A Cigarette-Maker's Romance Part 22

"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 a.s.sumed 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 pa.s.sed 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.

"He is quite at liberty to do so," answered the latter with a laugh. "The story is simple enough," he continued, "and there is no reason why you should not know it. The late Count Skariatine had two sons, of whom the present Count was the younger. Ten years ago, when barely twenty, he quarrelled with his father and elder brother, and they parted in anger. I must say that he seems to have acted hastily, though the old gentleman's views of life were eccentric, to say the least of it. For some reason or other, the elder brother never married. I have heard it said that he was crippled in childhood. Be that as it may, he was vindictive and spiteful by nature, and prevented the quarrel from being forgotten. The younger brother left the house with the clothes on his back, and steadily refused to accept the small allowance offered him, and which was his by right. And now the father and the eldest son are dead--they died suddenly of the smallpox--and Doctor Grabofsky has come to inform the Count that he is the heir. There you have the story in a nutsh.e.l.l."

"Then it is all true, after all!" cried Fischelowitz. "We all thought--"

"Thinking, when one knows nothing, is a dangerous and useless pastime,"

observed the Consul. "I will take a box of these cigarettes with me. They are good."

"Thank you most obediently, Milostivy Gosudar!" exclaimed Fischelowitz, bowing low. "I trust that the Gospodin Consul will honour me with his patronage. I have a great variety of tobaccos, Kir, Basma, Samson, Dubec Imperial, Swary--"

While Fischelowitz was recommending the productions of his Celebrated Manufactory to the Consul, Grabofsky and the Count were walking together up and down the smooth pavement outside.

"A great change has taken place in your family," Grabofsky was saying.

"Had anything less extraordinary occurred, I should have written to you instead of coming in person. Your brother is dead, Count Skariatine."

"Dead!" exclaimed the Count, who had no recollection of the letter abstracted from his pocket by the Cossack. It had reached him after the weekly attack had begun, and the memory of it was gone with that of so many other occurrences.

"Dead," repeated the lawyer sharply, as though he would have made a nail of the word to drive it into the coffin.

"And how many children has he left?" inquired the Count.

"He died unmarried."

"So that I--"

"You are the lawful heir."

"Unless my father marries again." The colour rose in the Count's lean cheeks.

"That is impossible."

"Why?"

"Because he is dead, too."

"Then--"