“This day, now past, can never be recovered,” he thought.
“I have ruined my youth!” he suddenly said to himself, not because he really thought he had ruined his youth-he did not even think about it-but because the phrase happened to occcur to him.
“And what am I to do now?” thought he. “Borrow from someone and go away?” A lady passed him along the pavement. “There’s a stupid woman,” thought he for some reason. “There’s no one to borrow from . . . I have ruined my youth!” He came to the bazaar. A tradesman in a fox-fur cloak stood at the door of his shop touting for customers. “If I had not withdrawn that eight I should have recovered my losses.” An old beggar-woman followed him whimpering. “There’s no one to borrow from.” A man drove past in a bearskin cloak; a policeman was standing at his post. “What unusual thing could I do? Fire at them? No, it’s dull . . . I have ruined my youth! . . . Ah, if only I could drive in a troyka: Gee-up, beauties! . . . I’ll go back. Lukhnov will come soon, and we’ll play.”
He returned to the hotel and again counted his money. No, he had made no mistake the first time: there were still two thousand five hundred rubles of Crown money missing. I’ll stake twenty-five rubles, than make a ‘corner’ . . . seven-fold it, fifteen-fold thirty, sixty . . . three thousand rubles. Then I’ll buy the horse-collars and be off. He won’t let me, the rascal! I have ruined my youth!”
That is what was going on in the uhlan’s head when Lukhnov actually entered the room.
“Have you been up long, Michael Vasilich?” asked Lukhnov, slowly removing the gold spectacles from his skinny nose and carefully wiping them with a red silk handkerchief.
“No, I’ve only just got up-I slept uncommonly well.”
“Some hussar or other has arrived. He has put up with Zavalshevski-had you heard?”
“No, I hadn’t. But how is it no one else is here yet?”
“They must have gone to Pryakhin’s. They’ll be here directly.”
And sure enough a little later there came into the room a garrison officer who always accompanied Lukhnov, a Greek merchant with an enormous brown hooked nose and sunken black eyes, and a fat puffy landowner, the proprietor of a distillery, who played whole nights, always staking “simples” of half a ruble each. Everybody wished to begin playing as soon as possible, but the principal gamesters, especially Lukhnov who was telling about a robbery in Moscow in an exceedingly calm manner, did not refer to the subject.
“Just fancy,” he said, “a city like Moscow, the historic capital, a metropolis, and men dressed up as devils go about there with crooks, frighten stupid people, and rob the passers-by-and that’s the end of it! What are the police about? That’s the question.”
The uhlan listened attentively to the story about the robbers, but when a pause came he rose and quietly ordered cards to be brought. The fat landowner was the first to speak out.
“Well, gentlemen, why lose precious time? If we mean business let’s begin.”
“Yes, you walked off with a pile of half-rubles last night soyou like it,” said the Greek.
“I think we might start,” said the garrison officer.
Ilyin looked at Lukhnov. Lukhnov looking him in the eye quietly continued his story about robbers dressed up like devils with claws.
“Will you keep the bank?” asked the uhlan.
“Isn’t it too early?”
“Belov!” shouted the uhlan, blushing for some unknown reason, “bring me some dinner-I haven’t had anything to eat yet, gentlemen-and a bottle of champagne and some cards.”
At this moment the count and Zavalshevski entered the room. It turned out that Turbin and Ilyin belonged to the same division. They took to one another at once, clinked glasses, drank champagne together, and were on intimate terms in five minutes. The count seemed to like Ilyin very much; he looked smilingly at him and teased him about his youth.
“There’s an uhlan of the right sort!” he said. “What moustaches! Dear me, what moustaches!”
Even what little down there was on Ilyin’s lip was quite white.
“I suppose you are going to play?” said the count. “Well, I wish you luck, Ilyin! I should think you are a master at it,” he added with a smile.
“Yes, they mean to start,” said Lukhnov, tearing open a bundle of a dozen packs of cards, “and you’ll joint in too, Count, won’t you?”
“No, not today. I should clear you all out if I did. When I begin ‘cornering’ in earnest the bank begins to crack! But I have nothing to play with-I was cleaned out at a station near Volochok. I met some infantry fellow there with rings on his fingers-a sharper I should think-and he plucked me clean.”
“Why, did you stay at that station long?” asked Ilyin.
“I sat there for twenty-two hours. I shan’t forget that accursed station! And the superintendent won’t forget me either . . . “
“How’s that?”
“I drive up, you know; out rushes the superintendent looking a regular brigand. ‘No horses!’ says he. Now I must tell you that it’s my rule, if there are no horses I don’t take off my fur cloak but go into the superintendent’s own room-not into the public room but into his private room-and I have all the doors and windows opened on the ground that it’s smoky. Well, that’s just what I did there. You remember what frosts we had last month? About twenty degrees! Footnote: Reaumur = thirteen below zero Fahrenheit. The superintendent began to argue; I punched his head. There was an old woman there, and girls and other women; they kicked up a row, snatched up their pots and pans, and were rushing off to the village. . . . I went to the door and said, ‘Let me have horses and I’ll be off. If not, no one shall go out: I’ll freeze you all.’”
“That’s an infernally good plan!” said the puffy squire, rolling with laughter. “It’s the way they freeze out cockroaches . . . “
“But I didn’t watch carefully enough and the superintendent got away with the women. Only one old woman remained in pawn on the top of the stove; she kept sneezing and saying prayers. Afterwards we began negotiating: the superintendent came and from a distance began persuading me to let the old woman go, but I set Blucher at him a bit. Blucher’s splendid at tackling superintendents! But still the rascal didn’t let me have horses until the next morning. Meanwhile that infantry fellow came along. I joined him in another room, and we began to play. You have seen Blucher? . . . Blucher! . . . “ and he gave a whistle.
Blucher rushed in, and the players condescendingly paid some attention to him though it was evident that they wished to attend to quite other matters.
“But why don’t you play, gentlemen? Please don’t let me prevent you. I am a chatterbox, you see,” said Turbin. “Play is play whether one likes it or not.”
III
Lukhnov drew two candles nearer to him, took out a large brown pocket-book full of paper money, and slowly, as if performing some rite, opened it on the table, took out two one-hundred rubles notes and placed them under the cards.
“Two hundred for the bank, the same as yesterday,” said he, adjusting his spectacles and opening a pack of cards.
“Very well,” said Ilyin, continuing his conversation with Turbin without looking at Lukhnov.
The game started. Lukhnov dealt the cards with machine-like precision, stopping now and then and deliberately jotting something down, or looking sternly over his spectacles and saying in low tones, “Pass up!” The fat landowner spoke louder than anyone else, audibly deliberating with himself and wetting his plump fingers when he turned down the corner of a card. The garrison officer silently and neatly noted the amount of his stake on his card and bent down small corners under the table. The Greek sat beside the banker, watching the game attentively with his sunken black eyes, and seemed to be waiting for something.
Zavalshevski, standing by the table, would suddenly begin to fidget all over, take a red or blue bank-note Footnote: Five-ruble notes were blue and ten-ruble notes red. out of his trouser pocket, lay a card on it, slap it with his palm, and say, “Little seven, pull me through!” Then he would bite his moustache, shift from foot to foot, and keep fidgeting till his card was dealt. Ilyin sat eating veal and pickled cucumbers, which were placed beside him on the horse hair sofa, and hastily wiping his hands on his coat laid down one card after another. Turbin, who at first was sitting on the sofa, quickly saw how matters stood. Lukhnov did not look at or speak to Ilyin, only now and then his spectacles would turn for a moment towards the latter’s hand, but most of Ilyin’s cards lost.
“There now, I’d like to beat that card,” said Lukhnov of a card the fat landowner, who was staking half-rubles, had put down.
“You beat Ilyin’s, never mind me!” remarked the squire.
And indeed Ilyin’s cards lost more often than any of the others. He would tear up the losing card nervously under the table and choose another with trembling fingers. Turbin rose from the sofa and asked the
