In the house of the Lublin relation things are not as they should be, but, at least, he is rich, and whoso rubs against fat meat gets shiny himself; where they chop wood, there are splinters; where there is a meal, one may chance to lick a bone--but those others--paupers! He even counts on the Lublin relation's obtaining a place for him. Business, he says, is bad; just now he is dealing in eggs, buys them, in the villages, and sends them to Lublin, whence they are despatched to London. There, it is said, people put them into lime-ovens and hatch chickens out of them. It must be lies. The English just happen to _like_ eggs! However that may be, the business, for the present, is in a bad way. Still, it is better than dealing in produce--produce is knocked on the head. He became a produce dealer soon after his marriage; he had everything to learn, and his partner was an old dealer who simply turned his pockets inside out. * * * * * It was dark in the post-chaise--I could not see Chaïm's face, and I don't know to this day how he recognized a fellow-Jew in me. When he got in, I was sitting in a corner dozing, and was only awakened by his voice. I don't talk in my sleep--perhaps I gave a Jewish groan. Perhaps he felt that _my_ groan and _his_ groan were _one_ groan? He even told me that his wife was from Warsaw and did not fancy Konskivòlye. That is, she was born in Krubisheff, but she was brought up in Warsaw by that miserable family of hers--lost her parents. There she learned to know about _other_ things. She could talk Polish and read German addresses fluently. She even says that she can play, not on a fiddle, but on some other instrument. "And who are you?" and he seized me by the hand. Sleep was out of the question, and he had begun to interest me. It was like a story. A young man from a small provincial town; a wife brought up in Warsaw--she is impatient of the small town. Something might be made of it, I reflect; one must know exactly how it all is, then add a little to it, and it will make a novel. I will put in a villain, a convict, a bankruptcy or two, and rush in a dragon--I, too, will be interesting! I lean toward my neighbor, and tell him who I am. "So it's you," he said, "is it? You yourself! Tell me, I beg of you, how do you find the time and attention required for inventing stories?" "Well, you see...." "How can I see? You must have inherited a large fortune, and you are living on the interest?" "Heaven forbid! My parents are alive." "Then you won in the lottery?" "Wrong again!" "Then, what?" I really did not know how to answer. "Do you make a living by _that_?" I gave a genuinely Jewish reply--_Bê!_ "And that is your whole Parnosseh, without anything additional?" "For the present." "O _wa_! how much does it bring in?" "Very little." "A bad business, too?" "Knocked on the head!" "Bad times!" sighed my neighbor. A few minutes' silence, but he could not be quiet long.