The Jew and Other Stories eBook

of circumstances....  Not improbably she imagined that Susanna had been led by love for me to commit suicide, and attired in her darkest garments, with an aching heart and tears, she prayed on her knees for the peace of the soul of the departed, and put a rouble candle before the picture of the Consolation of Sorrow....  ‘Amishka’ had come with her too, and she too prayed, but was for the most part gazing at me, horror-stricken....  That elderly spinster, alas! did not regard me with indifference.  On leaving the church, my aunt distributed all her money, more than ten roubles, among the poor.

At last the farewell was over.  They began closing the coffin.  During the whole service I had not courage to look straight at the poor girl’s distorted face; but every time that my eyes passed by it—­’he did not come, he did not come,’ it seemed to me that it wanted to say.  They were just going to lower the lid upon the coffin.  I could not restrain myself:  I turned a rapid glance on to the dead woman.  ’Why did you do it?’ I was unconsciously asking....  ‘He did not come!’ I fancied for the last time....  The hammer was knocking in the nails, and all was over.

XXVII

We followed the hearse towards the cemetery.  We were forty in number, of all sorts and conditions, nothing else really than an idle crowd.  The wearisome journey lasted more than an hour.  The weather became worse and worse.  Halfway there Viktor got into a carriage, but Mr. Ratsch stepped gallantly on through the sloppy snow; just so must he have stepped through the snow when, after the fateful interview with Semyon Matveitch, he led home with him in triumph the girl whose life he had ruined for ever.  The ‘veteran’s’ hair and eyebrows were edged with snow; he kept blowing and uttering exclamations, or manfully drawing deep breaths and puffing out his round, dark-red cheeks....  One really might have thought he was laughing.  ’On my death the pension was to pass to Ivan Demianitch’; these words from Susanna’s manuscript recurred again to my mind.  We reached the cemetery at last; we moved up to a freshly dug grave.  The last ceremony was quickly performed; all were chilled through, all were in haste.  The coffin slid on cords into the yawning hole; they began to throw earth on it.  Mr.

Ratsch here too showed the energy of his spirit, so rapidly, with such force and vigour, did he fling clods of earth on to the coffin lid, throwing himself into an heroic pose, with one leg planted firmly before him... he could not have shown more energy if he had been stoning his bitterest foe.  Viktor, as before, held himself aloof; he kept muffling himself up in his coat, and rubbing his chin in the fur of his collar.  Mr. Ratsch’s other children eagerly imitated their father.  Flinging sand and earth was a source of great enjoyment to them, for which, of course, they were in no way to blame.  A mound began to rise up where the hole had been; we were on the point