A single cloud, however, darkened his bright sky: he longed for Chashke. Chashke was lacking.
He would blink, screw up his eyes as he smeared a thread with pitch, and gaze at his betrothed, but all the time he would be thinking of Chashke, comparing her with his affianced.
“Why do you look at me like that?” Chyenke would ask with a smile.
But he would make no reply, continuing to smear his thread with pitch.
“Haven’t you ever seen me before? Do you want to see whether you’ve made a mistake in choosing me?” she would continue, throwing her work aside and placing her arms about his neck.
But he remained silent. He stuck the thread through the eye of the needle and began to sew. He felt that this woman beside him was a stranger,—that he did not even know her.
“Are you angry with me?” asked the stranger, releasing his head and ready to become angry herself.
“Why angry?” he replied, looking intently upon the pocketbook as he pierced it with the needle. “I looked at you. Is it forbidden me to look at you?”
He would step often into Chashke’s, if only for a few moments. And for even these few moments they both felt heavy at heart. Both stood there with tears in their eyes.
When Drabkin would come for a visit, the old woman would go off into the kitchen, muttering to herself and wrinkling her brow. There she would sit down before a dingy little lamp, beginning to darn a stocking and staring into the semi-gloom, lost in thought of her foolish, unfortunate daughter.