How can a small-town coffin-maker's side hustle force him to face his prejudice?

Anton Chekhov, today on the Classic Tales podcast.

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notes. Shostakovich suggested that today's story from Anton Chekhov be made into an opera.

I'll let the story speak for itself.

And now, Rothschild's Fiddle by Anton Chekhov.

The town was a little one, worse than a village, and it was inhabited by scarcely any but old people who died with an infrequency that was really annoying. In the hospital and

in the prison fortress, very few coffins were needed.

In fact, business was bad.

If Yaakov Ivanov had been an undertaker in the chief town of the province,

he would certainly have had a house of his own,

and people would have addressed him as Yaakov much for each.

Here in this wretched little town, people simply called him Yaakov. His nickname in the street was for some reason bronze,

and he lived in a poor way, like a humble peasant,

in a little old hut in which there was only one room,

...