II
The Uhlan cornet, Ilyín, had not been long awake. The evening before he had sat down to cards at eight o’clock, and had lost pretty steadily for fifteen hours on end—till eleven in the morning. He had lost a considerable sum, but did not know exactly how much, because he had about 3000 roubles of his own, and 15,000 service-money which had long since got mixed up with it, and he feared to count lest he should find his forebodings confirmed that some of the Government money was already missing. It was nearly noon when he fell asleep, and he had slept that heavy, dreamless sleep which comes only to a very young man, and after a heavy loss. Waking at six o’clock (just at the time when Count Toúrbin arrived at the hotel), and seeing the floor all around strewn with cards and bits of chalk, and the chalk-marked tables in the middle of the room, he recalled with terror last night’s play, and the last card, a knave on which he lost 500 roubles; but not yet quite convinced of the reality of all this, he drew his money from under his pillow and began to count. He recognised some notes which had passed from hand to hand several times with “corners” and “transports,” and he recollected the whole course of the game. He had none of his own 3000 roubles left, and some 2500 Government money were also gone.
The Uhlan had been playing for four nights running.
He had come from Moscow, where the service-money had been entrusted to him, and he had been detained at K⸺ by the superintendent of the post-house on the pretext that there were no horses, but really because the latter had an agreement with the hotel keeper to detain all travellers a day. The Uhlan, a bright young lad, who had just received 3000 roubles from his parents in Moscow for his equipment on entering his regiment, was glad to spend a few days in the town of K⸺ at election time, and hoped to thoroughly enjoy himself. He knew one of the landed gentry there who had a family, and he was thinking of looking them up and flirting with the daughters, when the cavalryman turned up to make his acquaintance. That same evening, without any evil intent, the cavalryman introduced him to his other acquaintances, Loúhnof and other gamblers, in the general saloon, or common room, of the hotel. And ever since then the Uhlan had been playing cards, not asking at the station for horses, much less going to visit his acquaintance the landed proprietor, and not even leaving his room for four days.
Having dressed and had some tea, he went to the window. He felt he would like to go for a stroll, to get rid of the gaming recollections that haunted him. He put on his cloak and went out into the street. The sun was already hidden behind the white, red-roofed houses, and it was getting dusk. It was warm for winter. Large, wet snowflakes were slowly falling into the muddy street. Suddenly, at the thought that he had slept all through the day now ending, a feeling of intolerable sadness came over him.
“This day, now past, can never be brought back,” 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 the phrase just happened to come into his head.
“And what am I to do now?” thought he: “borrow of someone and go away?” A lady passed him along the pavement. “There’s a stupid woman,” thought he, for some unknown reason. “There’s no one to borrow of … 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 taken that eight I should have recovered my losses.” An old beggar-woman followed him whimpering. “There’s no one to borrow from.” Some man or other drove past in a bearskin cloak; a policeman was standing at his post. “What could one do that is unusual? Shoot at them? No, it’s dull. … I have ruined my youth! … Ah, there are fine horse-collars and trappings hanging there. There now, if one could get into a troika: ‘Gee-up, beauties!’ … I’ll go back. Loúhnof will come soon, and we’ll play.”
He returned to the hotel and again counted his money. No, he had made no mistake when he first counted: there were still 2500 roubles of Government money missing. “I’ll stake 25 roubles on the first card, then make a ‘corner’ … 7-fold it, 15-fold, 30, 60 … 3000 roubles. Then I’ll buy the horse-collars and be off. He won’t give me a chance, the rascal! I have ruined my youth!”
That is what was going on in the Uhlan’s head when Loúhnof really entered the room.
“Well, have you been up long, Michael Vasílitch?” asked Loúhnof, 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 is staying with Zavalshévsky—did you know?”
“No, I didn’t. But how’s it no one else has turned up?”
“They must have gone into Pryáhin’s. They’ll be here directly.”
And, sure enough, a little later the room was entered by a garrison officer who always followed Loúhnof, a Greek merchant with an enormous brown, hooked nose and sunken black eyes, and a fat, puffy squire and distiller, who played whole nights, always staking “simples” of half-a-rouble each.
They all wished to begin playing as soon as possible, but the principal players, and especially Loúhnof, who was telling about a robbery in Moscow in an exceedingly calm manner, said nothing about that subject.
“Just fancy,” he said, “a city like Moscow, the historic capital, the chief town, and men go about there with crooks, dressed up like devils, frighten stupid people and rob the passersby—and there’s an 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 squire was the first to speak out.
“I say, gentlemen, why lose precious time? If we mean business, let us begin.”
“Yes, you walked off with a pile of half-roubles last night, so you like it,” said the Greek.
“It is about time,” said the garrison officer.
Ilyín looked at Loúhnof. Loúhnof, looking him straight in the eyes, quietly continued his story about robbers dressed up as devils with claws.
“Will you take the bank?” asked the Uhlan.
“Is it not too early?”
“Belóf!” shouted the Uhlan, blushing for some unknown reason, “bring me some dinner—I have not had anything to eat yet, gentlemen—and a bottle of champagne and some cards.”
At this moment the Count and Zavalshévsky entered. It turned out that Toúrbin and Ilyín 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 Ilyín very much; he looked smilingly at him and teased him about his youthfulness.
“There’s an Uhlan of the true sort!” said he. “What moustaches—dear me, what moustaches!”
Even what little fluff there was on Ilyín’s lip was quite white.
“I suppose you are going to play?” said the Count: “Well, I wish you luck, Ilyín! I should think you are a master at it,” he added, with a smile.
“Yes, they mean to start,” said Loúhnof, tearing open a pack of cards, “and you, Count, won’t you join us?”
“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 Volotchók. I met some infantry fellow there with rings on his fingers—some sharper, I should think—and he plucked me clean.”
“Why, how long were you at that station?” asked Ilyín.
“I sat there for twenty-two hours. I shall remember that cursed station! And the superintendent won’t forget me either …”
“How’s that?”
“I drive up, you know; out rushes the superintendent, with a regular brigand’s rascally phiz. ‘No horses,’ says he. Now, I must tell you, I make it a rule: if there are no horses I don’t take off my 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. And you remember what frosts we had last week? Twenty degrees! The superintendent began to reason, I punched his head. There was an old woman there, girls and women; they kicked up a row, caught 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 did not watch carefully, and the superintendent made off with all the women. Only one old woman remained in pawn on the top of the stove; she kept sneezing and saying her prayers. Afterwards we began negotiating; the superintendent came and, from a distance, began persuading me to let the old woman go, but I set Blücher at him a bit. Blücher’s splendid at tackling superintendents! But the rascal did not let me have horses until the next morning. Then that infantry fellow came along. I joined him in the other room, and we began to play. You have seen Blücher? … Blücher! … Whew!”
Blücher rushed in. The players condescendingly paid him some attention, though it was evident 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 Toúrbin. “Play is play, whether one likes it or not.”