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.