"You never told me about Rogoshin's workshop."
He became abusive.
"They come in here so quietly, and all the time they know all there is to know, curse them! They understand all about the business, the dogs!"
Handsome, overfed, and selfish, he hated the peasants. When he was in a good humor, he would complain to me:
"I am clever! I like cleanliness and scents, incense, and eau-de-Cologne, and though I set such a value on myself, I am obliged to bow and scrape to some peasant, to get five copecks' profit out of him for the mistress. Do you think it is fair? What is a peasant, after all? A bundle of foul wool, a winter louse, and yet——"
And he fell into an indignant silence.
I liked the peasants. There was something elusive about each one of them which reminded me of Yaakov.
Sometimes there would climb into the shop a miserable-looking figure in a chapan, put on over a short, fur-coat. He would take off his shaggy cap, cross himself with two fingers, look into the corner where the lamp glimmered, yet try not to, lest his eyes rest on the unblessed icons. Then glancing around, without speaking for some time, he would manage at length to say:
"Give me a psalter with a commentary."
Tucking up the sleeves of his chapan, he would read the pages, as he turned them over with clumsy movement, biting his lips the while.