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Updated: June 22, 2025
"I know where you are," cried Zerkow, on the landing outside. "You're in Schouler's room. What are you doing in Schouler's room at this time of night? Come outa there; you oughta be ashamed. I'll do for you yet, my girl. Come outa there once, an' see if I don't." "I'll do for you myself, you dirty Jew," shouted Marcus, unbolting the door and running out into the hall.
He had the thin, eager, cat-like lips of the covetous; eyes that had grown keen as those of a lynx from long searching amidst muck and debris; and claw-like, prehensile fingers the fingers of a man who accumulates, but never disburses. It was impossible to look at Zerkow and not know instantly that greed inordinate, insatiable greed was the dominant passion of the man.
At the time of its birth Maria was out of her mind, and continued in a state of dementia for nearly ten days. She recovered just in time to make the arrangements for the baby's burial. Neither Zerkow nor Maria was much affected by either the birth or the death of this little child. Zerkow had welcomed it with pronounced disfavor, since it had a mouth to be fed and wants to be provided for.
"Well, Maria came to me last night and wanted me to make her a new gown, said she wanted something gay, like what the girls at the candy store wear when they go out with their young men. I couldn't tell what had got into the girl, until finally she told me she wanted something to get married in, and that Zerkow had asked her to marry him, and that she was going to do it. Poor Maria!
They exaggerated, they invented details, and, as if proud of their beatings, as if glorying in their husbands' mishandling, lied to each other, magnifying their own maltreatment. They had long and excited arguments as to which were the most effective means of punishment, the rope's ends and cart whips such as Zerkow used, or the fists and backs of hair-brushes affected by McTeague.
"LORD!" ejaculated Heise, stopping a yard or so from the body, and bending down to peer into the gray face with its brown lips. "By God! he's killed her." "Who?" "Zerkow, by God! he's killed her. Cut her throat. He always said he would." "Zerkow?" "He's killed her. Her throat's cut. Good Lord, how she did bleed! By God! he's done for her in good shape this time."
Who is it?" exclaimed Zerkow, as he heard Maria's footsteps in the outer room. His voice was faint, husky, reduced almost to a whisper by his prolonged habit of street crying. "Oh, it's you again, is it?" he added, peering through the gloom of the shop. "Let's see; you've been here before, ain't you? You're the Mexican woman from Polk Street. Macapa's your name, hey?" Maria nodded.
Zerkow drew a quick breath as the three pellets suddenly flashed in Maria's palm. There it was, the virgin metal, the pure, unalloyed ore, his dream, his consuming desire. His fingers twitched and hooked themselves into his palms, his thin lips drew tight across his teeth. "Ah, you got some gold," he muttered, reaching for it. Maria shut her fist over the pellets.
Maria found Zerkow himself in the back room, cooking some sort of a meal over an alcohol stove. Zerkow was a Polish Jew curiously enough his hair was fiery red. He was a dry, shrivelled old man of sixty odd.
Zerkow took down a whiskey bottle and a red glass tumbler with a broken base from a cupboard on the wall. The two drank together, Zerkow from the bottle, Maria from the broken tumbler. They wiped their lips slowly, drawing breath again. There was a moment's silence. "Say," said Zerkow at last, "how about those gold dishes you told me about the last time you were here?"
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