‘You don’t always do your duty,’ said Kapturak very quietly. But at that moment the music-box had stopped blustering so that even the quiet words rang out very loudly. ‘How does it come about that you never inspect a certain shop? You know the one I mean!’ Eibenschütz knew well which shop Kapturak had in mind, but he asked: ‘Which then?’ ‘Singer’s,’ said Kapturak. ‘Where’s this Singer?’ asked the gendarme Piotrak. ‘In Zlotogrod, in the centre of Zlotogrod,’ replied Kapturak, ‘right beside the fishwife Czackes, whose licence you took away three weeks ago!’ The gendarme threw a questioning, suspicious glance at Eibenschütz. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go and have a look!’ said the Inspector. Suddenly he felt a great fear of Kapturak as well as of the gendarme. He felt he must have another small glassful.

‘Tomorrow we’ll go and have a look!’ he repeated.

Kapturak gave a wide and soundless smile. His thin lips bared a total of four yellow teeth, two above, two below; they seemed ready to chew up his own smile.

It was true that Inspector Eibenschütz had never yet taken a look at Singer’s shop. It was the only one in the district, to be sure. Despite his great honesty and sense of official duty he had quite deliberately refrained from troubling the Singers.

Besides, it was such a miserable shop that it stood out even among the exceedingly miserable shops of the neighbourhood. It did not even have a sign but a common slate, on which Frau Blume Singer renewed her name in chalk every few days, and especially when it had rained and the writing had become illegible. It was a tiny little house; it consisted of one room and a kitchen, and the kitchen also served as the shop. On a tiny rectangle of open ground before the entrance lay a dungheap of moderate size and beside it stood a wooden booth. This was the lavatory of the Singer family. Not far from it, usually on the rubbish heap, which was now covered by a thick crust of snow and ice, the two Singer boys played in the few hours they did not have to devote to study. For they had to study. At least one of them was destined one day to become his father Mendel’s heir.

Alas! It was not a question of a material inheritance. God forbid! It was merely the reputation of a learned and righteous man. In the room behind the kitchen and the shop Mendel Singer studied day and night, between the two beds, each of which was pushed against one of the walls. On the floor, in the middle, lay the straw palliasses of the children.