Huckster, petty merchant, general go-between—sometimes even more humble—dealer in rags and old clothes, once tailor and cleaner in a sad, dirty little street in Jassy. He had had to try his hand at all these things in the interval after losing his place as waiter in a large wine house. Under his supervision two porters had carried a cask of wine into the cellar. In the division of the labor they fell out. One seized a stick of wood and dealt his partner a blow on the head so severe that he dropped unconscious and blood spattered the walk.
Zibal shrieked with horror at the sight, but the porter was hastening to get away, and lifting a threatening hand to Zibal, who fainted from terror. As a result he was ill for several months, and when he came back he found his old place had been filled.
Then began a fight for existence, which was made harder by his marriage to Sura. But patience and endurance can overcome the most treacherous fortune.
Sura’s brother—proprietor of the rest-house by Podeni—died, and the little business was inherited by Zibal who carried it on on his own account. Here he had lived for five years. He had managed to scrape together a small competence in raw and well aged wine, which at any time has an equivalent in gold. Zibal had freed himself from poverty, but now they are all ill, he and his wife and the child—ill with the marsh fever.
The people in Podeni are bad tempered and quarrelsome. Harsh words, scorn, curses, constant complaints that they are being poisoned with vitriol. But worst of all are the threats. A threat for a sensitive, nervous nature, is worse than a blow. And now what makes Leiba Zibal suffer more than the fever, is a threat.
“Ah!—dog of a Christian!” he thinks sadly. The one he refers to is friend George. He wonders where he is hiding—this man with whom he had had an unpleasant experience.
It was on a morning in fall. George stumbled into the rest-house weary, saying he was just out of the hospital and must have work. Zibal hired him. But George proved to be coarse and rough and bad tempered. He cursed and grumbled. He was a lazy and unwilling servant, and he stole.
One day he threatened Zibal’s wife, who was soon to be confined, that he would give her a blow in the abdomen, and another time he set the dogs upon the baby. Leiba paid him and dismissed him. But George said at first that he would not go away, that he had been hired for a year. The proprietor retorted that he would go to the authorities and complain of him, and ask for the law to free him from him.
Then George grabbed for something hidden within his clothes and shrieked:—“Judas!” He started toward Leiba as if he were going to fall upon him.
Fortunately, just at this moment, guests came to the hostelry, because the stage had just driven up. George began to grin. “What? You weren’t afraid, were you, Mr. Leiba? See—I’m going!”