“You had better go, Artyom; or if you want to stay, I will go. Some people have come in,” whispered Cain, “and they are laughing at you on my account.”

“Who is laughing?” roared Artyom, aroused from his dreams, as his eyes darted fiercely round the room.

But everyone present appeared perfectly serious and absorbed in his own affairs. Artyom did not catch a single glance turned in his direction. He frowned sternly, saying to the Jew:

“You are telling lies.…There is nothing to complain about.…But take care, that is not playing fair. Wait till you have been ill-treated before you complain to me. Or perhaps you were testing me? You said it on purpose?”

Cain gave a sickly smile, but said nothing. For some minutes neither spoke. Then Cain rose, and hanging his box round his neck, prepared to go. Artyom held out his hand to him.

“You are going? Well, be off, and get on with your trading. I shall stay on here.”

With his two tiny hands Cain shook his protector’s immense paw, and left hurriedly. Having reached the street, he chose a corner where he could stand and see what was going on around him. It commanded a view of the tavern door, and he had not to wait long, for Artyom soon appeared upon the threshold. His eyebrows were knotted, and he had the look of one who dreads to see something which he wishes to avoid.

He stood examining the groups of men and the passers-by for some time, then his face recovered its habitual expression of idle indifference, and he went on through the crowd towards the end of the street that abutted on the hill; he was evidently on the way to his favorite resting-place.

Cain followed him with mournful eyes, and then, covering his face with his hands, he leant his forehead against the iron door of the storehouse near which he had stationed himself.

Artyom’s weighty threat had produced its effect; the people were afraid, and stopped tormenting the Jew.

Cain became aware that there were now fewer thorns along the path of suffering he was treading to the grave. Indeed, it was as though people had ceased to notice his existence. As formerly, he went in and out among the crowd crying his goods, but nobody now tried to tread upon his toes, nor did anyone hit him over his thin flanks or spit into his box. But, on the other hand, formerly he had not been greeted by looks of such coldness and hostility as now met him on all sides.

Sensitive to everything that related to him, he became conscious of this altered attitude towards him, and asked himself what it could mean, and what it portended. He thought over the matter a great deal, but failed to understand why he was so treated. And then, again, he remembered that formerly, although on very rare occasions, someone would exchange a friendly word with him, and ask him how he was getting on, and sometimes even joke with him without any unkind intention.…Cain grew very thoughtful. For it is invariably the case that men love to recall the least particle of happiness they may have had in the past, although at the time it was hardly noticeable.

And so he became very pensive, listening with attentive ears and watching with vigilant eyes. One day he got wind of a new song composed by the Ragged Bridegroom, the troubadour of the street. This man earned his living by music and song; eight wooden soup-spoons served him for an instrument; he held them between his fingers, struck them together, or else executed roulades on his chest or on his inflated cheeks, thus obtaining all the accompaniment he needed for the jingles that he himself composed. If the music was scarcely pleasing, it nevertheless demanded a conjurer’s deftness on the part of the performer, and skill of any kind was held in high estimation by the inhabitants of the suburb.