily tones, “your letter
will do a great deal of good, only I don’t know whom it will help most,
you or the village. You know yourself--don’t take it ill--that you
always send to the city for vodka and so you don’t need the tavern.
It would be very nice for you to have the bishop read your letter and
praise it.”
The people shouted with laughter, but the priest only spat in a great
huff, clapped his straw hat on his head, and walked away down the
street as if nothing had happened and he was simply taking an evening
stroll.
Need I tell you more? You must surely have guessed already that the
miller had made up his mind to be the keeper of the Jewish tavern.
And having made up his mind he talked very agreeably to the mayor,
entertained whichever members of the County Court he thought advisable,
and reasoned very cleverly with the captain of police and with the head
of the District, as well as with the judge, the treasurer, and finally
with the commissioner of rural police and the customs inspector.
On his way back from the village after all these exertions the miller
passed the inn. There was Kharko, sitting on the hill smoking his pipe.
The miller only nodded to him, but Kharko--although he was a proud
fellow--jumped up at once and ran toward him.
“Well, what have you got to say?” asked the miller.
“What should I have to say? I am waiting for you to tell me something.”
“Well, well.”
Kharko didn’t want to nail the miller down with words yet, so he
listened to what the miller said, pulled off his cap with both hands,
and wisely answered:
“I shall be very glad to do all I can for my kind master.”
So the miller took possession of the inn and lorded it in Novokamensk
better than Yankel had done. He put his roubles out to pasture among
the people, and when the time came he drove them and their increase
back into his chest. And no one there was to get in his way.
And if it was true that more than one person wept bitter tears because
of him--why there is no room for truth in this world. And many did
weep; whether more than had wept when Yankel kept the inn or fewer, I
cannot attempt to say. Who can take the measure of human grief and who
can count human tears?
Ah, no one has ever measured the grief and no one has ever counted
the tears of the world, but the old folks say, “walking or riding,
trouble’s always in hiding”; and that “the back doesn’t laugh at a
stick or a staff.” I don’t know how true that is, but it seems true to
me.