“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....”