“Where should he be? In the city of course,” answered the servant. “Don’t you know what to-day is?”
“No, what is it?”
“Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement!”
“Ah, so that’s the explanation!” thought the miller.
And I must tell you that even though Kharko was a common servant and the servant of a Jew at that, he had been a soldier, and could write, and was a very proud person. He liked to turn up his nose and give himself airs, especially before the miller. He could read in church no worse than the miller himself, except that he had a cracked voice and talked through his nose. In reading the prayers he always managed to keep up with Philip the miller, but in reading the Acts he was left far behind. But he never yielded an inch. If the miller said one thing, he always said another. If the miller said “I don’t know,” the servant would answer “I do.” A disagreeable fellow he was! So now he was delighted because he had said something that had made the miller scratch his head under his hat.
“Perhaps you don’t know even yet what day this is?”
“How can I keep track of every Jewish holiday? Am I a servant of Jews?” retorted the miller angrily.
“Every holiday, indeed! That’s just it; this isn’t like every holiday. They only have one like this every year. And let me tell you something: no other people in the whole world have a holiday like this one.”
“You don’t say so!”
“You’ve heard about Khapun, I suppose?”