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"Farewell, our mother!" they said almost in one breath. "May God preserve thee from all misfortune!" As he passed through the suburb, Taras Bulba saw that his Jew, Yankel, had already erected a sort of booth with an awning, and was selling flint, screwdrivers, powder, and all sorts of military stores needed on the road, even to rolls and bread.
And no one is to draw his sword, nor quarrel." The conclusion of this order the visitors did not hear. "It is we, it is I, it is your friends!" Yankel said to every one they met. "Well, can it be managed now?" he inquired of one of the guards, when they at length reached the end of the corridor. "It is possible, but I don't know whether you will be able to gain admission to the prison itself.
On one of them sat tall Yankel, his long, curling ear-locks flowing from beneath his Jewish cap, as he bounced about on the horse, like a verst-mark planted by the roadside. At the time when these things took place, there were as yet on the frontiers neither custom-house officials nor guards those bugbears of enterprising people so that any one could bring across anything he fancied.
Yankel, bouncing up and down on his dust-covered nag, turned, after making several detours, into a dark, narrow street bearing the names of the Muddy and also of the Jews' street, because Jews from nearly every part of Warsaw were to be found here. This street greatly resembled a back-yard turned wrong side out. The sun never seemed to shine into it.
"Oh, dearest lord!" said Yankel: "it is quite impossible now! by heaven, impossible! Such vile people that they deserve to be spit upon! Mardokhai here says the same. Mardokhai has done what no man in the world ever did, but God did not will that it should be so. Three thousand soldiers are in garrison here, and to-morrow the prisoners are all to be executed."
This Jew was the well-known Yankel. He was there as revenue-farmer and tavern-keeper. He had gradually got nearly all the neighbouring noblemen and gentlemen into his hands, had slowly sucked away most of their money, and had strongly impressed his presence on that locality. For a distance of three miles in all directions, not a single farm remained in a proper state.
Mardokhai, Mardokhai!" shouted the Jews in one voice. A thin Jew somewhat shorter than Yankel, but even more wrinkled, and with a huge upper lip, approached the impatient group; and all the Jews made haste to talk to him, interrupting each other. During the recital, Mardokhai glanced several times towards the little window, and Taras divined that the conversation concerned him.
The master of the house, the red-haired Jew with freckles, pulled out a mattress covered with some kind of rug, and spread it on a bench for Bulba. Yankel lay upon the floor on a similar mattress. The red-haired Jew drank a small cup of brandy, took off his caftan, and betook himself looking, in his shoes and stockings, very like a lean chicken with his wife, to something resembling a cupboard.
They also mentioned by name the principal perpetrators of the murder, the "circumcision expert" in the local Jewish settlement, a soldier called Shlieferman, and a furrier named Yankel Yushkevicher, a devout Jew.
"Listen, Yankel," said Taras to the Jew, who began to bow low before him, and as he spoke he shut the door so that they might not be seen, "I saved your life: the Zaporozhtzi would have torn you to pieces like a dog. Now it is your turn to do me a service." The Jew's face clouded over a little. "What service? If it is a service I can render, why should I not render it?" "Ask no questions.
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