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Updated: May 29, 2025
When everybody was talking merrily, I kept quiet, as if I were a mourner. I was always looking for Marusya, I was always trying to catch her eye. I hoped that our eyes would meet, that she would at least look at me. But she kept on avoiding me. No, she did not avoid me: she simply did not seem to know that I was in the house.
Well, that evening the sergeant danced with Marusya, neglecting the other girls entirely. They kept on refusing the invitations of the cavaliers, in the hope that they might yet have a chance to dance with the sergeant. The result was that the cavaliers were angry with the girls; the girls, with Marusya; and I, with the sergeant.
The jokers of our company used to say of him, that he stood up every morning before his own uniform, and saluted it as it hung on the wall. . . . In short, he liked to mingle with people and to make merry; then he was always the happiest of all. Of course, he also had been invited to that wedding. Marusya, too, was there, and that was against her habit.
My head ached, and yet it felt as if it did not belong to me. . . . Finally I thought I felt mother bathing me; a delicious feeling of moisture spread over my flesh, and my headache disappeared. Then I felt a warm, soft hand pass over my forehead, cheeks, and neck. . . . I opened my eyes, the first time since I lost consciousness, and I exclaimed: "Marusya!?"
It was all very simple: Anna and Marusya had enlisted and were serving as volunteer nurses at the military hospital, and I had known nothing of it. "Marusya," said I, "please tell me how do I happen to be here?" Then she began to tell me how they brought me there, and took me down from the wagon as insensible as a log.
Khlopov sobered up, and his soul shrank to its usual size. Anna went to her room. The spell was broken. The word "Zhidovka" hurled at Anna made me start back. What could it mean, I wondered. I felt sorry for Khlopov, for Marusya, for Anna, and for the holiday mood that had been spoilt by a single word. And it seemed to me it was my fault to some extent.
Well, that was too much for me. I could not stand it any longer. I sprang at Serge and dragged him to Marusya. I struck him once and twice, got him by the neck, and belabored him with the hilt of my sword. "Apologize!" said I. Now, no one is obedient as your Gentile once you have him down. And Serge Ivanovich did not balk. He apologized in the very words that I dictated to him. Then I let him go.
And when a recess was called, something happened: one of the bachelors, Serge Ivanovich, my old enemy, stood up behind Marusya, and shouted with all his might, "Zhidovka!" Then the envious girls broke out into a malicious giggle. Marusya turned crimson. She looked first at the sergeant: he was curling his mustache, and tried to look angry. Then Marusya turned away from him, and I caught her eye.
By and by Anna began to treat him in a very friendly way. Only Marusya avoided him, and never spoke a word to him. She simply hated him. Thus in time the house of Anna became something like a Jewish settlement, or rather like some sort of a Klaus, especially when Pater was away from home. We all used to gather there, and talk Yiddish, just as in a Klaus.
Some one told me, there was a nurse at the city hospital who knew how to treat aching teeth and all kinds of ills better than a full-fledged doctor. I went to the hospital, and asked for the nurse. A young woman came out. . . . "Marusya?!" "Samuel?!" We were both taken aback. "And where is your husband, Marusya?" asked I, after I had caught my breath. "And you, Samuel, are you married?" "Yes."
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