“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 Greek to let him sit by the banker. The Greek moved to another place; the count took his chair and began watching Lukhnov’s hands attentively, not taking his eyes off them.
“Ilyin!” he suddenly said in his usual voice, which quiet unintentionally drowned all the others. “Why do you keep to a routine? You don’t know how to play.”
“It’s all the same how one plays.”
“But you’re sure to lose that way. Let me play for you.”
“No, please excuse me. I always do it myself. Play for yourself if you like.”
“I said I should not play for myself, but I should like to play for you. I am vexed that you are losing.”
“I suppose it’s my fate.”
The count was silent, but leaning on his elbows he again gazed intently at the banker’s hands.
“Abominable!” he suddenly said in a loud, long-drawn tone.
Lukhnov glanced at him.
“Abominable, quite abominable!” he repeated still louder, looking straight into Lukhnov’s eyes.
The game continued.
“It is not right!” Turbin remarked again, just as Lukhnov beat a heavily backed card of Ilyin’s.
“What is it you don’t like, Count?” inquired the banker with polite indifference.
“This!-that you let Ilyin win his simples and beat his corners. That’s what’s bad.”
Lukhnov made a slight movement with his brows and shoulders, expressing the advisability of submitting to fate in everything, and continued to play.
“Blucher!” shouted the count, rising and whistling to the dog. “At him!” he added quickly.
Blucher, bumping his back against the sofa as he leapt from under it and nearly upsetting the garrison officer, ran to his master and growled, looking around at everyone and moving his tail as if asking, “Who is misbehaving here, eh?”
Lukhnov put down his cards and moved his chair to one side.
“One can’t play like that,” he said. “I hate dogs. What kind of a game is it when you bring a whole pack of hounds in here?”
“Especially a dog like that. I believe they are called ‘leeches,’” chimed in the garrison officer.
“Well, are we going to play or not, Michael Vasilich?” said Lukhnov to their host.
“Please don’t interfere with us, Count,” said Ilyin, turning to Turbin.
“Come here a minute,” said Turbin, taking Ilyin’s arm and going behind the Partition with him.
The count’s words, spoken in his usual tone, were distinctly audible from there. His voice always carried across three rooms.
“Are you daft, eh? Don’t you see that that gentleman in spectacles is a sharper of the first water?”
“Come now, enough! What are you saying?”
“No enough about it! Stop playing, I tell you. It’s nothing to me. Another time I’d pluck you myself, but somehow I’m sorry to see you fleeced. And maybe you have Crown money too?”
“No . . . why do you imagine such things?”
“Ah, my lad, I’ve been that way myself so I know all those sharpers’ tricks. I tell you the one in spectacles is a sharper. Stop playing! I ask you as a comrade.”
“Well then, I’ll only finish this one deal.”
“I know what ‘one deal’ means. Well, we’ll see.”
They went back. In that one deal Ilyin put down so many cards and so many of them were beaten that he lost a large amount.
Turbin put his hands in the middle of the table “Now stop it! Come along.”
“No, I can’t. Leave me alone, do!” said Ilyin, irritably shuffling some bent cards without looking at Turbin.
“Well, go to the devil! Go on losing for certain, if that pleases you. It’s time for me to be off. Let’s go to the Marshal’s, Savalshevski.”
They went out. All remained silent and Lukhnov dealt no more cards until the sound of their steps and of Blucher’s claws on the passage floor had died away.
“What a devil
