Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

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