“Oh, what wicked people! Now I know how gladly they’d hustle me out of the way if I should ever stumble or come a cropper.”
So the poor widow crawled away to the city, and heaven only knows what became of her there. Maybe she and the children found something to do; maybe they all died of hunger. Everything is possible. But as a matter of fact, Jews are tenacious creatures. They may live badly, but they manage to stay alive.
Then the people began to ask themselves who would be the next inn-keeper in Novokamensk. For though Yankel had gone and the women and children of the inn had wandered away into the wide world, the tavern still stood on its hill, and on its doors were still depicted in white paint a quart measure and a tin mug. And everything else was there in its proper place.
Even Kharko still sat on the hill smoking his long pipe and waiting to see whom God would send him for a master.
One evening though, when the village folk were standing in front of the empty tavern and wondering who would be their next inn-keeper, the priest came up, and bowing deeply—for the mayor was there, and as he is a great man it is no sin even for a priest to bow to him—began to say what a good thing it would be if a meeting could be arranged to close up the tavern for good and all. He, the priest, would write a letter with his own hand and send it to the bishop. And this would be a splendid, beautiful thing, and beneficial to the whole village.
The old men and the women answered that what the priest had said was the honest truth, but the miller thought the priest’s idea absolutely worthless and even insulting.
“What a wicked priest!” he thought with indignation. “There’s a friend for you! Just you wait a bit, though, holy Father, you’ll see what’ll happen.”
“You are quite right, Father,” he answered in oily tones, “your letter will do a great deal of good, only I don’t know whom it will help most, you or the village. You know yourself—don’t take it ill—that you always send to the city for vodka and so you don’t need the tavern. It would be very nice for you to have the bishop read your letter and praise it.”
The people shouted with laughter, but the priest only spat in a great huff, clapped his straw hat on his head, and walked away down the street as if nothing had happened and he was simply taking an evening stroll.
Need I tell you more? You must surely have guessed already that the miller had made up his mind to be the keeper of the Jewish tavern. And having made up his mind he talked very agreeably to the mayor, entertained whichever members of the County Court he thought advisable, and reasoned very cleverly with the captain of police and with the head of the District, as well as with the judge, the treasurer, and finally with the commissioner of rural police and the customs inspector.