Drabkin’s wedding was postponed for half a year, but the dowry of five hundred roubles was at once placed into his hands, that he might open a shop immediately. For he was known by all to be an honourable man. He bought a sewing-machine, shears, knives; wooden pliers he made himself; and together with his future wife he sat down to work. The shop, naturally, was in her name. He was submerged with orders. He became a new man,—jollier, livelier, more enthusiastic. He attacked his work arduously. It seemed that he wanted to pile up more and more money. He felt a sensation that he had never before experienced. He had money! He had money! He was a boss for himself! Often he would get a ticklish feeling, and he would smile happily and begin to hum a tune. He was superlatively happy. He made plans—the dowry would grow, he would accumulate heaps of money, he would accomplish miracles!... “I’ll show them!” he would shout, triumphantly, to nobody in particular, pushing the treadle of his machine vigorously as he sewed away. “Show whom?” asked his fiancée, after he had shouted his defiance for the tenth time. “Everybody!” he replied. “They’ll hear from me!” And then he would fall to explaining just how he would “show them.” A single cloud, however, darkened his bright sky: he longed for Chashke. Chashke was lacking. He would blink, screw up his eyes as he smeared a thread with pitch, and gaze at his betrothed, but all the time he would be thinking of Chashke, comparing her with his affianced. “Why do you look at me like that?” Chyenke would ask with a smile. But he would make no reply, continuing to smear his thread with pitch. “Haven’t you ever seen me before? Do you want to see whether you’ve made a mistake in choosing me?” she would continue, throwing her work aside and placing her arms about his neck. But he remained silent. He stuck the thread through the eye of the needle and began to sew. He felt that this woman beside him was a stranger,—that he did not even know her. “Are you angry with me?” asked the stranger, releasing his head and ready to become angry herself. “Why angry?” he replied, looking intently upon the pocketbook as he pierced it with the needle. “I looked at you. Is it forbidden me to look at you?” He would step often into Chashke’s, if only for a few moments. And for even these few moments they both felt heavy at heart. Both stood there with tears in their eyes. When Drabkin would come for a visit, the old woman would go off into the kitchen, muttering to herself and wrinkling her brow. There she would sit down before a dingy little lamp, beginning to darn a stocking and staring into the semi-gloom, lost in thought of her foolish, unfortunate daughter. Drabkin, at such times, would stand by the window and write upon the panes with his fingers, or gaze vacantly before him, waiting for Chashke to speak. And Chashke sat bent over her work, and something tugged, tugged away at her heart-strings.