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That evening Chashke and her old mother came for a visit. They were curious to know the state of affairs in Drabkin’s household and how the matter had turned out.
“Ah, Chashke!” cried Drabkin with forced gaiety. He had not at all wished her to come. She brought back to him memories of the olden days, of things he no longer wished to recall. She made him feel, moreover, a keen sense of his present subjection. He was ashamed and remained working at his bench.
Chyenke, however, was glad to see them. She wanted to show them that she was the boss, and that he lay meekly at her feet. And let his former sweetheart see how he loved his wife, how he fawned upon her. And let Chashke burst with vexation and jealousy!
“Well, how are things with you?” inquired the old woman.
Chashke did not care to ask. Already she sensed everything and felt superfluous in Drabkin’s home.
“How should things be?” replied Chyenke, in a triumphant voice. “Not so bad. He’s changed his mind, my wise man, my know-it-all. Oho! Now, it seems he would like to....”
She did not say what he would like to do, but nodded her head in Drabkin’s direction with a glance and with an expression on her face that spoke far more plainly than words.
He did not raise his head and feigned deep absorption in his work. Chashke blushed for him. The room began to feel too narrow for her. She must run away, run away—she sat there as if on burning coals.
The old woman, on the other hand, was soon engrossed in chatter.
“I told him from the very first that you were as clever a woman as I knew, upon my soul, and my Chashke told him, too, that it couldn’t be otherwise, and that he’d be foolish to attempt it.”
At these words Drabkin was strongly impelled to raise his head. Chashke herself had really said that it couldn’t be otherwise. But at once he recalled what else she had said, and again he felt ashamed and remained seated, his head closely applied to his task, dumb.
Chyenke began to tell how she had sent off the workingmen, and how Drabkin had disappeared from home early that same morning——“He simply didn’t have the heart to witness it.”
“And now,” she concluded, “I alone hire help and settle things as I see fit.”
She looked triumphantly at Chashke. Drabkin said nothing.
“Come, mamma. Let’s be going home!” urged Chashke, rising.
“What’s your hurry?” asked Drabkin.
Chashke would have been delighted to spit square into his face. The old woman answered that their boarder would come and the door was locked.
They left.
Drabkin felt that Chashke had been there for the last time, and the thought was somewhat disquieting. But this unpleasantness was soon lost in the great contentment that overwhelmed him. He felt more free, more independent; a yoke fell from his neck; there would be no one before his eyes as a continual reminder of his former years and his former talk.
Gone forever,—gone—and forgotten.
Now he would really work,—work honestly. Here God was helping him to become a man among men,—then why shouldn’t he do it? And, naturally, he wouldn’t be like those dogs, his former employers. He would know that a workingman was a human being, too, and would treat his men altogether differently. They would be to him like his own people, like brothers. Chashke really was a fool.
“Did you see in what a rage your Chashke left?” asked Chyenke, interrupting his thoughts.
“Why are you always saying ‘your’ Chashke?” he queried, with a smile.
“I know. You still run to her house.”
“Pah! Better come and sit down here, right beside me. So!”
He slapped his knee and stretched his arms out to her.
Chashke’s heart was heavy. So heavy, indeed, that she would gladly have wept. Her throat contracted with sorrow. She walked rapidly, and her mother could scarcely keep pace with her.
“Just mark my word,” gasped the old woman, running after her daughter, “in a few years Drabkin will be rich,—worth several thousand roubles. She has a smart head on her shoulders. If you had only half her brains I wouldn’t have to worry about you! Oh! Oh! Ah!...”
It was the old mother’s disappointment that spoke in her,—disappointment that nothing had come of the intimacy between Drabkin and her daughter.
“What do you want of me, mamma? Please don’t say any more,” entreated Chashke with a quivering voice, turning her pale countenance toward her mother.
The little old woman was frightened by the quivering voice and the pale countenance. Waving her hand, she shook her head.
“There! I mustn’t say a word!” she sighed.
She spoke no more that night.
Chashke felt as if she had just returned from a cemetery, where she had buried her dearest treasure.
Drabkin, Drabkin!... And he had been her Drabkin!...
Ah, and up to that very day she had dreamed and imagined!
Oh, to weep, to weep——
That night she had a dream. No, not a dream, for she could not fall asleep, and lay with eyes wide open, staring into the impenetrable darkness.
She beheld how Drabkin was becoming a pot-bellied boss; all his thoughts were centred only upon how to enlarge his shop and fill his purse. Everything else was forgotten—every human impulse, every tinge of sympathy for the poor worker, every spark of compassion for the under-dog. Workingmen to him were hired slaves—and “Ephraim is supposed to work till nine o’clock at night and works till half-past ten; when he came to work this morning at half-past seven, they fell upon him like a mad dog....”
And in the silent darkness it seemed to her that Drabkin struck a cruel blow upon the face of a little child who was apprenticed to him.
A shudder ran through her whole body, and she began to weep hysterically.
A heart-breaking, bitter weeping——