A Cigarette-Maker's Romance

me," said Schmidt, kindly, after t

out her hand as though to ring the bell again then, realising how useless the attempt would be, she let her arms fall by

e Count is fast asleep and is dreaming of his fortune, you know, so that it would be a cruelty to wake him

sday to-morrow, and if he wakes up there-oh, I do not dare think of it

and yet Fischelowitz is still asleep. No one else can be of any use

d Vjera, regretfull

y away, Schmidt keeping close by her side. For some minute

at the bottom of the Count's st

continued after a little pause. "He tells us all the same thing, he speaks of his lett

honest to the backbone, honest as the good daylight on the h

oodness and kindness

me so mad about a mere piece of fancy-about an invented lie, to be plain. What there is in his story I do not know, but I am sure that there was truth in it on

ra, eagerly. Her own understanding ha

sure that no honest man ever invented a story out of nothi

Schmidt, have you ever heard the name bef

name, in any case, and a gentleman's name, I should think. Of course I only mean that I-that you should not think t

vous, hysterical laugh, which th

ty in warning the poor girl of a possible disappointment. "It may be true-of course, and I am sure that it

readful to see? So quiet and sensible all the week, and then, on Tuesday night, his farewell speech to us all-every Tuesday-and his

era, you look as

ne day to turn out true-then my heart would be quite broke

burden her soul of some of its bitterness. If her life had gone on as usual, undisturbed by anything from without, the confessions which now fell from her lips so easily would never have found words. But s

so that they will have to-to hold him-" she sobbed and then recovered herself by an effort. "Or else-he will fall ill and die, after it-" Here sh

said, but she fortunatel

o her home, for he saw that she was weak and exhausted as well as overcome by her anxiety. Bef

away. "Come, you will be at home presently and then you will go to bed and in the morning, before you are at the shop

nesdays!" exclaimed Vjera through her tears. "I am sure somethi

de her round a sharp corn

way home," prot

ntil I have seen where he is. I

shment. "They will not let us go in, you know. You cannot possib

ot understand me. Pray, pray come with me, or let me go alone. I will go

good-humouredly. "I will go with

hall never see him again-quick, let us walk quickly, Herr Schm

going on inside, whether our friend is asleep or awake, and it can do no good whatever to go. But since you

a fresh strength and courage. The way was long, as distances are reckoned in Munich, and more than ten minutes elapsed before they reached the building. A sentry was pacing the pavement under the glare of the gaslight, his

asked the girl, under her breath.

at all may be well t

first, and feeling his heart singularly touched when he realised that she was praying out here in the street, kneeling on the common pavement of the city, as though upon the marble floor of a church, and actually saying prayers-he could hear low sounds of earnest tone escaping from her lips-prayers for the man she loved, because he was shut up for the night in the police-station like an ordinary disturber of the peace. He was touched, for the action, in its simplicity of faith, set in vibration the chord

a whole mountain of dogmas. Vjera's ideas were indeed confused, and she would have found it hard to define the result which she so confidently expected. But if that result were to be in any proportion to her earnestness of purpose and sincerity of heart, it could not take a less imposing shape than a direct

light as he moved on his beat. For one moment Vjera stood quite still. Then with a passionate gesture she stretched out both arms before her, as though to draw out to herself, by sheer strength of longing, the man whose l

, save him!" she wh

osed her to be. It seemed to him that she was transformed into a woman, and into a woman of strong affections and brave heart. And yet he knew every outline of her plain face, and had known every change of her expression for years, since she had first come to the shop, a mere girl not yet thirteen years of age. Nor had it been from lack of observation that he had misunderstood he

im and once more laid

not come here first, and it was very good of you. I wi

and they began to walk away in th

er spoke. At last Sch

it all and I do not understand it. What kind

there was a street lamp at hand so that she could see

annot explain-it is somet

e shell-maker had found t

sleep at night in order to work by day, and he reluctantly turned his footsteps towards home. As he walked, he thought of all that had happened since five o'clock in the afternoon, and of all that he had learned in the course of the night. Vjera's story interested him and touched him, and her acts seemed to remind him of something which he nevertheless could not quite remember. Far down in his toughened nature the strings of a forgotten poetry vibrated softly as though they would make music if they dared

t, the great herd begins to move. The impulse is simultaneous, irresistible, their heads are all turned in one direction. They move slowly at first, biting still, here and there, at the bunches of rich moss. Presently the slow step becomes a trot, they crowd closely together while the Laps hasten to gather up their last unpacked possessions, their cooking utensils and their wooden gods. The great herd break together from a trot to a gallop, from a gallop to a break-neck race, the distant thunder of their united tread reaches the camp during a few minutes, and they are gone to drink of the polar sea. The Laps follow after them, dragging painfully their laden sledges in the broad track left by the thousands of galloping beasts-a day's journey, and they are yet far from the sea, and the trail is yet broad. On the second day it grows narrower, and there are stains of blood to be seen; far on the distant plain before them their

r in the Don country than in any other part of the world. But between poor Johann Schmidt and his draught of kvass there lay obstacles not encountered by the reindeer in his race for the Arctic Ocean. There was the wife, and there were the children, and there was the vast distance, so vast that it might have discouraged even the fleet-footed scourer of the northern snows. Johann Schmidt might long f

power, at least, had remained with him. Whenever he lay down he could close his eyes and be asleep, and forget

and bolts and locks and studded with great dark iron nails. Without, the grim policemen were doubtless pacing up and down with drawn swords, listening with a murderous delight to the groans of their victim as he writhed in his chains. In the eyes of the poor and the young, the law is a very terrible thing, taking no account of persons, and very little of the relative magnitude of men's misdeeds. The province of justice, as Vjera conceived it, was to crush in its iron claws all who had the misfortune to come within its reach. Vjera had never heard of Judge Jeffreys nor of the Bloody Assizes, but the methods of procedure adopted by that eminent destroyer of his kind would have seemed mild and humane compared with what she supposed that all men, innocent or guilty, had to expect after they had once fallen into the hands of the policeman. She was not a German girl, taught in the common school to understand something of the methods by which society governs itself. Her early childhood had been spent in a Polish village, far within the Russian frontier, and though the law in Russian Poland is not exactly the irresponsible and blood-thirsty monster depicted

of his madness as through the weeks, and months, and years, the state of expectation returned on Tuesday evenings, to be followed by the disappointments of Wednesday and by the oblivion which ensued on Thursday morning. Vjera, like the rest, had come to regard the regularly recurring delusion as being wholly groundless, and not to be taken into account, except inasmuch as it deprived them of the Count's company on Wednesdays, for on that day he stayed at home, in his garret room, waiting for the high personages who were to restore to him his wealth. Sometimes, indeed, when he chanced

the machinery of justice, had at last obliged them to concede him a proportional part of the fortune. Fischelowitz was accustomed to laugh at this statement, saying that if the Count were only a younger son, the law would do nothing for him and that he must continue to earn his livelihood as he could. In the course of

at, in their opinion, if he began to grow worse, he would very soon be in the madhouse. It was bad enough to go through what she suffered so often, to see the inward struggle expressed on his face, whenever he chanced to be alone with her on a Tuesday afternoon, to hear from his lips the same assurance of love, the same offer of marriage, and to know that all would be forgotten and

s father and his brother. They might indeed be dead, as he had told her, and he would then, perhaps, be sole master in their stead-she did not know

that Vjera did no