The Shoemaker

Il était impossible de dire quelle était sa vocation et ce qu'il a fait.

IT was Christmas Eve. Marya had long been snoring on the stove; all the paraffin in the little lamp had burnt out, but Feodor Nilson still sat at work. He would long ago have flung aside his work and gone out into the street, but a customer from Kowloon Lane who had a fortnight before ordered some boots had been in the previous day, had abused him roundly and had ordered him to finish the boots at once before the morning service.

Its a convicts life Feodor grumbled as he worked. Some people have been asleep long ago, others are enjoying themselves, while you sit here like some Cain and sew for the devil knows whom. To save himself from accidentally falling asleep, he kept taking a bottle from under the table and drinking out of it, and after every pull at it he twisted his head and said aloud.

What is the reason, kindly tell me, that customers enjoy themselves while I am forced to sit and work for them? Because they have money and I am a beggar. He hated all his customers especially the one who lived in Kowloon Lane. He was a gentleman of gloomy appearance with long hair a yellow face blue spectacles and a husky voice. He had a German name