The Count had no precise object in view when he hurriedly left the shop
with the parcel containing the broken doll. What he most desired for the
moment was to withdraw himself from the storm of Akulina's abuse, seeing
that he had no means of checking the torrent, nor of exacting satisfaction
for the insults received. However he might have acted had the aggressor
been a man, he was powerless when attacked by a woman, and he was aware
that he had followed the only course which had in it anything of dignity
and self-respect. To stand and bandy words and epithets of abuse would
have been worse than useless, to treat the tobacconist like a gentleman
and to hold him responsible for his wife's language would have been more
than absurd. So the Count took the remains of the puppet and went on his
way.
He was not, however, so superior to good and bad treatment as not to feel
deeply wounded and thoroughly roused to anger. Perhaps, if he had been
already in possession of the fortune and dignity which he expected on the
morrow, he might have smiled contemptuously at the virago's noisy wrath,
feeling nothing and caring even less what she felt towards him. But he had
too long been poor and wretched to bear with equanimity any reference to
his wretchedness or his poverty, and he was too painfully conscious of the
weight of outward circumstances in determining men's judgments of their
fellows not to be stung by the words that had been so angrily applied to
him. Moreover, and worst of all, there was the fact that Fischelowitz had
really lent the money to a poor countryman who had previously made the
acquaintance of the Count, and had by that means induced the tobacconist
to help him. It was true, indeed, that the poor Count had himself lent the
fellow all he had in his pocket, which meant all that he had in the world,
and had been half starved in consequence during a whole week. The man was
an idle vagabond of the worst type, with a pitiful tale of woe well worded
and logically put together, out of which he made a good livelihood.
Nature, as though to favour his designs, had given him a face which
excited sympathy, and he had the wit to cover his eyes, his own tell-tale
feature, with coloured glasses. He had cheated several scores of persons
in the Slav colony of Munich, and had then gone in search of other
pastures. How he had obtained possession of the Wiener Gigerl was a
mystery as yet unsolved. It had certainly seemed odd in the tobacconist's
opinion that a man of such outward appearance should have received such an
extremely improbable Christmas present, for such the adventurer declared
the doll to be, from a rich aunt in Warsaw, who refused to give him a
penny of ready money and had caused him to be turned from her doors by her
servants when he had last visited her, on the ground that he had joined
the Russian Orthodox Church without her consent. The facetious young
villain had indeed declared that she had sent him the puppet as a piece of
scathing irony, illustrative of his character as she conceived it. But
though such an illustration would have been apt beyond question, yet it
seemed improbable that the aunt would have chosen such a means of
impressing it upon her nephew's mind. Fischelowitz, however, asked no
questions, and took the Gigerl as payment of the debt. The thing amused
him, and it diverted him to construct an imaginary chain of circumstances
to explain how the man in the coloured glasses had got possession of it.
It was of course wholly inconceivable that even the most accomplished
shop-lifter should have carried off an object of such inconvenient
proportions from the midst of its fellows and under the very eyes of the
vendor. If he had supposed a theft possible, Fischelowitz would never have
allowed the doll to remain on his premises a single day. He was too
kind-hearted, also, to blame the Count, as his wife did, for having been
the promoter of the loan, for he readily admitted that he would have lent
as much, had he made the vagabond's acquaintance under any other
circumstances.
But the Count, since Akulina had expressed herself with so much force and
precision, could not look upon the affair in the same light. However
Fischelowitz regarded it, Akulina had made it clear that the Count ought
to be held responsible for the loss, and it was not in the nature of such
a man, no matter how wretched his own estate, to submit to the imputation
of being concerned in borrowing money which was never to be repaid. His
natural impulse had been to promise repayment instantly, and as he was
expecting to be turned into a rich man on the morrow the engagement seemed
an easy one to keep. It would be more difficult to explain why he wanted
to take away the broken puppet with him. Possibly he felt that in removing
it from the shop, he was taking with it even the memory of the transaction
of which the blame had been so bitterly thrown on him; or, possibly, he
was really attached to the toy for its associations, or, lastly, he may
have felt impelled to save it from Akulina's destroying wrath, so far as
it yet could be said to be saved.
As has been said, he had not dined on that day, and he would very probably
have forgotten to eat, even after being reminded of the meal by the
tobacconist, had he not passed, on his way homeward, the obscure
restaurant in which he and the other men who worked for Fischelowitz were
accustomed to get their food and drink. This fifth-rate eating-house
rejoiced in the attractive name of the "Green Wreath," a designation
painted in large dusty green Gothic letters upon the grey walls of the
dilapidated house in which it was situated. There are not to be found in
respectable Munich those dens of filth and drunkenness which belong to
greater cities whose vices are in proportion greater also. In Munich the
strength of fiery spirits is drowned in oceans of mild beer, a liquid of
which the head will stand more than the waistband and which, instead of
exciting to crime, predisposes the consumer to peaceful and lengthened
sleep. The worst that can be said of the poorer public-houses in Munich,
is that they are frequented by the poorer people, and that as the
customers bring less money than elsewhere, there is less drinking in
proportion, and a greater demand for large quantities of very filling food
at very low rates. As a general rule, such places are clean and decently
kept, and the sight of a drunken man in the public room would excite very
considerable astonishment, besides entailing upon the culprit a summary
expulsion into the street and a rather forcible injunction not to repeat
the offence.
The four windows of the establishment which opened upon the narrow street
were open, for the weather had become sultry even out of doors, and the
guests wanted fresh air. At one of these windows the Count saw the heads
of Dumnoff and Schmidt. With the instinct of the poor man, the Count felt
in his pocket to see whether he had any money, and was somewhat disturbed
to find but a solitary piece of silver, feebly supported on either side by
a couple of one-penny pieces. He had forgotten that he had refused to
accept his pay for the day's work, and it required an effort of memory to
account for the low state of his funds. But what he had with him was
sufficient for his wants, and settling his parcel under his arm he
ascended the three or four steps which gave access to the inn, and entered
the public room. Besides the Russian and the Cossack, there were three
public porters seated at the next table, dressed in their blue blouses,
their red cloth caps hanging on the pegs over their heads, all silent and
similarly engaged. Each had before him a piece of that national cheese of
which the smell may almost be heard, each had lately received a thick,
irregularly-shaped hunch of dark bread, and they had one pot of beer and
one salt-cellar amongst them. They all had honest German faces, honest
blue eyes, horny hands and round shoulders. Another table, in a far
corner, was occupied by a poorly-dressed old woman in black, dusty and
evidently tired. A covered basket stood on a chair at her elbow, she was
eating an unwholesome-looking "knödel" or boiled potato ball, and half a
pint of beer stood before her still untouched. As for the Cossack and
Dumnoff, they had finished their meal. The former was smoking a cigarette
through a mouth-piece made by boring out the well-dried leg-bone of a
chicken and was drinking nothing. Dumnoff had before him a small glass of
the common whisky known as "corn-brandy" and was trying to give it a
flavour resembling the vodka of his native land by stirring pepper into it
with the blade of an old pocket-knife. Both looked up, without betraying
any surprise, as the Count entered and sat himself down at the end of
their oblong table, facing the open window and with his back to the room.
A word of greeting passed on each side and the two relapsed into silence,
while the Count ordered a sausage "with horse-radish" of the sour-sweet
maiden of five-and-thirty who waited on the guests. The Cossack, always
observant of such things, looked at the oddly-shaped package which the
Count had brought with him, trying to divine its contents and signally
failing in the attempt. Dumnoff, who did not like the Count's
gentlemanlike manners and fine speech, sullenly stirred the fiery mixture
he was concocting. The colour on his prominent cheek-bones was a little
brighter than before supper, but otherwise it was impossible to say that
he was the worse for the half-pint of spirits he had certainly absorbed
since leaving his work. The man's strong peasant nature was proof against
far greater excesses than his purse could afford.
"What is the news?" inquired Johann Schmidt, still eyeing the bundle
curiously, and doubtless hoping that the Count would soon inform him of
the contents. But the latter saw the look and glanced suspiciously at the
questioner.
"No news, that I know of," he answered. "Except for me," he added, after a
pause, and looking dreamily out of the window at a street lamp that was
burning opposite. "To-morrow, at this time, I shall be off."
"And where are you going?" asked the Cossack, good-humouredly. "Are you
going for long, if I may ask?"
"Yes--yes. I shall never come back to Munich." He had been speaking in
German, but noticing that the other guests in the room were silent, and
thinking that they might listen, he broke off into Russian. "I shall go
home, at last," he said, his face brightening perceptibly as his visions
of wealth again rose before his eyes. "I shall go home and rest myself for
a long time in the country, and then, next winter, perhaps, I will go to
Petersburg."
"Well, well, I wish you a pleasant journey," said Schmidt. "So there is to
be no mistake about the fortune this time?"
"This time?" repeated the Count, as though not understanding. "Why do you
say this time?"
"Because you have so often expected it before," returned the Cossack
bluntly, but without malice.
"I do not remember ever saying so," said the other, evidently searching
among his recollections.
"Every Tuesday," growled Dumnoff, sipping his peppery liquor. "Every
Tuesday since I can remember."
"I think you must be mistaken," said the Count, politely.
Dumnoff grunted something quite incomprehensible, and which might have
been taken for the clearing of his huge throat after the inflaming
draught. The Cossack was silent, and his bright eyes looked pityingly at
his companion.
"And you have begun to put together your parcels for the journey, I see,"
he observed after a time, when the Count had got his morsel of food and
was beginning to eat it. His curiosity gave him no rest.
"Yes," answered the Count, mysteriously. "That is something which I shall
probably take with me, as a remembrance of Munich."
"I should not have thought that you needed anything more than a cigarette
to remind you of the place," remarked Dumnoff.
The Count smiled faintly, for, considering Dumnoff's natural dulness, the
remark had a savour of wit in it.
"That is true," he said. "But there are other things which could remind me
even more forcibly of my exile."
"Well, what is it? Tell us!" cried Dumnoff, impatiently enough, but
somewhat softened by the Count's appreciation of his humour. At the same
time he put out his broad red hand in the direction of the parcel as
though he would see for himself.
"Let it be!" said Schmidt sharply, and Dumnoff withdrew his hand again. He
had fallen into the habit of always doing what the Cossack told him to do,
obeying mutely, like a well-trained dog, though he obeyed no one else. The
descendant of freemen instinctively lorded it over the descendant of the
serf, and the latter as instinctively submitted.
The Count's temper, however, was singularly changeable on this day, for he
did not seem to resent Dumnoff's meditated attack upon the package, as he
would certainly have done under ordinary circumstances.
"If you are so very curious to know what it is, I will tell you," he said.
"You know the Wiener Gigerl?"
"Of course," answered both men together.
"Well, that is it, in that parcel."
"The Gigerl!" exclaimed the Cossack. Dumnoff only opened his small eyes in
stupid amazement. Both knew something of the circumstances under which
Fischelowitz had come into possession of the doll, and both knew what
store the tobacconist set by it.
"Then you have paid the fifty marks?" asked Schmidt, whose curiosity was
roused instead of satisfied.
"No. I shall pay the money to-morrow. I have promised to do so. As it
chances, it will be convenient." The Count smiled to himself in a meaning
way, as though already enjoying the triumph of laying the gold pieces upon
the counter under Akulina's flat nose.
"And yet Fischelowitz has already given it to you! He must be very sure of
you--" With his usual lack of tact, Schmidt had gone further than he meant
to do, but the transaction savoured of the marvellous.
"To be strictly truthful," said the Count, who had a Quixotic fear of
misleading in the smallest degree any one to whom he was speaking, "to be
exactly honest, there is a circumstance which makes it less remarkable
that Fischelowitz should have given me the doll at once."
"Of course, of course!" exclaimed the Cossack, anxious to appear credulous
out of kindness. "Fischelowitz knows as well as you do yourself how safe
you are to get the money to-morrow."
"Naturally," replied the Count, with great calmness. "But besides that,
the Gigerl is broken--badly broken in the middle, and the musical box is
spoiled too."
"Fischelowitz must have been very angry," observed Dumnoff.
"Not at all. It was his wife. Akulina knocked it from the counter into the
farthest corner of the shop."
"Tell us all about it," said Schmidt, more interested than ever.
"Ah, that--that is quite another matter," answered the Count, reddening
perceptibly as he remembered Akulina's furious abuse.
"If you do not, I have no doubt that she will," said Dumnoff, taking
another sip. "She always gives the news of you, before you come in the
morning, before we have made our first hundred."
The Count grew redder still, the angry colour mantling in his lean cheeks.
He hesitated a moment, and then made up his mind.
"If that is likely to happen," he cried, "I had better tell you the truth
myself, instead of giving her an opportunity of distorting it."
"Much better," said the Cossack, eagerly. "One can believe you better than
her."
"That is true, at all events," chimed in Dumnoff, who was only brutal and
never malicious.
"Well, it happened in this way. Fischelowitz and I were talking of
to-morrow, I think, when she came in from the back shop, having overheard
something we had been saying. Of course she immediately took advantage of
my presence to exercise her wit upon me, a proceeding to which I have
grown accustomed, seeing that she is only a woman. Then Fischelowitz told
her to choose her language, and that started her afresh. It was rather a
fine specimen of chosen language that she gave us, for she has a good
command of our beautiful mother-tongue. She found very strong words, and
she said among other things that it was my fault that her husband had got
a Wiener Gigerl for fifty marks of good money. And then Fischelowitz, in
his easy way and while she was talking, wound the doll up and set it
before him on the counter and smiled at it. But she went on, worse than
before, and called me everything under the sun. Of course I could do
nothing but wait until she had finished, for I could not beat her, and I
would not let her think that she could drive me away by mere talk, bad as
it was."
"What did she call you?" asked Dumnoff, with a grin.
"She called me a good-for-nothing," said the Count, reddening with anger
again, so that the veins stood out on his throat above his collar. "And
she called me, I think, an adventurer."
"Is that all?" laughed Dumnoff. "I have been called by worse names than
that in my time!"
"I have not," answered the Count, with sudden coolness. "However, between
me and Fischelowitz and the Gigerl, she grew so angry that she struck the
only one of us three against whom she dared lift hand. That member of the
company chanced to be the unfortunate doll. And then I promised that
to-morrow I would pay the money, and I made Fischelowitz give it to me in
a piece of newspaper, and there it is."
"What a terrible smash there must have been in the shop!" said Dumnoff. "I
would like to have seen the lady's face."
In their Russian speech, the difference between the original social
standing of the three men who now worked as equals, was well defined by
their way of speaking of Fischelowitz's wife. To Dumnoff, mujik by origin
and by nature, she was "barina," the town "lady," to the Cossack she was
"chosjaika," the "mistress," the wife of the "patron"--to the Count she
was Akulina, and when he addressed her he called her Akulina Feodorovna,
adding the derivative of her father's name in accordance with the
universal Russian custom.
"Let us see the doll," said Schmidt, still curious. The Count, whose
eating had been interrupted by the telling of his story, pushed the parcel
towards the Cossack with one hand, while using his fork with the other.
Johann Schmidt carefully unwrapped the newspaper and exposed the
unfortunate Gigerl to view. Then with both hands he set it up before him,
raising the limp figure from the waist, and trying to put it into
position, until it almost recovered something of its old look of
insolence, though the eye-glass was broken and the little white hat sadly
battered. The three men contemplated it in silence, and the other guests
turned curious glances towards it. Dumnoff, as usual, laughed hoarsely.
"Rather the worse for wear," he observed.
"Kreuzmillionendonnerwetter! That is my Gigerl!" roared a deep German
voice across the room.
The three Russians started and looked round quickly. One of the porters, a
burly man with an angry scowl on his honest face, was already on his legs
and was striding towards the table.
"That is my Gigerl!" he repeated, laying one heavy hand upon the board,
and thrusting the forefinger of the other under the doll's nose.
Dumnoff stared at him with an expression which showed that he did not in
the least understand what was happening. Johann Schmidt's keen black eyes
looked wonderingly from the porter to the Count, while the latter leaned
back in his chair, contemplating the angry man with a calm surprise which
proved how little faith he placed in the assertion of possession.
"You are under a mistake," he said, with great politeness. "This doll is
the property of Herr Fischelowitz, the well-known tobacconist, and has
stood in the window of his shop nearly four months. These gentlemen"--he
waved his hand towards his two companions--"are well aware of the fact and
can vouch--"
"That is all the same to me," interrupted the porter. "This is the Gigerl
which was stolen from me on New Year's eve--"
"I repeat," said the Count, with dignity, "that you are altogether
mistaken. I will trouble you to leave us in peace and to make no more
disturbance, where you are evidently in error."
His coolness exasperated the porter, who seemed very sure of what he
asserted.
"That is what we shall see," he retorted in a menacing tone. "Meanwhile it
does not occur to me to leave you in peace and to make no more trouble. I
tell you that this Gigerl was stolen from me on New Year's eve. I know it
well enough, for I had to pay for it."
"How can you prove that this is the one?" inquired the Cossack, who was
beginning to lose his temper.
"You have nothing to say about it," said the porter, sharply. "I have to
do with this man"--he pointed down at the Count--"who has brought the doll
here, and pretends to know where it comes from."
"Kerl!" exclaimed the Count, angrily. "Fellow! I am not accustomed to
being called 'man,' or to having my word doubted. You had better be
civil."
"Then it is high time that you grew used to it," returned the porter,
growing more and more excited. "The police do not overwhelm fellows of
your kind with politeness."
"Fellows?" cried the Count, losing his self-control altogether at being
called by the name he had just applied to the porter. Without a moment's
hesitation, he sprang from his chair, upsetting it behind him, and took
the burly German by the throat.
"Call a policeman, Anton!" shouted the latter to one of his companions, as
he closed with his antagonist.
The two other porters had risen from their places as soon as the Count had
laid his hands on their friend, and the one who answered to the name of
Anton promptly trotted towards the door, his heavy tread making the whole
room shake as he ran. The other came up quickly and attacked the Count
from behind, when Dumnoff, aroused at last to the pleasant consciousness
that a real fight was going on, brought down his clenched fist with such
earnestness of purpose on the top of the second porter's crown that the
latter reeled backwards and fell across the Count's chair in an attitude
rendered highly uncomfortable by the fact that the said chair had been
turned upside down at the beginning of the contest. Having satisfied
himself that the blow had taken effect, Dumnoff proceeded to the other
side of the field of battle, avoiding the quickly moving bodies of the
Count and the porter as they wrestled with each other, and the mujik
prepared to deal another sledge-hammer blow, in all respects comparable
with the first. A pleasant smile beamed and spread over his broad, bony
face as he lifted his fist, and it is comparatively certain that he would
have put an effectual end to the struggle, had not Schmidt interfered with
the execution of his amiable intentions by catching his arm in mid-air.
Even the Cossack's wiry strength could not arrest the descent of the
tremendous fist, but he succeeded at least in diverting it from its aim,
so that it took effect in the middle of the porter's back, knocking most
of the wind out of the man's body and causing a diversion favourable to
the Count's security. Schmidt sprang in and separated the combatants.
"There has been enough dancing already," he said, coolly, as he faced the
porter, who was gasping for breath. "But if you have not danced enough, I
shall be happy to take a turn with you round the room."
The poor Count would, indeed, have been no match for his adversary without
the assistance of his friends. He possessed that sort of courage which,
when stung into activity by an insult, takes no account whatever of the
consequences, and his thin frame was animated by very excitable nerves.
But an exceedingly lean diet, and the habit of sitting during many hours
in a close atmosphere, rolling tobacco with his fingers, did not
constitute such a physical training as to make him a match for a rough
fellow whose occupation consisted in tramping long distances and up and
down long flights of stairs from morning till night, loaded with more or
less heavy burdens. He was now very pale and his heart beat painfully as
he endeavoured instinctively to smooth his long frock-coat, from which a
button had been torn out by the roots in a very apparent place, and to
settle his starched collar, which at the best of times owed its stability
to the secret virtues of a pin, and which at present had made a quarter of
a revolution upon itself, so that the stiffly-starched corners, the
Count's chief coquetry and pride, had established themselves in an
unseemly manner immediately below the left ear.
Meanwhile, the little restaurant was in an uproar. The host, a thin, pale
man in an apron and a shabby embroidered cap, had suddenly appeared from
the depths of the taproom, accompanied by his wife, a monstrous, red-faced
creature clothed in a grey flannel frock. The porter whom Dumnoff had
felled, and who was not altogether stunned, was kicking violently in the
attempt to gain his feet among the fallen chairs, a dozen people had come
in from the street at the noise of the fight and stood near the door,
phlegmatically watching the proceedings, and the poor old woman from the
country, who had been supping in the corner, had got her basket on her
knees, holding its handle tightly in one hand and with the other grasping
her half-finished glass of beer, in terror lest some accident should cause
the precious liquid to be spilled, but not calm enough to put it in a
place of safety by the simple process of swallowing.
"They are foreigners," remarked some one in the crowd at the door.
"They are probably Bohemian journeymen," said a tinman who stood in front
of the others. "It serves them right for interfering with an honest
porter." The Bohemian journeymen are detested in Munich on account of
their willingness to work for low prices, which perhaps accounted for the
tinman's readiness to consider the strangers as worsted in the contest.
"We Germans fear God, and nothing else in the world," observed a
mealy-faced shoemaker, quoting Prince Bismarck's famous speech.
The man who had wrestled with the Count seemed to have resigned himself to
the course of awaiting the police, and leaned back against the table
behind him, with folded arms, glaring at the Cossack, while the Count was
vainly attempting to recover possession of the pin which had fastened his
collar, and which he evidently suspected of having slipped down his back,
with the total depravity peculiar to all inanimate things when they are
most needed. But the second porter, having broken the chair, upset a table
covered with unused saucers for beer glasses, and otherwise materially
contributing to swell the din and increase the already considerable havoc,
had regained his feet and lost no time in making for Dumnoff. The Russian,
enchanted at the prospect of a renewal of hostilities so unfortunately
interrupted, met the newcomer half-way, and, each embracing the other with
cheerful alacrity, the two heavy men began to stamp and turn round and
round with each other like a couple of particularly awkward bears
attempting to waltz together. They were very evenly matched for a
wrestling bout, for although the German was by a couple of inches the
taller of the two, the Russian had the advantage in breadth of shoulder
and length of arm, as well as in the enormous strength of his back. The
Cossack, having assured himself that there was to be fair-play, watched
the proceedings with evident interest, while the pale-faced host shambled
round and round the room, imploring the combatants to respect the
reputation of his house and to desist, while keeping himself at a safe
distance from possible collision with the bodies of the two, as they
staggered and strained, and reeled and whirled about.
The Count at last abandoned the search of the lost pin, and having pulled
the front of his collar into a more normal position trusted to luck to
keep it there. The table at which the three had originally sat had
miraculously escaped upsetting, and on it lay the poor Gigerl, stretched
at full length on its back, calm and smiling in the midst of the noise and
confusion, like the corpse at an Irish wake after the whisky has begun to
take effect.
The Count now thought it necessary to justify the unfortunate situation in
which he found himself, in the judgment of the spectators.
"Gentlemen," he began, very earnestly and with a dignified gesture, "I
feel it necessary to explain the truth of this--" But he was interrupted
by the arrival of a policeman, who pushed his way through the crowd.