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A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE
BY
F. MARION CRAWFORD
AUTHOR OF "MR. ISAACS," "DR. CLAUDIUS," "A ROMAN SINGER" ETC.
New York
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND LONDON
1894
All rights reserved
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Copyright, 1890,
By F. MARION CRAWFORD
Set up and electrotyped May, 1893. Reprinted July, 1894.
Norwood Press:
J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith.
Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. 1
CHAPTER II. 25
CHAPTER III. 48
CHAPTER IV. 72
CHAPTER V. 96
CHAPTER VI. 121
CHAPTER VII. 145
CHAPTER VIII. 168
CHAPTER IX. 191
CHAPTER X. 214
CHAPTER XI. 240
CHAPTER XII. 264
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A CIGARETTE-MAKER'S ROMANCE.
CHAPTER I.
The inner room of a tobacconist's shop is not perhaps the spot which a
writer of fiction would naturally choose as the theatre of his play, nor
does the inventor of pleasant romances, of stirring incident, or moving
love-tales feel himself instinctively inclined to turn to Munich as to the
city of his dreams. On the other hand, it is by no means certain that, if
the choice of a stage for our performance were offered to the most
contented among us, we should be satisfied to speak our parts and go
through our actor's business upon the boards of this world. Some would
prefer to take their properties, their player's crowns and robes, their
aspiring expressions and their finely expressed aspirations before the
audience of a larger planet; others, perhaps the majority, would choose,
with more humility as well as with more common sense, the shadowy scenery,
the softer footlights and the less exigent public of a modest asteroid,
beyond the reach of our earthly haste, of our noisy and unclean high-roads
to honour, of our furious chariot races round the goals of fame, and,
especially, beyond the reach of competition. But we have no choice. We are
in the world and, before we know where we are, we are on one of the paths
which we must traverse in our few score years between birth and death.
Moreover, each man's path leads up to the theatre on the one side and down
from it on the other. The inexorable manager, Fate, requires that each
should go through with his comedy or his drama, if he be judged worthy of
a leading part, with his scene or his act in another man's piece, if he be
fit only to play the walking gentleman, the dumb footman, or the
mechanically trained supernumerary who does duty by turns as soldier,
sailor, courtier, husbandman, conspirator or red-capped patriot. A few
play well, many play badly, all must appear and the majority are feebly
applauded and loudly hissed. He counts himself great who is received with
such an uproar of clapping and shout of approval as may drown the voice of
the discontented; he is called fortunate who, having missed his cue and
broken down in his words, makes his exit in the triumphant train of the
greater actor upon whom all eyes are turned; he is deemed happy who,
having offended no man, is allowed to depart in peace upon his downward
road. Yet none of these players need pride themselves much upon their
success nor take to heart their failure. Long before most of them have
slipped into the grave which waits at the foot of the hill, and have been
wrapped comfortably in the pleasant earth, their names are forgotten by
those who screamed with pleasure or hooted in disgust at their
performance, their faces are no longer remembered, their great drama is
become an old-fashioned mummery of the past. Why should they care? Their
work is done, they have been rewarded or punished, paid with praise and
gold or mulcted in the sum of their reputation and estate. Famous or
infamous, in honour or in disrepute, in riches or in poverty, they have
reached the end of their time, they are worn out, the world will have no
more of them, they are worthless in the price-scale of men, they must be
buried out of sight and they will be forgotten out of mind. The beginning
is the same for all, and the end also, and as for the future, who shall
tell us upon what basis of higher intelligence our brief passage across
the stage is to be judged? Why then should the present trouble our vanity
so greatly? And if our play is of so little importance, why should we care
whether the scenery is romantic instead of commonplace, or why should we
make furious efforts to shift a Gothic castle, a drawbridge, a moat and a
waterfall into the slides occupied by the four walls of a Munich
tobacconist's shop?
There is not even anything especial in the appearance of the place to
recommend it to the ready pen of the word-painter. It is an establishment
of very modest pretensions situated in one of the side streets leading to
a great thoroughfare. As we are in Munich, however, the side street is
broad and clean, the pavement is well swept and the adjoining houses have
an air of solid respectability and wealth. At the point where the street
widens to an irregular shape on the downward slope there is a neat little
iron kiosque completely covered with brilliant advertisements, printed in
black Gothic letters upon red and yellow paper. The point of vivid colour
is not disagreeable, for it relieves the neutral tints of brick and brown
stone, and arrests the eye, long wearied with the respectable parade of
buildings. The tobacconist's shop is, indeed, the most shabby, or, to
speak more correctly, the least smartly new among its fellow-shops,
wherein dwell, in consecutive order, a barber, a watchmaker, a
pastry-cook, a shoemaker and a colour-man. In spite of its unattractive
exterior, however, the establishment of "Christian Fischelowitz, from
South Russia," enjoys a very considerable reputation. Within the high,
narrow shop there is good store of rare tobaccos, from the mild Kir to the
Imperial Samson, the aromatic Dubec and the pungent Swary. The dusty
window beside the narrow door exhibits, it is true, only a couple of tall,
dried tobacco plants set in flower-pots, a carelessly arranged collection
of cedar and pasteboard boxes for cigars and cigarettes, and a
fantastically constructed Swiss cottage, built entirely of cigarettes and
fine cut yellow leaf, with little pieces of glass set in for windows. This
effort of architecture is in a decidedly ruinous condition, the little
stuffed paper cylinders are ragged and torn, some of them show signs of
detaching themselves from the cardboard frame upon which they are pasted,
and the dust of years has accumulated upon the bit of painted board which
serves as a foundation for the chalet. In one corner of the window an
object more gaudy but not more useful attracts the eye. It is the popular
doll figure commonly known in Germany as the "Wiener Gigerl" or "Vienna
fop." It is doubtful whether any person could appear in the public places
of Vienna in such a costume without being stoned or otherwise painfully
put to a shameful death. The doll is arrayed in black shorts and silk
stockings, a wide white waistcoat, a scarlet evening coat, an enormous
collar and a white tall hat with a broad brim. He stands upon one foot,
raising the other as though in the act of beginning a minuet; he holds in
one hand a stick and in the other a cigarette, a relatively monstrous
eye-glass magnifies one of his painted eyes and upon his face is such an
expression of combined insolence, vulgarity, dishonesty and conceit as
would insure his being shot at sight in any Western American village
making the least pretence to self-respect. On high days and holidays
Christian Fischelowitz inserts a key into the square black pedestal
whereon the doll has its being, and the thing lives and moves, turns about
and cocks its impertinent head at the passers-by, while a feeble tune of
uncertain rhythm is heard grating itself out upon the teeth of the metal
comb in the concealed mechanism. Fischelowitz delights in this
monstrosity, and is never weary of watching its detestable antics. It is
doubtful whether in the simplicity of his good-natured heart he does not
really believe that the Wiener Gigerl may attract a stray customer to his
counter and, in the long-run, pay for itself. For it cost him money, and
in itself, as a thing of beauty, it hardly covers the bad debt contracted
with him by a poor fellow-countryman to whom he kindly lent fifty marks
last year. He accepted the doll without a murmur, however, in full
discharge of the obligation, and with an odd philosophy peculiar to
himself, he does his best to get what amusement he can out of the little
red-coated figure without complaining and without bitterness.
Christian's wife, his larger if not his better half, is less complacent.
In the publicity of the shop her small black eyes cast glances full of
hate upon the innocent Gigerl, her full flat face reddens with anger when
she remembers the money, and her fat hands would dash the insolent little
figure into the street, if her mercantile understanding did not suggest
the possibility of ultimately selling it for something. In view of such a
fortunate contingency, and whenever she is alone, she carefully dusts the
thing and puts it away in the cupboard in the corner, well knowing that
Fischelowitz will return in an hour, will take it out, set it in its
place, wind it up and watch its performance with his everlasting,
good-humoured, satisfied smile. In public she ventures only to abuse the
doll. In the silent watches of the night she directs her sharp speeches at
Christian himself. Not that she is altogether miserly, nor by any means an
ill-disposed person. Had she been of such a disposition her husband would
not have married her, for he is a very good man of business and a keen
judge of other wares besides tobacco. She is a good mother and a good
housewife, energetic, thrifty, and of fairly even temper; but that
particular piece of generosity which resulted in the acquisition of a
red-coated puppet in exchange for fifty marks fills her heart with anger
and her plump brown fingers with an itching desire to scratch and tear
something or somebody as a means of satisfying her vengeance. For the poor
fellow-countryman was one of the Count's friends, and Akulina Fischelowitz
abhors the Count and loathes him, and the Wiener Gigerl was the beginning
of the end.
While Christian is watching his doll, and Akulina is seated behind the
counter, her hands folded upon her lap, and her eyes darting unquiet
glances at her husband, the Count is busily occupied in making cigarettes
in the dingy back shop among a group of persons, both young and old, all
similarly occupied. It is not to be expected that the workroom should be
cleaner or more tastefully decorated than the counting-house, and in such
a business as the manufacture of cigarettes by hand litter of all sorts
accumulates rapidly. The "Famous Cigarette Manufactory of Christian
Fischelowitz from South Russia" is about as dingy, as unhealthy, as
untidy, as dusty a place as can be found within the limits of tidy,
well-to-do Munich. The room is lighted by a window and a half-glazed door,
both opening upon a dark court. The walls, originally whitewashed, are of
a deep rich brown, attributable partly to the constant fumes and
exhalations of tobacco, partly to the fine brown dust of the dried refuse
cuttings, and partly to the admirable smoke-giving qualities of the
rickety iron stove which stands in one corner, and in which a fire is
daily attempted during more than half the year. There are many shelves
upon the walls too, and the white wood of these has also received into
itself the warm, deep colour. Upon two of these shelves there are
accumulations of useless articles, a cracked glass vase, once the pride of
the show window, when it was filled to overflowing with fine cut leaf, a
broken-down samovar which has seen tea-service in many cities, from Kiew
to Moscow, from Moscow to Vilna, from Vilna to Berlin, from Berlin to
Munich; there are fragments of Russian lacquered wooden bowls, wrecked
cigar-boxes, piles of dingy handbills left over from the last half-yearly
advertisement, a crazy Turkish narghile, the broken stem of a chibouque,
an old hat and an odd boot, besides irregularly shaped parcels, wrapped in
crumpled brown paper and half buried in dust. Upon the other shelves are
arranged more neatly rows of tin boxes with locks, and reams of still
uncut cigarette paper, some white, some straw-coloured.
Round about the room are the seats of the workers. One man alone is
standing at his task, a man with a dark, Cossack face, high cheek-bones,
honest, gleaming black eyes, straggling hair and ragged beard. In his
shirt-sleeves, his arms bare to the elbow, he handles the heavy swivel
knife, pressing the package of carefully arranged leaves forward and under
the blade by almost imperceptible degrees. It is one of the most delicate
operations in the art, and the man has an especial gift for the work. So
sensitive is his strong right hand that as the knife cuts through the
thick pile he can detect the presence of a scrap of thin paper amongst the
tobacco, and not a bit of hardened stem or a twisted leaf escapes him. It
is very hard work, even for a strong man, and the moisture stands in great
drops on his dark forehead as he carefully presses the sharp instrument
through the resisting substance, quickly lifts it up again and pushes on
the package for the next cut.
At a small black table near by sits a Polish girl, poorly dressed, her
heavy red-brown hair braided in one long neat tress, her face deadly
white, her blue eyes lustreless and sunken, her thin fingers actively
rolling bits of paper round a glass tube, drawing them off as the edges
are gummed together, and laying them in a prettily arranged pile before
her. She is Vjera, the shell-maker, invariably spoken of as "poor Vjera."
Vjera, being interpreted from the Russian, means "Faith." There is an odd
and pathetic irony in the name borne by the sickly girl. Faith--faith in
what? In shell-making? In Christian Fischelowitz? In Johann Schmidt, the
Cossack tobacco-cutter, whose real name is lost in the gloom of many dim
wanderings? In life? In death? Who knows? In God, at least, poor
child--and in her wretched existence there is little else left for her to
believe in. If you ask her whether she believes in the Count, she will
turn away rather hastily, but in that case the wish to believe is there.
Beside Vjera sits another girl, less pale perhaps, but more insignificant
in feature, and similarly occupied, with this slight difference that the
little cylinders she makes are straw-coloured when Vjera is making white
ones, and white when her companion is using straw-coloured paper. On the
opposite side of the room, also before small black tables, sit two men, to
wit, Victor Ivanowitch Dumnoff and the Count. It is their business to
shape the tobacco and to insert it into the shells, a process performed by
rolling the cut leaf into a cylinder in a tongue-shaped piece of
parchment, which, when ready, has the form of a pencil, and is slipped
into the shell. The parchment is then withdrawn, and the tobacco remains
behind in its place; the little bunch of threads which protrudes at each
end is cut off with sharp scissors and the cigarette is finished.
The Count, on the afternoon of the day on which this story opens, was
sitting before his little black table in his usual attitude, his head
stooping slightly forward, his elbows supported on each side of him, his
long fingers moving quickly and skilfully, his greyish blue eyes fixed
intently on his work. At five o'clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, the
sixth of May, in the present year of grace one thousand eight hundred and
ninety, the Count was rapidly approaching the two-thousandth cigarette of
that day's work. Two thousand in a day was his limit; and though he
boasted that he could make three thousand between dawn and midnight, if
absolutely necessary, yet he confessed that among the last five hundred a
few might be found in which the leaves would be too tightly rolled or too
loosely packed. Up to his limit, however, he was to be relied upon, and
not one of his hundred score of cigarettes would be found to differ in
weight from another by a single grain.
It is perhaps time to describe the outward appearance of the busy worker,
out of whose life the events of some six-and-thirty hours furnish the
subject of this little tale. The Count is thirty years old, but might be
thought older, for there are grey streaks in his smooth black hair, and
there is a grey tone in the complexion of his tired face. In figure he is
thin, broad shouldered, sinewy, well made and graceful. He moves easily
and with a certain elegance. His arms and legs are long in proportion to
his body. His head is well shaped, bony, full of energy--his nose is
finely modelled and sharply aquiline; a short, dark moustache does not
quite hide the firm, well-chiselled lips, and the clean-cut chin is
prominent and of the martial type. From under his rather heavy eyebrows a
pair of keen eyes, full of changing light and expression, look somewhat
contemptuously on the world and its inhabitants. On the whole, the Count
is a handsome man and looks a gentleman, in spite of his occupation and in
spite of his clothes, which are in the fashion of twenty years ago, but
are carefully brushed and all but spotless. There are poor men who can
wear a coat as a red Indian will ride a mustang which a white man has left
for dead, beyond the period predetermined by the nature of tailoring as
the natural term of existence allotted to earthly garments. We look upon a
centenarian as a miracle of longevity, and he is careful to tell us his
age if he have not lost the power of speech; but if the coats of poor men
could speak, how much more marvellous in our eyes would their powers of
life appear! A stranger would have taken the Count for a half-pay officer
of good birth in straitened circumstances. The expression of his face at
the time in question was grave and thoughtful, as though he were thinking
of matters weightier to his happiness, if not more necessary to his
material welfare than his work. He saw his fingers moving, he watched each
honey-coloured bundle of cut leaf as it was rolled in the parchment
tongue, and with unswerving regularity he made the motions required to
slip the tobacco into the shell. But, while seeing all that he did, and
seeing consciously, he looked as though he saw also through the familiar
materials shaped under his fingers, into a dim distance full of a larger
life and wider interests.
The five occupants of the workshop had been working in silence for nearly
half an hour. The two girls on the one side and the two men on the other
kept their eyes bent down upon their fingers, while Johann Schmidt, the
Cossack, plied his guillotine-like knife in the corner. This same Johann
Schmidt, whose real name, to judge from his appearance, might have been
Tarass Bulba or Danjelo Buralbash, and was probably of a similar sound,
was at once the wit, the spendthrift and the humanitarian of the
Fischelowitz manufactory, possessing a number of good qualities in such
abundant measure as to make him a total failure in everything except the
cutting of tobacco. Like many witty, generous and kind-hearted persons in
a much higher rank of existence, he was cursed with a total want of tact.
On the present occasion, having sliced through an unusually long package
of leaves and having encountered an exceptional number of obstacles in
doing so, he thought fit to pause, draw a long breath and wipe the
perspiration from his sallow forehead with a pocket-handkerchief in which
the neutral tints predominated. This operation, preparatory to a rest of
ten minutes, having been successfully accomplished, Tarass Bulba Schmidt
picked up a tiny oblong bit of paper which had found its way to his feet
from one of the girls' tables, took a pinch of the freshly cut tobacco
beside him and rolled a cigarette in his palm with one hand while he felt
in his pocket for a match with the other. Then, in the midst of a great
cloud of fragrant smoke, he sat down upon the edge of his cutting-block
and looked at his companions. After a few moments of deep thought he gave
expression to his meditations in bad German. It is curious to see how
readily the Slavs in Germany fall into the habit of using the language of
the country when conversing together.
"It is my opinion," he said at last, "that the most objectless existences
are those which most exactly accomplish the object set before them."
Having given vent to this bit of paradox, Johann inhaled as much smoke as
his leathery lungs could contain and relapsed into silence. Vjera, the
Polish girl, glanced at the tobacco-cutter and went on with her work. The
insignificant girl beside her giggled vacantly. Dumnoff did not seem to
have heard the remark.
"Nineteen hundred and twenty-three," muttered the Count between his teeth
and in Russian, as the nineteenth hundred and twenty-third cigarette
rolled from his fingers, and he took up the parchment tongue for the
nineteenth hundred and twenty-fourth time that day.
"I do not exactly understand you, Herr Schmidt," said Vjera without
looking up again. "An objectless life has no object. How then--"
"There is nothing to understand," growled Dumnoff, who never counted his
own work, and always enjoyed a bit of conversation, provided he could
abuse something or somebody. "There is nothing in it, and Herr Schmidt is
a Landau moss-head."
It would be curious to ascertain why the wiseacres of eastern Bavaria are
held throughout South Germany in such contempt as to be a byword for
dulness and stupidity. The Cossack's dark eyes shot a quick glance at the
Russian, but he took no notice of the remark.
"I mean," he said, after a pause, "exactly what I say. I am an honest
fellow, and I always mean what I say, and no offence to anybody. Do we not
all of us, here with Fischelowitz, exactly fulfil the object set before
us, I would like to ask? Do we not make cigarettes from morning till night
with horrible exactness and regularity? Very well. Do we not, at the same
time, lead an atrociously objectless existence?"
"The object of existence is to live," remarked Dumnoff, who was fond of
cabbage and strong spirits, and of little else in the world. The Cossack
laughed.
"Do you call this living?" he asked contemptuously. Then the good-humoured
tone returned to his voice, and he shrugged his bony shoulders as he
crossed one leg over the other and took another puff.
"Nineteen hundred and twenty-nine," said the Count.
"Do you call that a life for a Christian man?" asked Schmidt again,
looking at him and waving towards him the lighted cigarette he held. "Is
that a life for a gentleman, for a real Count, for a noble, for an
educated aristocrat, for a man born to be the heir of millions?"
"Thirty," said the Count. "No, it is not. But there is no reason why you
should remind us of the fact, that I know of. It is bad enough to be
obliged to do the thing, without being made to talk about it. Not that it
matters to me so much to-day as it did a year ago, as you may imagine.
Thirty-one. It will soon be over for me, at least. In fact I only finish
these two thousand out of kindness to Fischelowitz, because I know he has
a large order to deliver on the day after to-morrow. And, besides, a
gentleman must keep his word even--thirty-two--in the matter of making
cigarettes for other people. But the work on this batch shall be a parting
gift of my goodwill to Fischelowitz, who is an honest fellow and has
understood my painful situation all along. To-morrow at this time, I shall
be far away. Thirty-three."
The Count drew a long breath of relief in the anticipation of his release
from captivity and hard labour. Vjera dropped her glass tube and her
little pieces of paper and looked sadly at him, while he was speaking.
"By the by," observed the Cossack, "to-day is Tuesday. I had quite
forgotten. So you really leave us to-morrow."
"Yes. It is all settled at last, and I have had letters. It is
to-morrow--and this is my last hundred."
"At what time?" inquired Dumnoff, with a rough laugh. "Is it to be in the
morning or in the afternoon?"
"I do not know," answered the Count, quietly and with an air of
conviction. "It will certainly be before night."
"Provided you get the news in time to ask us to the feast," jeered the
other, "we shall all be as happy as you yourself."
"Thirty-four," said the Count, who had rolled the last cigarette very
slowly and thoughtfully.
Vjera cast an imploring look on Dumnoff, as though beseeching him not to
continue his jesting. The rough man, who might have sat for the type of
the Russian mujik, noticed the glance and was silent.
"Who is incredulous enough to disbelieve this time?" asked the Cossack,
gravely. "Besides, the Count says that he has had letters, so it is
certain, at last."
"Love-letters, he means," giggled the insignificant girl, who rejoiced in
the name of Anna Schmigjelskova. Then she looked at Vjera as though afraid
of her displeasure.
But Vjera took no notice of the silly speech and sat idle for some
minutes, gazing at the Count with an expression in which love, admiration
and pity were very oddly mingled. Pale and ill as she looked, there was a
ray of light and a movement of life in her face during those few moments.
Then she took again her glass tube and her bits of paper and resumed her
task of making shells, with a little heave of her thin chest that betrayed
the suppression of a sigh.
The Count finished his second thousand, and arranged the last hundreds
neatly with the others, laying them in little heaps and patting the ends
with his fingers so that they should present an absolutely symmetrical
appearance. Dumnoff plodded on, in his peculiar way, doing the work well
and then carelessly tossing it into a basket by his side. He was capable
of working fourteen hours at a stretch when there was a prospect of
cabbage soup and liquor in the evening. The Cossack cleaned his
cutting-block and his broad swivel knife and emptied the cut tobacco into
a clean tin box. It was clear that the day's work was almost at an end for
all present. At that moment Fischelowitz entered with jaunty step and
smiling face, jingling a quantity of loose silver in his hand. He is a
little man, rotund and cheerful, quiet of speech and sunny in manner, with
a brown beard and waving dark hair, arranged in the manner dear to
barbers' apprentices. He has very soft brown eyes, a healthy complexion
and a nose the inverse of aquiline, for it curves upwards to its sharp
point, as though perpetually snuffing after the pleasant fragrance of his
favourite "Dubec otborny."
"Well, my children," he said, with a slight stammer that somehow lent an
additional kindliness to his tone, "what has the day's work been? You
first, Herr Graf," he added, turning to the Count. "I suppose that you
have made a thousand at least?"
Fischelowitz possessed in abundance the tact which was lacking in Johann
Schmidt, the Cossack. He well knew that the Count had made double the
quantity, but he also knew that the latter enjoyed the small triumph of
producing twice what seemed to be expected of him.
"Two thousand, Herr Fischelowitz," he said, proudly. Then seeing that his
employer was counting out the sum of six marks, he made a deprecating
gesture, as though refusing all payment.
"No," he said, with great dignity, and rising from his seat. "No. You must
allow me, on this occasion, to refuse the honorarium usual under the
circumstances."
"And why, my dear Count?" inquired Fischelowitz, shaking the six marks in
one hand and the remainder of his money in the other, as though weighing
the silver. "And why will you refuse me the honour--"
The other working people exchanged glances of amusement, as though they
knew what was coming. Vjera hid her face in her hands as she rested her
elbows on the table before her.
"I must indeed explain," answered the Count. "To-morrow, I shall be
obliged to leave you, not to return to the occupation which has so long
been a necessity to me in my troubles. Fortune at last returns to me and I
am free. I think I have spoken to you in confidence of my situation, once
at least, if not more often. My difficulties are at an end. I have
received letters announcing that to-morrow I shall be reinstated in my
possessions. You have shown me kindness--kindness, Herr Fischelowitz, and,
what has been more than kindness to me, you have shown me great courtesy.
Every one has not treated the poor gentleman with the same forbearance.
But let bygones be bygones. On the occasion of my return to prosperity,
permit me to offer you, as the only gift as yet within my means, the
result of my last day's work within these walls. You have been very kind,
and I thank you very sincerely."
There was a tremor in the Count's voice, and a moisture in his eyes, as he
drew himself up in his threadbare decent frock-coat and held out his
sinewy hand, stained with the long handling of tobacco in his daily
labour. Fischelowitz smiled with uncommon cheerfulness as he grasped the
bony fingers heartily.
"Thank you," he said. "I accept. I esteem it an honour to have been of any
assistance to you in your temporary annoyances."
Vjera still hid her face. The Cossack watched what was happening with an
expression half sad, half curious, and Dumnoff displayed a set of
ferocious white teeth as he stupidly grinned from ear to ear.