‘I will tell you,’ began Zofsky, another of them, ‘of what these two fellows most remind me, Vladimirsky. They remind me of a Russian bear and his keeper that I saw last spring in a street in the city. The bear was a fierce, ill-mannered brute—another Chelminsky—while the keeper, who constantly kept him in check lest he should get himself into trouble by his stupidity and ruthlessness, was Mazeppa.’
‘Did the bear, then, fall upon those of the crowd who baited or laughed at him?’ said I, feigning a coolness which I did not feel.
‘When he showed signs of doing so, for the fool did not know that any one of the bystanders could have smashed his head with an axe. Mazeppa—I should say the keeper—interfered and pulled at the chain which was fastened to the nose of the rash and foolish beast.’
‘One day,’ I said, ‘that bear will show that he is not for ever to be baited with impunity; he will fall upon some fool that is taunting him, and maybe his keeper will not prevent him from teaching his enemies a lesson.’
‘That would be an unfortunate day for both bear and keeper,’ laughed Zofsky, ‘for they would gain nothing better than broken heads.’
‘Let us play at bear and bystander!’ said I, and in spite of Mazeppa, who cried, ‘Hush, Chelminsky,’ and of the others, who stepped forward to interfere, I administered a couple of quick buffets, one on Zofsky’s right cheek and the other on his left, and in a moment all five of our swords flew out of their scabbards, and there was promise of a good battle—three Poles to us two Cossacks.
The battle actually began.
Zofsky, red in the face and furious, sprang towards me, and our swords clashed. Mazeppa, with his left arm, pressed me gently backwards until I stood beside him, back to the wall, I defending myself, meanwhile, against Zofsky’s onslaught.
‘Against odds,’ Mazeppa said, ‘it is better to have no one behind us, and especially,’ he added, glancing at our three opponents, ‘when we have Poles for adversaries.’
At this the three sprang angrily upon us, and for a minute or two there was quite a din of clashing swords, so that we did not know that the door of the King’s cabinet had opened and the King himself had entered the ante-room.