With me Tchitchick was always on the most intimate terms. He praised me for learning such a lot at school. He often examined me to see if I knew who Adam was. And who was Isaac? And who was Joseph?
"Yousef?" I asked him, in Yiddish. "Do you mean Yousef the Saint?"
"Joseph," he repeated.
"Yousef," I corrected him, once again.
"With us it's Joseph. With you it's Youdsef," he said to me, and pinched my cheek. "Joseph, Youdsef, Youdsef, Dsodsepf—what does it matter? It is all the same."
"Ha! ha! ha!"
I buried my face in my hands, and laughed heartily.
But from the day I became a bridegroom-elect, Tchitchick gave up playing with me as if I were a clown; and he began to talk to me as if I were his equal. He told me stories of the regiment and of musicians. "Mr. Sergeant" had a tremendous lot of talk in him. But no one else excepting myself had the time to listen to him. On one occasion he began to talk to me of playing. And I asked him:
"On which instrument does 'Mr. Sergeant' play?"
"On all instruments," he answered, and raised his eyebrows at me.