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Updated: June 29, 2025
He sat down quietly among us and took part in our talk, smiling in his usual manner. He asked us some questions, and we answered him. Then we asked him something, and he answered us in pure, good Yiddish, as if there were nothing new or surprising about it. At last Marusya awoke, and exclaimed with glad surprise: "Papa, can you speak Yiddish too?" We all shuddered, as if caught stealing.
Make out a paper assigning the house to Marusya." "I promise faithfully." "I believe no promises." "What shall I do?" "You have paper and pencil in your pocket?" "Certainly!" I turned around, supported myself on both my arms and one knee, and made a sort of a rickety table of myself. And on my back Serge wrote out his paper, and signed it. But all that was really unnecessary.
And when she asked her mother, the latter would fly into a temper. "Papa himself," said Marusya, "likes Jews; but mother hates them. I like papa more than mamma; I also like Jews; I often play with Moshko's girls when mother is not around. I do not understand why mother dislikes Jews so much."
I felt as if even lashes would be welcome, simply to get rid of that horrible heartache. On that particular day Khlopov was late in coming home. Marusya remarked that she had seen her father enter the tavern. Then Anna began to curse "our Moshko," the tavern keeper. Marusya objected: "Tut, tut, mother, is it any of Moshko's fault? Does he compel papa to go there? Does he compel him to drink?"
For under Anna's roof we felt perfectly free. She became a mother to the homeless Cantonists. Even marusya took to jabbering a little Yiddish. Jacob began to feel that the leadership of our little community was passing into the hands of Anna, and he became jealous.
Marusya attached herself to me; she became a sister to me. So, after all, Jacob's fears had been well founded from the very beginning. I felt I had gotten myself into a tangle, but I did nothing to escape from it; on the contrary, I was getting myself deeper and deeper into it.
I have decided never to get married. For I know that my own daughters will always be called Zhidovka." At this point I became sorry for the turn our conversation had taken, and I cared no more for the defense of the Jews. After a brief silence Marusya turned to me: "Why does mother dislike Jews so much? She surely knows them better than papa does."
That night I woke up many times; I felt as if snakes were crawling over my flesh. I got up early the next morning. Marusya was yet in bed, half awake. "Where are you going?" asked Anna, standing in my way. I kept silent for a while, then I made a clean breast of it all. Anna shook her head at me, and said with tears glistening in her eyes: "Poor fellow, and where are you going to?"
And her fears regarding the house turned out to have been but too well founded. The village elder, in the name of the rest of the relatives, disputed Peter's title to the property. Anna was given a small sum of money, and the whole piece of property was deeded over to Serge Ivanovich. As to Anna and Marusya, they had to be satisfied with the little money they received.
But she could not finish her story; she began to choke with tears, and Anna finished what Marusya wanted to tell me. I turned to Marusya: "Where are my clothes?" "What do you want them for?" "There is a paper there." I insisted, and she brought the paper. "Read the paper, Marusya," said I. She read the document in which Serge assigned the house to Marusya.
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