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Updated: June 14, 2025
"I daresay," said Dumnoff, who was growing sleepy and who understood very little of his companion's homily. "Precisely," replied the latter. "And yet even the question of physical courage is very complicated in the present case. It cannot be said, for instance, that you ran away from physical fear, after giving proof of such astonishing physical superiority.
When those hard times came poor Vjera picked up a little sewing, paid for at starvation rates, Johann Schmidt turned his hand to the repairing of furs, in which he had some skill, and which is an art in itself, and Dumnoff varied his existence by exercising great economy in the matter of food without making a similar reduction in the allowance of his drink.
The officer glanced at Dumnoff. "Your name?" he inquired. "Victor Ivanowitch Dumnoff." "Occupation?" "Cigarette-maker in the manufactory of Christian Fischelowitz." "Lock him up," said the officer. "Resisting the police in the execution of an arrest," he added, speaking to the scribe at his elbow. "Your name?" continued he, addressing the Count. "Boris Michaelovitch, Count Skariatine."
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.
"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.
There you have my history in a nutshell. As you say you will take me with you, I thought you ought to know." "Certainly, certainly," answered the Count, vaguely. "I will take you with me but not as coachman, I think, Dumnoff. We may find some more favourable sphere for your great physical strength." "Anything you like. It is a good joke to dream of such a journey, is it not?
"You had much better come," insisted Dumnoff, apparently indifferent to the noise of the crowd as it tried to force open the closed door, and shaking off two or three men who had made their way out into the street with him. He held the key in one hand, and his assailants had small chance of getting it away. "You will not come?" he repeated. But the Count shook his head, within the room.
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.
How far he would have gone if he had been left to himself is uncertain, for the sudden appearance of two more men in green coats, helmets and gold collars so emboldened the spectators of the fight that they advanced in a body just as Dumnoff threw himself upon the first policeman.
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."
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