Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  For a long time Johann Schmidt stood transfixed with wonder in his place at the open window. At last it dawned upon him that his friend had not been really dead, but had fallen into some sort of fit in the course of his lonely meditations, from which he had been awakened by the Cossack’s terrific swearing. Why the latter had seemed to be invisible and inaudible to him, was a matter which Schmidt did not attempt to solve. It was clear that the Count was alive, and sleeping like other people. Schmidt hesitated some time as to what he should do. It was possible that his friend might wake again, and find himself desperately ill. He had been so evidently unlike himself, that Schmidt had feared he would become a raving maniac in the night, and had entered the house at his heels, seating himself upon the stairs just outside the door to wait for events, with the odd fidelity and forethought characteristic of him. The Count’s cry had warned him that all was not right and he had entered the room, as has been seen.

  He determined to wait some time longer, to see whether anything would happen. Meanwhile, he thrust Akulina’s letter into his pocket, reflecting that as it was a forgery it would be best that the Count should not have it, lest he should be again misled by the contents. He sat down and waited.

  Nothing happened. The clocks chimed the quarters up to one in the morning, a quarter-past, half-past — Schmidt was growing sleepy. The Count breathed regularly and lay in his bed without moving. Then, at last, the Cossack rose, looked at his friend once more, blew out the lamp, felt his way to the door and left the room. As he walked home through the quiet streets he swore that he would take vengeance upon Akulina, by producing the letter and reading it in her husband’s presence, and before the assembled establishment, before the Count made his appearance. It was indeed not probable that he would come at all, considering all that he had suffered, though Schmidt knew that he generally came on Thursday morning, evidently weary and exhausted, but unconscious of the delusion which had possessed him during the previous day. Possibly, he was subject to a similar fit every Wednesday night, and had kept the fact a secret. Schmidt had always wondered what happened to him at the moment when he suddenly forgot his imaginary fortune and returned to his everyday senses.

  The morning dawned at last, and it was Thursday. As there was no necessity for liberating the Count from arrest to-day, Akulina roused her husband with the lark, gave him his coffee promptly and sent him off to open the shop and catch the early customer. Before the shutters had been up more than a quarter of an hour, and while Fischelowitz was still sniffing the fresh morning air, Johann Schmidt appeared. His step was brisk, his brow was dark and his boots creaked ominously. With a very brief salutation he passed into the back shop, slipped off his coat and set to work with the determination of a man who feels that he must do something active as a momentary relief to his feelings.

  Next came Vjera, paler than ever, with great black rings under her tired eyes, broken with the fatigues and anxieties of the previous day, but determined to double her work, if that were possible, in order to make up for the money she had borrowed of Schmidt and, through him, of Dumnoff. As she dropped her shawl, Fischelowitz caught sight of the back of her head, and broke into a laugh.

  “Why, Vjera!” he cried. “What have you done? You have made yourself look perfectly ridiculous!”

  The poor girl turned scarlet, and busied herself at her table without answering. Her fingers trembled as she tried to handle her glass tube. The Cossack, whose anger had not been diluted by being left to boil all night, dropped his swivel knife and went up to Fischelowitz with a look in his face so extremely disagreeable that the tobacconist drew back a little, not knowing what to expect.

  “I will tell you something,” said Schmidt, savagely. “You will have to change your manners if you expect any of us to work for you.”

  “What do you mean?” stammered Fischelowitz, in whom nature had omitted to implant the gift of physical courage, except in such measure as saved him from the humiliation of being afraid of his wife.

  “I mean what I say,” answered the Cossack. “And if there is anything I hate, it is to repeat what I have said before hitting a man.” His fists were clenched already, and one of them looked as though it were on the point of making a very emphatic gesture. Fischelowitz retired backwards into the front shop, while Vjera looked on from within, now pale again and badly frightened.

  “Herr Schmidt! Herr Schmidt! Please, please be quiet! It does not matter!” she cried.

  “Then what does matter?” inquired the Cossack over his shoulders, “If Vjera has cut off her hair,” he said, turning again to Fischelowitz, “she has had a good reason for it. It is none of your business, nor mine either.”

  So saying he was about to go back to his work again.

  “Upon my word!” exclaimed the tobacconist. “Upon my word! I do not understand what has got into the fellow.”

  “You do not understand?” cried Schmidt, facing him again. “I mean that if you laugh at Vjera I will break most of your bones.”

  At that moment Akulina’s stout figure appeared, entering from the street. The Cossack stood still, glaring at her, his face growing white and contracted with anger. He was becoming dangerous, as good-tempered men will, when roused, especially when they have been brought up among people who, as a tribe, would rather fight than eat, at any time of day, from pure love of the thing. Even Akulina, who was not timid, hesitated as she stood on the threshold.

  “What has happened?” she inquired, looking from Schmidt to her husband.

  The latter came to her side, if not for protection, as might be maliciously supposed, at least for company.

  “I cannot understand at all,” said Fischelowitz, still edging away.

  “You understand well enough, I think, and as for you, Frau Fischelowitz, I have something to talk of with you, too. But we will put it off until later,” he added, as though suddenly changing his mind.

  The Count himself had appeared in the doorway behind Akulina. Both she and her husband stood aside, looking at him curiously.

  “Good-morning,” he said, gravely taking off his hat and inclining his head a little. He acted as though quite unconscious of what had happened on the previous day, and they watched him as he quietly went into the room beyond, into which the Cossack had retired on seeing him enter.

  He hung up his hat in its usual place, nodding to Schmidt, who was opposite to him. Then, as he turned, he met Vjera’s eyes. It was a supreme moment for her, poor child. Would he remember anything of what had passed on the previous day? Or had he forgotten all, his debt, her saving of him and the sacrifice she had made? He looked at her so long and so steadily that she grew frightened. Then all at once he came close to her, and took her hand and kissed it as he had done when they had last parted, careless of Schmidt’s presence.

  “I have not forgotten, dear Vjera,” he whispered in her ear.

  Schmidt passed them quickly and again went out, whether from a sense of delicacy, or because he saw an opportunity of renewing the fight outside, is not certain. He closed the door of communication behind him.

  Vjera looked up into the Count’s eyes and the blush that rarely came, the blush of true happiness, mounted to her face.

  “I have not forgotten, dearest,” he said again. “There is a veil over yesterday — I think I must have been ill — but I know what you did for me and — and—” he hesitated as though seeking an expression.

  For a few seconds again the poor girl felt the agony of suspense she knew so well.

  “I do not know what right a man so poor as I has to say such a thing, Vjera,” he continued. “But I love you, dear, and if you will take me, I will love you all my life, more and more. Will it be harder to be poor together than each for ourselves, alone?”

  Vjera let her head fall upon his shoulder, happy at last. What did his madness matter now, since the one memory she craved had survived its destroying influence? He had forgotten his glorious hopes, his imaginary wealth, his expected friends, but he had not forgotten
her, nor his love for her.

  “Thank God!” she sighed, and the happy tears fell from her eyes upon the breast of his threadbare coat.

  “But we must not forget to work, dear,” she said, a few moments later.

  “No,” he answered. “We must not forget to work.”

  As she sat down to her table he pushed her chair back for her, and put into her hands her little glass tube, and then he went and took his own place opposite. For a long time they were left alone, but neither of them seemed to wonder at it, nor to hear the low, excited tones of many voices talking rapidly and often together in the shop outside. Whenever their eyes met, they both smiled, while their fingers did the accustomed mechanical work.

  When Schmidt entered the outer shop for the second time, he found the tobacconist and his wife conversing in low tones together, in evident fear of being overheard. He came and stood before them, lowering his voice to the pitch of theirs, as he spoke.

  “It is no fault of yours that the Count was not found dead in his bed this morning,” he began, fixing his fiery eyes on Akulina.

  “What? What? What is this?” asked Fischelowitz excitedly.

  “Only this,” said the Cossack, displaying the letter he had brought from the Count’s rooms. “Nothing more. Your wife has succeeded very well. He is quite mad now. I found him last night, helpless, in a sort of fit, stiff and stark on the floor of his room. And this was in his pocket. Read it, Herr Fischelowitz. Read it, by all means. I suppose your wife does not mind your reading the letters she writes.”

  Fischelowitz took the letter stupidly, turned it over, saw the address, and took out the folded sheet. Akulina’s face expressed a blank amazement almost comical in its vacuity. For once, she was taken off her guard. Her husband read the letter over twice and examined the handwriting curiously.

  “A joke is a joke, Akulina,” he said at last. “But you have carried this too far. What if the Count had died?”

  “I would like to know what I am accused of,” said Akulina, “and what all this is about.”

  “I suppose you know your own handwriting,” observed the Cossack, taking the letter from the tobacconist’s hands and holding it before her eyes. “And if that is not enough to drive the poor man to the madhouse I do not know what is. Perhaps you have forgotten all about it? Perhaps you are mad, too?”

  Akulina read the writing in her turn. Then she grew very angry.

  “It is an abominable lie!” she exclaimed. “I never had anything to do with it. I do not know whence this letter comes, and I do not care. I know nothing about it.”

  “I suppose no one can prevent your saying so, at least,” retorted the Cossack.

  “It is very queer,” observed Fischelowitz, suddenly thrusting his hands into his pockets and beginning to whistle softly as he looked through the shop window.

  “When I tell you that it is not my handwriting, you ought to be satisfied—” Akulina began.

  “And yet none of us are,” interrupted the Cossack with a laugh. “Strange, is it not?”

  Dumnoff now came in, and a moment later the insignificant girl, who began to giggle foolishly as soon as she saw that something was happening which she could not understand.

  “None of us are satisfied,” continued Johann Schmidt, taking the letter from Akulina. “Here, Dumnoff, here Anna Nicolaevna, is this the Chosjaika’s handwriting or not? Let everybody see and judge.”

  “It is outrageous!” exclaimed Akulina, trying to get possession of the letter again.

  “You see how she tries to get it,” laughed the Cossack, savagely. “She would be glad to tear it to pieces — of course she would.”

  “I wish you would all go about your business,” said Fischelowitz with an approach to asperity.

  Akulina was furious, but she did not know what to do. Everybody began talking together.

  “Of course it is the Barina’s handwriting,” said Dumnoff confidently. He supposed it was always safe to follow Schmidt’s lead, when he followed any one.

  “Of course it is,” chimed in the insignificant Anna.

  “You — you minx — you flatter-cat, you little serpent!” cried Akulina, speaking three languages at once in her excitement. “Go — get along — go to your work—”

  “No, no, stay!” exclaimed the Cossack authoritatively. “Do you know what this is?” he asked of all present again. “Our good mistress, here, has for some reason or other been trying to make the Count worse by having sham letters posted to him from home—”

  “It is a lie! A base, abominable lie! Turn the man out, Christian Gregorovitch! Turn him out, or send for the police.”

  “Turn him out yourself,” answered the tobacconist phlegmatically.

  “Posted to him from home,” continued the Cossack, “and telling him that his father and brother are dead and that he has come into property and the like. What do you think of that?”

  “It is a shame,” growled Dumnoff, beginning to understand.

  The girl laughed foolishly.

  “I swear to you,” began Akulina, crimson with anger. “I swear to you by all—”

  “Customers, customers!” exclaimed Fischelowitz in a stage whisper. “Quiet, I tell you!” He made a rush for the other side of the counter, and briskly assumed his professional smile. The others fell back into the corners.

  Two gentlemen in black entered the shop. The one was a stout, angry-looking person of middle age, very dark, and very full about the lower part of the face, which was not concealed by the closely cut black beard. His companion was a diminutive little man, very thin and very spruce, not less than fifty years old. His face was entirely shaved and was deeply marked with lines and furrows. A pair of piercing grey eyes looked through big gold-rimmed spectacles. As he took off his hat, a few thin, sandy-coloured locks fluttered a little and then settled themselves upon the smooth surface of his cranium, like autumn leaves falling upon a marble statue in a garden.

  “Herr Fischelowitz?” inquired the larger of the two customers, touching his hat but not removing it.

  “At your service,” answered the tobacconist. “Cigarettes?” he inquired. “Strong? Light? Kir, Samson, Dubec?”

  “I am the new Russian Consul,” said the stranger. “This gentleman is just arrived from Petersburg and has business with you.”

  “My name is Konstantin Grabofsky, and I am a lawyer,” observed the little man very sharply.

  Fischelowitz bowed till his nose almost came into collision with the counter. The others in the shop held their peace and opened their eyes.

  “And I am told that Count Boris Michaelovitch Skariatine is here,” continued the lawyer.

  “Oh — the mad Count!” exclaimed Akulina with an angry laugh, and coming forward. “Yes, we can tell you all about him.”

  “I am sorry,” said Grabofsky, “to hear you call him mad, since my business is with him, Barina, and not with you.” His tone was, if possible, more incisive than before.

  “Of course, we know that he is not a Count at all,” said Akulina, somewhat annoyed by his sharpness.

  “Do you? Then you are singularly mistaken. I shall be obliged if you will inform Count Skariatine that Konstantin Grabofsky desires the honour of an interview with him.”

  “Go and call him, Akulina,” said Fischelowitz, “since the gentleman wishes to see him.”

  “Go yourself,” retorted his wife.

  “Go together, and be quick about it!” said the Consul, who was tired of waiting.

  “And please to say that I wait his convenience,” added the lawyer.

  Dumnoff moved to Schmidt’s side and whispered into his ear.

  “Do you think they have come about the Gigerl?” he inquired anxiously. “Do you think they will arrest us again?”

  “Durak!” laughed the Cossack. “How can two Russian gentlemen arrest you in Munich? This is something connected with the Count’s friends. It is my belief that they have come at last. See — here he is.”

  The Count now entered
from the back shop, calm and collected, as though not expecting anything extraordinary. The Russian Consul took off his hat and bowed with great politeness and the Count returned the salutation with equal civility. Fischelowitz and Akulina stood in the background anxiously watching events.

  The lawyer also bowed and then, turning his face to the light, held his hand out.

  “You have not forgotten me, Count Skariatine?” he said, in a tone of inquiry.

  The Count stared hard at him as he took the proffered hand. Gradually, his face underwent a change. His forehead contracted, his eyes closed a little, his eyebrows rose, and an expression of quiet disdain settled about the lines of his mouth.

  “I know you very well,” he answered. “You are Doctor Konstantin Grabofsky, my father’s lawyer. Do you come from him to renew the offer you made when we parted?”

  “I have no offer to make,” said the little man. “Will you do me the honour to indicate some place where we may be alone together for a moment?”

  “I have no objection to that,” replied the Count. “We can go into the street.”

  They passed out together, leaving the establishment of Christian Fischelowitz in a condition of great astonishment. The tobacconist hastily produced his best cigarettes and entreated the Consul to try one, making signs to the other occupants of the shop to return to their occupations in the inner room.

  “How long have you known Count Skariatine?” inquired the Consul, carelessly, when he was alone with Fischelowitz.

  “Six or seven years,” answered the latter.

  “I suppose you know his story? Your wife was good enough to inform us of that fact, though Doctor Grabofsky has reason to doubt the value of her information.”

  “We only know that he calls himself a Count.” Fischelowitz held the authorities of his native country in holy awe, and was almost frightened out of his senses at being thus questioned by the Consul.