On his way back from the village after all these exertions the miller passed the inn. There was Kharko, sitting on the hill smoking his pipe. The miller only nodded to him, but Kharko—although he was a proud fellow—jumped up at once and ran toward him.
“Well, what have you got to say?” asked the miller.
“What should I have to say? I am waiting for you to tell me something.”
“Well, well.”
Kharko didn’t want to nail the miller down with words yet, so he listened to what the miller said, pulled off his cap with both hands, and wisely answered:
“I shall be very glad to do all I can for my kind master.”
So the miller took possession of the inn and lorded it in Novokamensk better than Yankel had done. He put his roubles out to pasture among the people, and when the time came he drove them and their increase back into his chest. And no one there was to get in his way.
And if it was true that more than one person wept bitter tears because of him—why there is no room for truth in this world. And many did weep; whether more than had wept when Yankel kept the inn or fewer, I cannot attempt to say. Who can take the measure of human grief and who can count human tears?
Ah, no one has ever measured the grief and no one has ever counted the tears of the world, but the old folks say, “walking or riding, trouble’s always in hiding”; and that “the back doesn’t laugh at a stick or a staff.” I don’t know how true that is, but it seems true to me.