“Then let him lie in the earth, let him rot, if he’s such a fool,” retorted the old woman.
“I can’t hold my tongue when I see things like that,” said Drabkin, his voice somewhat softer.
“Then you lie in the earth, too, and rot away, if you’re such a fool!”
“But there’s no need of cursing,” interposed the daughter, angrily.
“Bah! You’re no better than he is!”
“Don’t you like it?”
But Drabkin would not permit matters to grow into a quarrel.
“I can’t look on in silence....”
He launched into a discussion at the top of his voice. In the first place, Ephraim was really as meek as a lamb; you could do with him whatever you wished, and he would offer no remonstrance. In the second, he wasn’t much of a workman, and if he were discharged from one place, he could not find another position in a hurry. So that he was simply afraid to talk back. But he, Drabkin! He couldn’t see such doings and remain quiet! He had little reason to fear the bosses; he defied them,—the exploiters, the vampires! The world wasn’t enough for them, they wanted more, more....
And Chashke gazed at him with eyes brimful of love, agreed with everything he said, and experienced and felt the same thoughts and feelings as he.