Part 16 (2/2)

Oho! she is angry still, because of yesterday. He cannot remember what happened, but so it must be.

”Shut your mouth and open the door!” he shouts.

”I'll open your head for you!” is the swift reply.

”Let me in!”

”Go into the ground, I tell you!”

And he turned away and went into the house-of-study, where he lay down to sleep under the stove. As ill-luck would have it, it was a charcoal stove, and he was suffocated and brought home like a dead man.

Then Shprintze was in a way! He could hear, after a while, how she was carrying on.

They told her it was nothing--only the charcoal.

No! she must have a doctor. She threatened to faint, to throw herself into the water, and went on screaming:

”My husband! My treasure!”

He pulled himself together, sat up, and asked quietly:

”Shprintze, do you want a divorce?”

”May you be--” she never finished the curse, and burst into tears.

”Shemaiah, do you think G.o.d will punish me for my cursing and my bad temper?”

But no sooner was he well again, there was the old Shprintze back. A mouth on wheels, a tongue on screws, and strong as iron--she scratched like a cat--ha, ha! A pity she died; and she did not even live to have pleasure in her children.

”They must be doing well in the world--all artisans--a trade won't let a man die of hunger. All healthy--they took after me. They don't write, but what of that? They can't do it themselves, and just _you_ go and ask someone to do it for you! Besides, what's the good of a letter of that kind? It's like watered soup. And then young boys, in a long time they forget. They _must_ be doing well.

”But Shprintze is dead and buried. Poor Shprintze!

”Soon after the excise offices were abolished, she died. That was before I had got used to going errands and saying to the gentle folk 'your lords.h.i.+p,' instead of 'your high n.o.bility';[25] before they trusted me with contracts and money--and we used to want for bread.

”I, of course, a man and an ex-Cantonist, could easily go a day without food, but for her, as I said, it was a matter of life and death. A foolish woman soon loses her strength; she couldn't even scold any more; all the monkey was out of her; she did nothing but cry.

”I lost all pleasure in life--she grew somehow afraid to eat, lest I shouldn't have enough.

”Seeing she was afraid, I grew bold, _I_ screamed, _I_ scolded. For instance: 'Why don't you go and eat?' Now and then I went into a fury and nearly hit her, but how are you to hit a woman who sits crying with her hands folded and doesn't stir? I run at her with a clenched fist and spit at it, and she only says: 'You go and eat first--and then _I_ will,' and I had to eat some of the bread first and leave her the rest.

”Once she fooled me out into the street: 'I _will_ eat, only _you_ go into the street--perhaps you will earn something,' and she smiled and patted me.

”I go and I come again, and find the loaf much as I left it. She told me she couldn't eat dry bread--she must have porridge.”

He lets his head drop as though beneath a heavy weight, and the sad thoughts chase one another:

”And what a wailing she set up when I wanted to p.a.w.n my Sabbath cloak--the one I'm wearing now. She moved heaven and earth, and went and p.a.w.ned the metal candle-sticks, and said the blessing over candles stuck into potatoes to the day of her death. Before dying she confessed to me that she had never really wanted a divorce; it was only her evil tongue.

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