III
Loúhnof drew two candles nearer to himself, took out a large brown pocketbook full of paper money, and slowly, as if performing some rite, opened it on the table, drew forth two hundred-rouble notes and put them under the cards.
“Two hundred for the bank, the same as yesterday,” said he, arranging his spectacles and opening a pack of cards.
“Very well,” said Ilyín, continuing his conversation with Toúrbin without looking at Loúhnof.
The game started. Loúhnof dealt the cards with machine-like precision, stopping now and then and deliberately jotting something down, or looking severely over his spectacles and saying in low tones, “Pass up!” The fat squire spoke louder than anyone else, audibly deliberating with himself, and wetting his plump fingers as he bent down the corners of the cards. 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” and watched the game attentively with his black, sunken eyes, and seemed to be waiting for something. Zavalshévsky, standing by the table, would suddenly begin to fidget all over, take a red or blue banknote out of his trousers pocket, lay a card on it, slap it with his palm and say, “Little seven, pull me through!” Then he would bite his moustache, step from foot to foot, and keep fidgeting until his card was dealt. Ilyín sat eating veal and cucumbers, which were placed beside him on the horsehair sofa, and, hastily wiping his hands on his coat, laid down card after card. Toúrbin, who at first sat on the sofa, quickly saw how things stood. Loúhnof did not look at or speak to the Uhlan; only now and then his spectacles would turn for a moment towards the Uhlan’s hand, but most of the latter’s cards lost.
“There, now, I should like to beat that card,” said Loúhnof of a card the fat squire, who was staking half-roubles, had put down.
“You beat Ilyín’s, never mind me!” remarked the squire.
And, really, Ilyín’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. Toúrbin rose from the sofa and asked the Greek to let him sit by the “banker.” The Greek moved to another place and gave his chair to the Count, who began watching Loúhnof’s hands attentively, not taking his eyes off them.
“Ilyín!” he suddenly said, in his usual voice, which quite unintentionally drowned all others, “why do you repeat the same card? You don’t know how to play.”
“It’s all the same how one plays.”
“That way you’ll be sure to lose. 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 putting his elbows on the table, again gazed intently at the “banker’s” hands.
“Abominable!” he suddenly said, in a loud, long-drawn tone.
Loúhnof glanced at him.
“Abominable, quite abominable!” he repeated, still louder, looking straight into Loúhnof’s eyes.
The game continued.
“Very bad!” again said Toúrbin, just as Loúhnof “beat” a large card of Ilyín’s.
“What is it you don’t like, Count?” inquired the “banker,” with polite indifference.
“This!—that you let Ilyín have his ‘simples,’ and beat his ‘corners.’ That’s what is bad.”
Loúhnof made a slight movement with his brows and shoulders, expressing the advisability of submitting to fate in everything, and continued to play.
“Blücher! Whew!” shouted the Count, rising. “At him!” he added quickly.
Blücher, bumping his back against the sofa as he leapt from under it and nearly knocking the garrison officer over, ran to his master and growled, looking round on everyone and moving his tail as if asking, “Who is misbehaving here, eh?”
Loúhnof laid down his cards and moved to one side with his chair.
“One can’t play like that,” he said. “I hate dogs. What kind of game is it when one brings in a whole pack of hounds?”
“And especially dogs like that. I believe they are called ‘leeches,’ ” chimed in the garrison officer.
“Well, are we going to play or not, Michael Vasílitch?” said Loúhnof to their host.
“Please don’t interfere with us, Count,” said Ilyín, turning to Toúrbin.
“Come here a minute,” said Toúrbin, taking Ilyín’s arm and stepping 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 gentleman in spectacles is a sharper of the first water?”
“Oh, enough! What are you saying?”
“No enough about it! Just stop, I tell you. It’s nothing to me. Another time I’d pluck you myself, but somehow I’m sorry you should be fleeced. And maybe you have service-money too?”
“No … why do you invent such things?”
“Eh, my lad, I’ve been that way myself, so I know all those sharpers’ tricks. I tell you the chap with the spectacles is a sharper. Stop now! 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 this one deal Ilyín put down so many cards, and so many of them were beaten, that he lost a large sum.
Toúrbin put his hands in the middle of the table. “Now stop it! Come along.”
“No, I can’t. Leave me alone, do!” said Ilyín, irritably shuffling some bent cards without looking at Toúrbin.
“Well, go to the devil! Go and lose for certain, if that pleases you; it’s time for me to be off. Zavalshévsky, let’s go to the Marshal’s.”
They went out. All remained silent, and Loúhnof dealt no more cards until the sound of their steps and of Blücher’s claws on the passage floor had died away.
“What a devil of a fellow!” said the squire, laughing.
“Well, he’ll not interfere now,” remarked the garrison officer hastily and still in a whisper.
And the play continued.