Short Fiction, Vladimir Korolenko [finding audrey TXT] 📗

the fact is no one gave up so much as one crooked penny.

The miller did not pay anything either, but then he thought he was different.

The widow Yankel begged and implored the townsfolk to help her, and even made her children throw themselves at their feet, beseeching them to let her have fifty, or even twenty, copecks on every rouble so that she shouldn’t starve, and might somehow manage to take her little orphans to the city. And more than one kindhearted man was so moved that the tears trickled down his whiskers, and more than one nudged his neighbour and said:

“Haven’t you any fear of God in you, neighbour? Didn’t you owe the Jew money? Why don’t you pay her? Upon my word, you ought to, even if it’s only a little.”

But the neighbour would only scratch his topknot under his hat and answer:

“Why should I pay him, when with my own hands I took him every penny I owed him the day he went to the city? Would you have me to pay twice? Now with you, neighbour, it’s different!”

“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 payed the innkeeper’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:

“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 innkeeper 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 innkeeper, 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