He did not regret dying, but as soon as he arrived home and saw his fiddle, his heart fell, and he felt sorry. The fiddle could not be taken to the grave; it must remain an orphan, and the same thing would happen with it as had happened with the birch wood and the pineforest. Everything in this world decayed, and would decay! Yakob went to the door of the hut and sat upon the thresholdstone, pressing his fiddle to his shoulder. Still thinking of life, full of decay and full of losses, he began to play, and as the tune poured out plaintively and touchingly, the tears flowed down his cheeks. And the harder he thought, the sadder was the song of the fiddle.
The latch creaked twice, and in the wicket door appeared Rothschild. The first half of the yard he crossed boldly, but seeing Yakob, he stopped short, shrivelled up, and apparently from fright began to make signs as if he wished to tell the time with his fingers.
«Come on, don’t be afraid,» said Yakob kindly, beckoning him. «Come!»
With a look of distrust and terror Rothschild drew near and stopped about two yards away. «Don’t beat me, Yakob, it is not my fault!» he said, with a bow. «Moses Hitch has sent me again. ‘Don’t be afraid!’ he said, ‘go to Yakob again and tell him that without him we cannot possibly get on.’ The wedding is on Wednesday. Shapovaloff’s daughter is marrying a wealthy man…. It will be a first-class wedding,» added the Jew, blinking one eye.
«I cannot go,» answered Yakob, breathing heavily. «I am ill, brother.»
And again he took his bow, and the tears burst from his eyes and fell upon the fiddle. Rothschild listened attentively, standing by his side with arms folded upon his chest. The distrustful, terrified expression upon his face little by little changed into a look of suffering and grief, he rolled his eyes as if in an ecstacy of torment, and ejaculated «Wachchch!» And the tears slowly rolled down his cheeks and made little black patches on his green frock-coat.
All day long Yakob lay in bed and worried. With evening came the priest, and, confessing him, asked whether he had any particular sin which he would like to confess; and Yakob exerted his fading memory, and remembering Marfa’s unhappy face, and the Jew’s despairing cry when he was bitten by the dog, said in a hardly audible voice:
«Give the fiddle to Rothschild.»
And now in the town everyone asks: Where did Rothschild get such an excellent fiddle? Did he buy it or steal it … or did he get it in pledge? Long ago he abandoned his flute, and now plays on the fiddle only. From beneath his bow issue the same mournful sounds as formerly came from the flute; but when he tries to repeat the tune that Yakob played when he sat on the threshold stone, the fiddle emits sounds so passionately sad and full of grief that the listeners weep; and he himself rolls his eyes and ejaculates «Wachchch!» … But this new song so pleases everyone in the town that wealthy traders and officials never fail to engage Rothschild for their social gatherings, and even force him to play it as many as ten times.
