“Come along, little gentleman,” he said in an undertone, “come and see the little bear I can show you!  Such a queer, cross little bear.  Oo-oo!”

The sleepy boy got up and listlessly dragged himself after Moisey Moisevitch to see the bear.  He went into a little room, where, before he saw anything, he felt he could not breathe from the smell of something sour and decaying, which was much stronger here than in the big room and probably spread from this room all over the house.  One part of the room was occupied by a big bed, covered with a greasy quilt and another by a chest of drawers and heaps of rags of all kinds from a woman’s stiff petticoat to children’s little breeches and braces.  A tallow candle stood on the chest of drawers.

Instead of the promised bear, Yegorushka saw a big fat Jewess with her hair hanging loose, in a red flannel skirt with black sprigs on it; she turned with difficulty in the narrow space between the bed and the chest of drawers and uttered drawn-out moaning as though she had toothache.  On seeing Yegorushka, she made a doleful, woe-begone face, heaved a long drawn-out sigh, and before he had time to look round, put to his lips a slice of bread smeared with honey.

“Eat it, dearie, eat it!” she said.  “You are here without your mamma, and no one to look after you.  Eat it up.”

Yegorushka did eat it, though after the goodies and poppy-cakes he had every day at home, he did not think very much of the honey, which was mixed with wax and bees’ wings.  He ate while Moisey Moisevitch and the Jewess looked at him and sighed.

“Where are you going, dearie?” asked the Jewess.

“To school,” answered Yegorushka.

“And how many brothers and sisters have you got?”

“I am the only one; there are no others.”

“O-oh!” sighed the Jewess, and turned her eyes upward.  “Poor mamma, poor mamma!  How she will weep and miss you!  We are going to send our Nahum to school in a year.  O-oh!”

“Ah, Nahum, Nahum!” sighed Moisey Moisevitch, and the skin of his pale face twitched nervously.  “And he is so delicate.”

The greasy quilt quivered, and from beneath it appeared a child’s curly head on a very thin neck; two black eyes gleamed and stared with curiosity at Yegorushka.  Still sighing, Moisey Moisevitch and the Jewess went to the chest of drawers and began talking in Yiddish.  Moisey Moisevitch spoke in a low bass undertone, and altogether his talk in Yiddish was like a continual “ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal, . . .” while his wife answered him in a shrill voice like a turkeycock’s, and the whole effect of her talk was something like “Too-too-too-too!” While they were consulting, another little curly head on a thin neck peeped out of the greasy quilt, then a third, then a fourth. . . .  If Yegorushka had had a fertile imagination he might have imagined that the hundred-headed hydra was hiding under the quilt.

“Ghaal-ghaal-ghaal-ghaal!” said Moisey Moisevitch.