-owner, who had taken
off his starched collar, but was still gasping from the heat and
mopping his face every minute with a wet handkerchief; and a young
infantry officer. The endless talkativeness of Simon Yakovlevich (the
young man had already managed to inform his neighbours that he was
called Simon Yakovlevich Horizon) tired and irritated the passengers a
trifle, just like the buzzing of a fly, that on a sultry summer day
rhythmically beats against a window pane of a closed, stuffy room. But
still, he knew how to raise their spirits: he showed tricks of magic;
told Hebrew anecdotes, full of a fine humour of their own. When his
wife would go out on the platform to refresh herself, he would tell
such things that the general would melt into a beatific smile, the
land-owner would neigh, rocking his black-loam stomach, while the
sub-lieutenant, a smooth-faced boy, only a year out of school, scarcely
controlling his laughter and curiosity, would turn away to one side,
that his neighbours might not see him turning red.

His wife tended Horizon with a touching, naive attention; she wiped his
face with a handkerchief, waved upon him with a fan, adjusted his
cravat every minute. And his face at these times became laughably
supercilious and stupidly self-conceited.

"But allow me to ask," asked the spare little general, coughing
politely, "allow me to ask, my dear sir, what occupation might you
pursue?"

"Ah, my God!" with a charming frankness retorted Simon Yakovlevich.
"Well, what can a poor Jew do in our time? It's a bit of a travelling
salesman and a commission broker by me. At the present time I'm far
from business. You--he! he! he!--understand yourselves, gentlemen. A
honeymoon--don't turn red, Sarochka--it don't repeat itself three times
in a year. But afterwards I'll have to travel and work a great deal.
Here we'll come with Sarochka to town, will pay the visits to her
relatives, and then again on the road. On my first trip I'm thinking of
taking my wife. You know, sort of a wedding journey. I'm a
representative from Sidris and two English firms. Wouldn't you like to
have a look? Here are the samples with me ..."

He very rapidly took out of a small, elegant case of yellow leather a
few long cardboard folding books, and with the dexterity of a tailor
began to unfold them, holding one end, from which their folds fell
downward with a light crackling.

"Look, what splendid samples: they don't give in to foreign ones