rds, he reflected that
death would be nothing but a benefit; he would not have to eat or
drink, or pay taxes or offend people, and, as a man lies in his
grave not for one year but for hundreds and thousands, if one
reckoned it up the gain would be enormous. A man's life meant loss:
death meant gain. This reflection was, of course, a just one, but
yet it was bitter and mortifying; why was the order of the world
so strange, that life, which is given to man only once, passes away
without benefit?

He was not sorry to die, but at home, as soon as he saw his fiddle,
it sent a pang to his heart and he felt sorry. He could not take
the fiddle with him to the grave, and now it would be left forlorn,
and the same thing would happen to it as to the birch copse and the
pine forest. Everything in this world was wasted and would be wasted!
Yakov went out of the hut and sat in the doorway, pressing the
fiddle to his bosom. Thinking of his wasted, profitless life, he
began to play, he did not know what, but it was plaintive and
touching, and tears trickled down his cheeks. And the harder he
thought, the more mournfully the fiddle wailed.

The latch clicked once and again, and Rothschild appeared at the
gate. He walked across half the yard boldly, but seeing Yakov he
stopped short, and seemed to shrink together, and probably from
terror, began making signs with his hands as though he wanted to
show on his fingers what o'clock it was.

"Come along, it's all right," said Yakov in a friendly tone, and
he beckoned him to come up. "Come along!"

Looking at him mistrustfully and apprehensively, Rothschild began
to advance, and stopped seven feet off.

"Be so good as not to beat me," he said, ducking. "Moisey Ilyitch
has sent me again. 'Don't be afraid,' he said; 'go to Yakov again
and tell him,' he said, 'we can't get on without him.' There is a
wedding on Wednesday. . . . Ye---es! Mr. Shapovalov is marrying his
daughter to a good man. . . . And it will be a grand wedding, oo-oo!"
added the Jew, screwing up one eye.

"I can't come," said Yakov, breathing hard. "I'm ill, brother."

And he began playing again, and the tears gushed from his eyes on
to the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing sideways
to him and folding his arms on his chest. The scared and perplexed
expression on his face, little by little, changed to a look of woe
and suffering; he rolled his eyes as though he were experiencing
an agonizing ecstasy, and