FIRST LETTER
To my friend, the excellent lady and esteemed and worthy woman, Mistress Hannah:
Dear Hannah, you were a whole fool and half a prophet, when you wrote me a second letter. Because the first one fell into the hands of my husband, and he put it into his pocket and forgot to give it me. Such is his little way—he cares for nothing except eating and drinking. But when I got the second letter, it occurred to me to look in his pocket, and whoso seeks, finds.
Hannah'li Krön, I felt, reading your bitter words, as if I were being struck on the head with an axe. I was stunned with grief. But I soon composed myself and thought, for instance: If my scatterbrain of a husband ran away to America—well? I should just let him run, and pay the piper into the bargain!
Now think: my whole Parnosseh, as you know, is tar,[129] and I don't require his assistance! Indeed, I can't stand his coming into the shop, with the airs he gives himself!
If the customer is a woman, he won't answer her, the Chossid! Won't take the money from her hand, and if it's a man, likely as not he asks too little! If he takes the money, they palm off false coins on him. And if he is so kind, once in a while, as to take up a piece of chalk, and make out a bill for me, it is a bill! May they add up my sins, in the other world, as he adds up my wares!
And as to your husband not having left you a divorce, I am not so very surprised; my husband has no such easy time of it, and yet he doesn't divorce me, and why should he? Does he want for anything? He has a nice lodging, and when he comes home, supper is ready and the bed made at the proper time, and every Sabbath he gets a clean white shirt! Many's the time I've begged and prayed of him to go to all devils—not he! Do you think he'd budge an inch? And when I scold him and throw things at his head, he gets into a corner, makes a pitiful face, brings crocodile tears into his eyes, and I am so foolish as to relent, I give him food and drink, and off he goes.
And as to what you say about your lawsuit, you know, sister Hannah, I have quite a celebrated lawyer, because, for my sins, I have a never-ending case against cooks, the hussies! I assure you, Hannah'li, servants such as we have in Lublin are not to be found anywhere! How shall I describe them? Always swilling and stuffing—and they steal anything they can lay hands on, and run away before the quarter is out; and then they lodge a complaint against me, because I haven't paid them a quarter's wages, and in court, nowadays, they don't make a particle of difference between a servant-girl and a mistress, and I have to stand with her side by side! I mayn't open my mouth to say a word, otherwise the judge rings a bell and imposes a fine up to three rubles. So I never go into court alone, but have engaged an excellent lawyer, whose mouth drops sulphur and pitch, and he sees me through.
He once told me himself that the judge had frequently wished to imprison me on some ridiculous pretext, such as tearing a girl's hair or giving her a slap! But he cannot do it, because my advocate has all the law-books in his head, knows all the laws, every single one, chooses out the best for me, and flings them in the judge's face, so that he sits there like a dummy and, willy-nilly, has to write "Acquitted!"
And no sooner had I read your letter, and found the first one in my husband's pocket, than I hastened to my lawyer, and he received me most politely, and asked me to be seated on the plush sofa.