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

all up with her. The Cornet touched the Count with his foot more and more often. The Count scored down the old lady’s losses. At last the game ended, and in spite of Anna Fyódorovna’s wicked attempts to add to her own score by pretending to make mistakes in adding it up, in spite of her horror at the amount of her losses, it turned out at last that she had lost 920 points. “That’s nine roubles ‘assignations’?” asked Anna Fyódorovna several times, and did not comprehend the full extent of her loss until her brother told her, to her horror, that she had lost more than thirty-two roubles “assignations,” and that she must certainly pay.

The Count did not even add up his winnings, but rose immediately the game was over, went over to the window near which Lisa, setting the table for supper, was turning pickled mushrooms out of a jar onto a plate and arranging the zakoúska, and there quite quietly and simply did what the Cornet had all that evening so longed but failed to do⁠—he entered into conversation with her about the weather.

Meanwhile the Cornet was in a very unpleasant position. In the absence of the Count, and especially of Lisa, who had been keeping her in good humour, Anna Fyódorovna became frankly angry.

“Really it is too bad that we have won from you in this way,” said Pólozof, in order to say something; “it is a real shame!”

“Well, of course, if you go and invent some kind of ‘tables’ and ‘misères’! I don’t know how to play them.⁠ ⁠… Well then, how much does it come to in ‘assignations’?” she asked.

“Thirty-two roubles, thirty-two and a quarter,” repeated the cavalryman, who, under the influence of his success, was in a playful mood; “hand over the money, sister, hand it over.”

“I’ll pay it all, but you won’t catch me again. No!⁠ ⁠… I shall not win this back as long as I live.”

And Anna Fyódorovna went off to her room, hurriedly swaying from side to side, and came back bringing nine roubles “assignations.” It was only on the old man’s insistent demand that she eventually paid the whole sum.

Pólozof was seized with fear lest Anna Fyódorovna should scold him if he spoke to her. He silently and quietly left her and joined the Count and Lisa, who were talking at the open window.

On the table spread for supper stood two tallow candles. Now and then the soft, fresh breath of the May night caused the flames to flicker. Outside the window, which opened into the garden, it was also light, but it was a quite different light. The moon, which was almost full and already losing its golden tinge, floated over the tops of the tall limes and more and more lit up the thin white clouds which veiled it at intervals. In the pond, the surface of which, silvered in one place by the moon, was visible through the avenue, the frogs were croaking loudly. In a sweet-scented lilac-bush, whose dewy branches now and then swayed gently close to the window, some little birds fluttered slightly or lightly hopped from bough to bough.

“What wonderful weather!” the Count said, when he approached Lisa and sat down on the low windowsill. “You walk a good deal, I expect.”

“Yes,” said Lisa, not feeling the least shyness in speaking with the Count; “in the mornings about seven I see to what has to be attended to on the estate, and I take my mother’s ward, Pímotchka, with me for a walk.”

“It is pleasant to live in the country!” said the Count, putting his eyeglass to his eye, and looking now at the garden, now at Lisa. “And don’t you ever go out at night, by moonlight?”

“No. But two years ago uncle and I used to walk every moonlight night. He was troubled with a strange complaint⁠—sleeplessness. When there was a full moon he could not sleep. His little room⁠—that one⁠—looks straight out into the garden, the window is low, but the moon shines straight into it.”

“How strange; why, I thought that was your room,” said the Count.

“No, I only sleep there tonight. You have my room.”

“Is it possible? Dear me, I shall never forgive myself for disturbing you in such a way!” said the Count, dropping the glass from his eye in proof of the sincerity of his feelings. “If I had known I was troubling you⁠ ⁠…”

“It’s no trouble! On the contrary, I am very glad: uncle’s is such a delightful room, so bright, and the window is so low; I shall sit there till I fall asleep, or else I shall get out into the garden and walk about a bit before going to bed.”

“What a splendid girl!” thought the Count, replacing his eyeglass and looking at her, and, while pretending to seat himself more comfortably on the windowsill, trying to touch her foot with his. “And how cunningly she has let me know that I can see her in the garden at the window if I like!” Lisa even lost most of her charm in his eyes, the conquest seemed so easy.

“And how delightful it must be,” he said, looking thoughtfully at the shady green walks, “to spend a night like this in the garden with a beloved one.”

Lisa was abashed by these words, and by the repeated, seemingly accidental, touch of his foot. Anxious to hide her confusion, she said without thinking, “Yes, it is nice to walk in the moonlight.” She was beginning to feel rather uncomfortable. She had tied up the jar out of which she had taken the mushrooms, and was going away from the window, when the Cornet joined them, and she felt a wish to see what kind of man he was.

“What a lovely night!” he said.

“Why, they talk of nothing but the weather,” thought Lisa.

“What a wonderful view!” continued the Cornet. “But I suppose you are tired of it,” he added, having a curious propensity to say rather unpleasant