'Toch nado?' ('What do you want?')

'If you please, Sir, I am a hawker,' was the answer.

I looked up. Although he was dressed in ox and stag's hide, I had no doubt that a typical Polish Jew from a small town stood before me.

Anyone who had seen him at Lossitz or Sarnak would have recognized him as easily in Yakut as in Patagonian costume. I knew him at once. And since, as I have said, I was as yet only semi-conscious, and had asked the question almost mechanically, the Jew now standing before me did not interrupt my train of thought too harshly; the contrast was, therefore, not too disagreeable. Quite the reverse. I gazed into the well-known features with a certain degree of pleasure; the Jew's appearance at that moment seemed quite natural, since it carried me in thought and feeling to my native land, and the few Polish words sounded dear to my ear. Half dreaming still, I looked at him kindly.

The Jew stood still for a moment, then turned, and retreating to the door, began to pull off his multifarious coverings.

Then I came to myself, and realized that I had not yet answered him, and that my sagacious countryman, quite misinterpreting my silence, was anxious to dispose of his wares to me. I hastened to undeceive him.

'In heaven's name, man, what are you doing?' I cried quickly, 'I do not want to buy anything; I am not wanting anything. Do not unload yourself in vain, and go away with G.o.d's blessing!'

The Jew stopped undoing his things, and after a moment's consideration, came towards me with his long fur coat[12] half trailing behind him, and began to mumble quickly in broken sentences: 'It's all right; I know you won't buy anything, Sir. I saw you, for I have been here a long time, a very long time.... I didn't know before that you had come.... You come from Warsaw, don't you, Sir? They only told me yesterday evening that you had been here four months already; what a pity it was such a time before I heard of it! I should have come at once. I have been searching for you to-day for an hour, Sir. I went quite to the end of the town,--and there's such a frost here,--confound it!... If you will allow me Sir,--I won't interrupt for long?... Only just a few words....'

'What do you want of me?'

'I should only like to have a little chat with you, Sir.'

This answer did not greatly surprise me. I had already come across not a few people, Jews among them, who had called solely for the purpose of 'having a little chat' with a man recently arrived from their country. Those who came were interested in the most varied topics imaginable; there were the inquisitive gossipers pure and simple, there were the people who only enquired after their relations, and there were the politicians, including those whose heads had been turned. Among those who came, however, politics always played a specially important part. So it did not surprise me, I repeat, to hear the wish expressed by a fresh stranger, and although I should have been glad to rid my cottage as quickly as possible of the unpleasant odour of the ox-hide coat,--badly tanned, as usual--I begged him in a friendly way to take it off and sit down.

The Jew was evidently pleased. He took a seat beside me at once and I could now observe him closely.

All the usual features of the Jewish race were united in the face beside me: the large, slightly crooked nose and penetrating hawk's eyes, the pointed beard of the colour of a well-ripened pumpkin, the low forehead, surrounded by thick hair; all these my guest possessed.

And yet, strange to say, the haggard face expressed a certain frank sincerity, and did not make a disagreeable impression on me.

'Tell me where you come from, what your name is, what you are doing here, and why you wish to see me?'

'Please, Sir, I am Srul, from Lubartw. Perhaps you know it,--just a stone's throw from Lublin?--Well, at home everyone thinks it a long way from there, and formerly I thought so too. But now,' he added with emphasis, 'we know that Lubartw is quite close to Lublin, a mere stone's throw.'

'And have you been here long?'

'Very long; three good years.'

'That is not so very long; there are people who have lived here for over 20 years, and I met an old man from Vilna in the road, who had been here close upon 50 years. Those have really been a long time.'

But the Jew snubbed me. 'As to them, I can't say. I only know that I have been here a long time.'

'You must certainly live quite alone, if the time seems so long to you?'

'With my wife and child--my daughter. I had four children when I set out, but, may the Lord preserve us, it was such a long way, we were travelling a whole year. Do you know what such a journey means, Sir?... Three children died in one week--died of travelling, as it were. Three children!... An easy thing to say!... There was nowhere even to bury them, for there was no cemetery of ours there.... I am a Husyt,' he added more quietly. 'You know what that means Sir?... I keep the Law strictly ... and yet G.o.d punishes me like this....' He grew silent with emotion.

'My friend,' I tried to say to console him a little,--'no doubt under such circ.u.mstances it is difficult to remember that it makes no difference; but all earth is hallowed.'

But the Jew jumped as if he had been scalded.

'Hallowed! how hallowed! In what way is it hallowed! What are you saying, Sir? It's unclean! It's d.a.m.ned!... Hallowed earth?... You must not talk like that, Sir, you ought to be ashamed! Is earth hallowed, which never thaws? This earth is cursed! G.o.d doesn't wish human beings to live here; it wouldn't have been like this, if He had wished it.

Cursed! Bad! d.a.m.ned! d.a.m.ned!'

And he began to spit about him, and stamp his feet, threatening the innocent Yakut earth with tightened lips and his shrivelled hands, and muttering Jewish maledictions. At last, exhausted by the effort, he fell rather than sat down at the table beside me.

All exiles, without regard to religion or race, dislike Siberia: evidently a fanatic does not learn to hate it half-heartedly. I paused until he had calmed himself. Educated in a severe school, the Jew quickly regained his self-possession and mastered his emotion, and when I gazed questioningly into his eyes the next moment, he immediately answered me:

'You must pardon me; I do not speak of this to anyone, for to whom should I speak here?'

'Then are there very few Jews here?'

'Those here? Do you call them Jews, Sir? They're such low fellows, not one of them keeps the Law strictly.'

Fearing another outburst, I would not, however, allow him to finish, and decided to change the conversation by asking him straight out what he wanted to talk to me about now.

'I should like to know the news from there, Sir. I have been here so many years, and I have never yet heard what is going on there.'

'You are asking a good deal, for I can't exactly tell you everything.

I don't know what interests you,--politics perhaps?'

The Jew was silent.

I concluded that my present guest, like many of the others, was interested in politics; but as I myself did not understand the very elements of the subject, I began to give the stereotyped account I had already composed with a view to frequent repet.i.tion of the situation of European politics, our own,[13] and so forth. But the Jew fidgeted impatiently.

'Then this does not interest you?' I asked.

'I have never thought about it,' he answered candidly.

'Ah, now I know why you have come! I am sure you wish to know how the Jews are doing, and how trade is going?'

'They are better off than I am.'

'Exactly. I am sure, under the circ.u.mstances, you will wish to know if living is dear with us, what the market prices are, how much for b.u.t.ter, meat, etc.'

'What does it concern me if it is ever so cheap there, if I can get nothing here?'

'Quite right again; but what the devil did you actually come here for?'

'Since I don't know myself, I ask you, Sir, how I am to tell you? You see, Sir, I often get thinking ... I think so much ... that Ryfka (that's my wife) asks, "Srul, what's the matter with you?" And what can I tell her, for I don't know myself what it is. Perhaps some people would laugh at me?' he added, as if fearing I were amongst them.

But I did not laugh; I was interested. Something, the cause of which he himself could not explain or express in words, was evidently weighing on him, and his unusually poor command of language added to this difficulty. In order to help him I re-a.s.sured him by telling him that I was in no hurry, as my work was not urgent and there would therefore be no harm in our having an hour's talk, and so on.--The Jew thanked me with a glance, and after a moment's thought opened the conversation thus:

'When did you leave Warsaw, Sir?'

'According to the Russian calendar, at the end of April.'

'Was it cold there then or warm?'

'Quite warm. I travelled in a summer suit at first.'

'Well, just fancy, Sir! Here it was freezing!'

'Then you have forgotten, is that it? Anyway, with us the fields are sown in April, and all the trees are green.'