ren's coffins, and made them straight off
without measurements, contemptuously, and when he was paid for the
work he always said:

"I must confess I don't like trumpery jobs."

Apart from his trade, playing the fiddle brought him in a small
income.

The Jews' orchestra conducted by Moisey Ilyitch Shahkes, the tinsmith,
who took more than half their receipts for himself, played as a
rule at weddings in the town. As Yakov played very well on the
fiddle, especially Russian songs, Shahkes sometimes invited him to
join the orchestra at a fee of half a rouble a day, in addition to
tips from the visitors. When Bronze sat in the orchestra first of
all his face became crimson and perspiring; it was hot, there was
a suffocating smell of garlic, the fiddle squeaked, the double bass
wheezed close to his right ear, while the flute wailed at his left,
played by a gaunt, red-haired Jew who had a perfect network of red
and blue veins all over his face, and who bore the name of the
famous millionaire Rothschild. And this accursed Jew contrived to
play even the liveliest things plaintively. For no apparent reason
Yakov little by little became possessed by hatred and contempt for
the Jews, and especially for Rothschild; he began to pick quarrels
with him, rail at him in unseemly language and once even tried to
strike him, and Rothschild was offended and said, looking at him
ferociously:

"If it were not that I respect you for your talent, I would have
sent you flying out of the window."

Then he began to weep. And because of this Yakov was not often asked
to play in the orchestra; he was only sent for in case of extreme
necessity in the absence of one of the Jews.

Yakov was never in a good temper, as he was continually having to
put up with terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on
Sundays or Saints' days, and Monday was an unlucky day, so that in
the course of the year there were some two hundred days on which,
whether he liked it or not, he had to sit with his hands folded.
And only think, what a loss that meant. If anyone in the town had
a wedding without music, or if Shahkes did not send for Yakov, that
was a loss, too. The superintendent of the prison was ill for two
years and was wasting away, and Yakov was impatiently waiting for
him to die, but the superintendent went away to the chief town of
the province to be doctored, and there took and died. There's a
loss for you, ten roubles at least, as there would h