IV
Late at night the student and Balunsky were sitting upon the ship’s bridge. The moonlight played and spattered on the water. The left shore, high, steep, all grown over with shaggy woods, taciturnly hung over the very steamer, that was now passing altogether near it. The shore to the right lay like a distant, flat splotch. Frankly slumping, hunched up even more than usual, the student was negligently sitting on a bench, his long legs stretched out before him. His face betrayed fatigue, and his eyes were dull.
“About how old are you?” asked Balunsky, gazing at the river.
The student let the question pass in silence.
“You must pardon my impertinence,” Balunsky persisted, after a little fidgeting. “I understand very well your reason for placing me near you. I also understand why you told that four-flusher that you would slap his face if, after inspection, the pack of cards would prove to be right. You uttered this superbly. I admired you. But, for God’s sake, do tell me how you did it?”
The student finally forced himself to speak, as though with revulsion:
“You see, the trick lies in that I do not resort to any contra-legal expedients. I base my play upon the human soul. Have no fear—I know all the old devices you used to practice. Stacking, holding out, devices for concealment, cold decks—am I right?”
“No,” remarked Balunsky, offended. “We had stunts even more complicated. I, for instance, was the first to bring satin cards into use.”
“Satin cards?” the student repeated.
“Why, yes. Satin is pasted over the card. By rubbing against cloth the pile of the satin is bent to one side, and a jack is drawn thereon. Then, when the colors have dried, the pile is reversed, and a queen drawn. If your queen is beaten, all you have to do is to draw the card over the table.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of that,” said the student. “It did give one an extra chance. But then, stuss is such a fool game!”
“I do agree with you that it has gone out of fashion. But that was a time of the splendid efflorescence of the art. How much wit, how much resourcefulness we had to exert. … Poluboyarinov used to clip the skin at the tips of his fingers; his tactile sense was more exquisite than that of a blind man. He would recognize a card by the mere touch. And what about cold decks? Why, this took whole years to master.”
The student yawned.
“That was all a primitive game.”
“Yes, yes! That is just why I am questioning you. Wherein does your secret lie? I must tell you that I was in on large killings. During a single month I made more than six hundred thousand in Odessa and St. Petersburg. And, besides that, I won a four-story house and a bustling hotel.”
The student waited for him, on the chance of his adding something; then, a little later, he asked:
“Aha! You set up a mistress, a fine turnout, a lad in white gloves to wait at table—yes?”
“Yes!” answered Balunsky, sadly and humbly.
“There, now, you see—I guessed all that beforehand. There really was something romantic about your generation. And that is readily understood. Horse-fairs, hussars, gypsy-women, champagne. … Were you ever beaten up?”
“Yes—after the Liebiyadinskaya fair I was laid up in Tambov for a whole month. You can just imagine; I even grew bald—all my hair fell out. Nothing like that had ever happened to me up to that time—not as long as I had Duke Kudukov about me. He worked with me on a ten percent basis. I must say that I had never in my life met a man of greater physical strength. His title and his strength screened us both. Besides that, he was a man of unusual courage. He’d be sitting and getting stewed on Teneriffe at the bar, and when he’d hear a hubbub in the card room he would rush to my rescue. Oh, what a racket he and I raised once in Penza! Candlesticks, mirrors, lustres …”
“Did drink do for him?” asked the student, as though in passing.
“How did you know that?” asked Balunsky, in amazement.
“Why, just so. … The actions of men are uniform in the extreme. Really, living becomes a bore at times.”
After a long silence, Balunsky asked:
“But why do you gamble yourself?”
“Really, that is something I do not know myself,” said the student with a melancholy sigh. “For instance, I have vowed to myself, on my word of honor, to abstain from gambling for exactly three years. And for two years I did abstain; but today, for some reason or other, I got my dander up. And, I assure you, gambling is repulsive to me. Nor am I in need of money.”
“Have you any saved?”
“Yes—a few thousand. Formerly, I thought that it might be of use to me at some time or other. But time has sped somehow incongruously fast. I often ask myself—what is it that I desire? I am surfeited with women. Pure love, marriage, a family, are not for me—or, to put it more correctly, I do not believe in them. I eat with exceeding moderation, and I do not drink a drop. Am I to save up for an old age? But what am I to do in my old age? Others have a consolation—religion. I often think: well, now, suppose I were made a king or an emperor this very day. … What would I desire? Upon my word of honor, I don’t know. There’s nothing for me to desire, even.”
The water gurgled monotonously as the steamer clove through it. … Radiantly, sadly and evenly the moon poured down its light upon the white sides of the steamer, upon the river, upon the distant shores. The steamer was going through a narrow, shallow splace … “Six … Si‑ix an’ a ha‑alf! … Go slow!” a man with a plummet was bawling nasally at the prow.
“But what is your system of playing?” asked Balunsky timidly.
“Why, I have no particular system,” answered the student lazily. “I do not play at cards, but upon human stupidity. I am not at all a sharper. I never prick or mark a pack. I only acquaint myself with the design on the back of the cards, and for that reason always play with secondhand cards. But it’s all the same to me—after two or three deals I am bound to know every card, because my visual memory is phenomenal. Yet I do not want to expend the energy of my brain vainly. I am firmly convinced that if a man will set his heart on being fooled, fooled he will be, beyond a doubt. And therefore I knew beforehand the fate of today’s game.”
“In what way?”
“Very simply. For instance: the justice of the peace is a vain glorious and a silly fool—if you will pardon the pleonasm. His wife does whatever she wants to with him. But she is a woman of passion; impatient, and, apparently, hysterical. I had to draw the two of them into the game. He committed many blunders; but she committed twice as many, just to spite him. In this way they let pass that one moment when they were having a run of pure luck. They failed to take advantage of it. They started winning back only when luck had turned its back upon them; whereas ten minutes before that they could have left me without my breeches.”
“Is it really possible to calculate all this?” asked Balunsky quietly.
“Of course. Now for another instance. Take the colonel. This man has far-flung, inexhaustible luck, which he himself does not suspect. And that is because he is an expansive, careless, magnanimous fellow. By God, I was a bit ashamed of plucking him. But it was already impossible to stop. The fact was, that those three little sheenies were irritating me.”
“ ‘Could not endure—the heart burst into flame’?” asked the old sharper, quoting the stanza from Lermontov.
The student gnashed his teeth, and his face became somewhat animated.
“You’re perfectly right,” said he, contemptuously. “That’s just it—I couldn’t endure it. Judge for yourself: they got on the steamer to shear the rams, yet they have no daring, nor skill, nor sang froid. When one of them was passing the deck to me, I at once noticed that his hands were clammy and trembling. ‘Eh, my dear fellow, your heart is in your mouth!’ As for their game, it was perfectly clear to me. The partner to the left—the one on whose cheek was a little mole, all grown over with hair—was stacking the cards. That was as plain as day. It was necessary to make them sit apart, and for that very reason—” here the student resorted to patter, “I had recourse, cher maître, to your enlightened cooperation. And I must say that you carried out my idea with full correctness. Allow me to present you with your share.”
“Oh, but why so much?”
“A mere nothing. You shall do still another good turn for me.”
“I am listening.”
“Do you remember perfectly the face of the justice’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“Then you will go to her and say: ‘Your money was won purely through chance.’ You may even tell her that I am a sharper. Yes—but that it is in such a lofty, Byronian manner, you know. She will bite. She will get her money in Saratov, at the Hotel Moscow, tonight, at six, from Drzhevetzky, the student. Room number one.”
“So I am to be a go-between—is that it?” asked Balunsky.
“Why put it so unpleasantly? Isn’t ‘One good turn deserves another’ better?”
Balunsky got up, stood shifting on the same spot from one foot to the other, and took off his hat. Finally he said, hesitatingly:
“I’ll do it. After all, it’s a trifle. But, perhaps you will need me as an operative?”
“No,” answered the student. “To act collectively is the old style. I work alone.”
“Alone? Always alone?”
“Of course. Whom could I trust?” retorted the student with a calm bitterness. “If I am sure of your comradely rectitude—an honor among thieves, you understand—I am not at all sure of the steadiness of your nerves. Another may be brave, and without covetousness, and be a faithful friend, but … only until the first silken petticoat happens to make a swine, a dog, and a traitor of him. And what of blackmailings? What of extortions? What of importunities in old age, in incapacitation? … Eh, what’s the use!”
“I am amazed at you,” said Balunsky quietly. “You are the new generation. You have neither timidity, nor pity, nor imagination … You have a certain contempt for everything. Is it possible that all your secret consists of just that and nothing more?”
“Just that. But in a great concentration of the will as well. You may believe me or not—it is all one to me—but ten times today, by an effort of my will, have I compelled the colonel to stake small sums, when it was to his interests to have staked large ones. It doesn’t come easy to me. … I have a monstrous headache right now. And besides … besides, I don’t know, I can’t imagine, what it means to get a beating or to go to pieces from confusion. Organically, I am devoid of shame or fear, and that isn’t at all as joyous a thing as it may seem at first glance. True, I constantly carry a revolver about me—but then, you must believe me when I tell you that at a critical moment I shall not forget about it. However …” the student simulated a yawn and extended his hand to Balunsky with a weary gesture. “However, au revoir, general. I can see your eyes closing. …”
“My best wishes,” said the old sharper respectfully, bowing his gray head.
Balunsky went off to bed. The student, hunched up, with weary, sad eyes for a long while regarded the waves that reflected the light like fish-scales. Late at night Kostretzova came out on deck. But he did not as much as turn in her direction.