Page:Korolenko - Makar's Dream and Other Stories.djvu/225

Rh now you would see Jews a-plenty in there. They are jostling one another, and weeping and screaming so that the whole city from one end to another can hear their lamentations. Where the gnats are there the birds go. Khapun would be a fool if he trotted about hunting and rummaging through all the woods and villages. He has only one day in the year, and do you think he would waste it like that? Some villages have Jews in them, and some haven't."

"Well, there aren't many that haven't!"

"I know there aren't many that haven't, but there are some. And then, he can pick and choose so much better out of a crowd."

Both men were silent. The miller was thinking that the servant had caught him again with his clever tongue, and he was feeling uncomfortable for the second time. The humming and weeping and lamenting of the Jews still came to them through the windows of the hut.

"Perhaps they are praying for the old man?"

"Perhaps they are. Anything is possible."

"Does it really ever happen?" asked the miller, wishing to tease the servant, and at the same time feeling a twinge of human pity for the Jew. "Perhaps it's only gossip. You know how people will gabble silly nonsense, and how every one believes them."

These words displeased Kharko.

"Yes, people do gabble nonsense; like you, for