Short Fiction, Leo Tolstoy [general ebook reader .txt] 📗

midst of a dance the landlord came in to ask the guests to return to their homes, as it was getting on for three in the morning.

The Count seized the landlord by the scruff of his neck and ordered him to dance the Russian dance. The landlord refused. The Count snatched up a bottle of champagne, and having stood the landlord on his head and had him held in that position, amidst general laughter slowly emptied the bottle over him.

It was beginning to dawn. All looked pale and worn except the Count.

“Well, I must be starting for Moscow,” said he, suddenly rising. “Come along, all of you! Come and see me off⁠ ⁠… and we’ll have some tea.”

All agreed except the paterfamilias (who was left behind asleep), and all, crowding into three large sledges that stood at the door, drove off to the hotel.

VII

“Get horses ready!” cried the Count, as he entered the saloon of his hotel, followed by all the guests and gipsies. “Sáshka!⁠—not gipsy Sáshka but my Sáshka⁠—tell the superintendent that I’ll thrash him if he gives me bad horses. And get us some tea. Zavalshévsky, manage the tea; I’m going to have a look at Ilyín and see how he is getting on⁠ ⁠…” added he, and went along the passage towards the Uhlan’s room.

Ilyín had just finished playing, and having lost his last kopeck, was lying face downwards on the sofa, pulling one hair after another from its torn horsehair cover, putting them in his mouth, biting them in two and spitting them out again.

On the card-table covered with cards, two tallow candles, of which one had already burnt down to the paper in the socket, wrestled feebly with the morning light that crept in through the window. There were no thoughts in the Uhlan’s head; a thick mist of gambling passion veiled all the faculties of his soul: he did not even feel repentant. He made an attempt to think of what he should now do; how, being penniless, he was to get away; how he could repay the 15,000 roubles of Government money; what the Commander of his regiment would say, what his mother and his comrades; and he felt such fear and such disgust at himself that, wishing to forget himself, he rose and began pacing up and down the room, trying to step only where the floorboards joined, and he began vividly to recall once more every slightest detail of the course of play. He vividly imagined how he had begun to win back his money; rejected a nine, and placed the king of spades over 2000 roubles. A queen was dealt to the right, an ace to the left, then the king of diamonds to the right, and all was lost; but if, say, a six had been dealt to the right and the king of diamonds to the left, he would have won everything back, would have played once more double or quits, and would have won 15,000 roubles net; would then have bought himself an ambler from the Commander of the regiment, and another pair of horses besides, and a phaeton. Well, and what then?⁠—Well, it would have been a splendid, splendid thing!

And he lay down on the sofa again and began gnawing the horsehair.

“Why are they singing in No. 7?” thought he. “There must be a spree on at Toúrbin’s. Shall I go in and have a good drink?”

At this moment the Count entered.

“Well, old fellow, cleaned out, are you? Eh?” cried he.

“I’ll pretend to be asleep,” thought Ilyín, “or else I must speak to him, and I want to sleep.”

Toúrbin, however, came up and stroked his head.

“Well, my dear friend, been cleaned out⁠—lost everything? Tell me.”

Ilyín gave no answer.

The Count pulled his arm.

“I have lost. But what’s that to you?” muttered Ilyín, in a sleepy, indifferent, discontented voice, without changing his pose.

“All?”

“Well⁠—yes. What matter? All. What’s it to you?”

“Listen. Tell me the truth as a comrade,” said the Count, inclined to tenderness by the influence of the wine he had been drinking, and continuing to stroke Ilyín’s hair. “I have really grown fond of you. Tell the truth. If you have lost Government money I’ll save you: it will soon be too late.⁠ ⁠… Had you Government money?”

Ilyín sprang up from the sofa.

“Well then, if you wish me to tell you, don’t talk to me, because⁠ ⁠… and please don’t talk to me.⁠ ⁠… To shoot myself is the only thing!” said Ilyín, with real despair, and his head fell on his hands and he burst into tears, though but a moment before he had been calmly thinking about amblers.

“Oh, you beauteous maiden! Where’s the man who has not done the like? It’s not such calamity; perhaps we’ll make it up. You wait for me here.”

The Count left the room.

“Where is the squire Loúhnof’s room?” he asked the boots.

The boots offered to show him the way. In spite of the valet’s remark that his master had only just returned and was undressing, the Count went in. Loúhnof was sitting in his dressing-gown at a table, counting several packets of paper money that lay before him. A bottle of Rhine wine, of which he was very fond, stood on the table. After winning, he had allowed himself this pleasure. Loúhnof looked coldly and sternly through his spectacles at the Count, as though he did not recognise him.

“You don’t recognise me, I think?” said the Count, resolutely stepping up to the table.

Loúhnof recognised him, and said: “What is it you want?”

“I should like to play with you,” said Toúrbin, sitting down on the sofa.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Another time with pleasure, Count! But now I am tired and am preparing for sleep. Would you like a glass of wine? It is famous wine.”

“But I want to play a little⁠—now.”

“I don’t intend to play any more tonight. Maybe some one of the gentlemen will; but I won’t, Count! You must please excuse me.”

“Then you won’t?”

Loúhnof shrugged his shoulders to express his sorrow at the impossibility of