concept
"Your Jewish honor" (жидовское благородие)
Jewish honor (slur)
also: жид буфетчик, ваше жидовское благородие, your Jewish honor
The driver identifies an innkeeper he passes on the road only by the ethnic slur "zhid" (жид) and mockingly addresses him with the vocative "your Jewish honor," a period ethnic slur for a Jewish tradesman; translated faithfully rather than softened, and flagged here as a documented instance of the casual antisemitism common in Russian popular speech of the period, not an endorsement by narrator or translator.
Reading notes
- Murder Will Out (You Can't Hide an Awl in a Sack) §26 your Jewish honor
The driver identifies a passing innkeeper only by the Russian ethnic slur "zhid" (жид) and mockingly hails him as "your Jewish honor" (ваше жидовское благородие), a period slur pairing an ethnic epithet with a mock-deferential form of address. The translation renders this faithfully rather than softening or omitting it, per house policy on documented period language; it is presented here as historical evidence of casual antisemitism in Russian provincial speech of the 1880s, not endorsed by the story, the narrator, or this edition.