“Why is it different with me when I did exactly what you did? Yankel came to me just before he went away and begged me to pay him, and I did.”
The miller listened to all this, and his heart ached to hear it.
“What a bad lot they are!” he thought. “Goodness knows, they’re a bad lot! There’s absolutely no fear of God in their hearts. I see from this that they’ll never pay me unless they’re driven to do it. So, gentlemen, I must take care or I shall get robbed; only a born fool would put his finger in the mouth of any one of you! No, you needn’t expect that of me! I’m not going to make a fool of myself. You’ll not spit in my porridge. If anything, I’ll spit in yours.”
Old Prisia alone took the Jewess two dozen eggs and a piece of cloth, and paid the inn-keeper’s widow as many copecks as she owed her.
“Take them, dearie, in God’s name,” said she. “If I owe you a little more I’ll bring it here as God sends it to me. I have brought you all I have now.”
“There’s a crafty old woman for you!” the miller again commented angrily. “She wouldn’t pay me a thing yesterday and yet she is able to pay the Jewess. How wicked these people are! One can’t even trust the old women. She says she can’t pay a good Christian like me and then goes and hands over all her money to a nasty Jewess. Wait a bit, old woman, I’ll get even with you some day!”
Well, Yankel’s widow gathered her children about her, and sold the inn and the stock of vodka for a song; but there wasn’t much vodka left, for Yankel had meant to bring back a cask from the city, and people said, too, that Kharko had filched a cask or two from what had remained. So she took what she could get and left Novokamensk on foot with her children. Two she carried in her arms, a third toddled at her side holding on to her skirt, and the two eldest skipped on ahead.
And again the villagers scratched their heads, while those who had a conscience thought: “If only I could give the Jewess a wagon for the money I owe her perhaps I’d feel easier.”
But, you see, each man was afraid that the others would guess he hadn’t squared his account with the Jew.
And the miller thought again: