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

long known him,” said I. I had really known the Adjutant for some years; had more than once seen him playing for stakes high in proportion to the officers’ means; and had admired his handsome, rather stern, and ever imperturbably calm face, his slow, Little-Russian pronunciation, his beautiful things, his horses, his leisurely, Little-Russian disposition, and especially his ability to play with self-control⁠—systematically and pleasantly. I confess that more than once, when looking at his plump white hands, with a diamond ring on the first finger, as he beat my cards one after the other, I was enraged with this ring, with the white hands, with the whole person of the Adjutant, and evil thoughts concerning him rose in my mind. But on thinking matters over in cool blood I became convinced that he was simply a more sagacious player than all those with whom he happened to play. I was confirmed in this by the fact that when listening to his general reflections on gaming⁠—how, having been lucky starting with a small stake, one should follow up one’s luck; how in certain cases one ought to stop playing; that the first rule was to play for ready-money, etc., etc.⁠—it was clear that he always won simply because he was cleverer and more self-possessed than the rest of us. And it now appeared that this self-possessed, strong player had, in the detachment, lost completely: not only money, but other belongings as well⁠—which among officers indicates the lowest depth of loss.

“He was always devilish lucky when playing against me,” continued Lieutenant O⁠⸺; “I have sworn never to play with him again.”

“What a queer fellow you are, old man!” said S⁠⸺, winking at me so that his whole head moved, while he addressed O⁠⸺; “you have lost some 300 rubles to him⁠—lost it, haven’t you?”

“More!” said the Lieutenant crossly.

“And now you’ve suddenly come to your senses; but it’s too late, old chap! Everyone else has long known him to be the sharper of our regiment.” said S⁠⸺, hardly able to refrain from laughter, and highly delighted at his invention.

“Here’s Guskov himself⁠—he prepares the cards for him. That is why they are friends, old chap!⁠ ⁠…” And Lieutenant-Captain S⁠⸺ laughed good-humouredly so that he shook all over and spilt some of the mulled wine he held in his hand. A faint tinge of colour seemed to rise on Guskov’s thin, yellow face; he opened his mouth repeatedly, lifted his hands to his moustaches and let them drop again to the places where his pockets should have been, several times began to rise but sat down again, and at last said in an unnatural voice, turning to S⁠⸺:

“This is not a joke, Nicholas Ivanich, you are saying such things! And in the presence of people who don’t know me and who see me in a common sheepskin coat⁠ ⁠… because⁠ ⁠…” His voice failed him, and again the little red hands with their dirty nails moved from his coat to his face; now smoothing his moustaches or hair, now touching his nose, rubbing his eye, or unnecessarily scratching his cheek.

“What’s the good of talking; everyone knows it, old chap!” continued S⁠⸺, really enjoying his joke and not in the least noticing Guskov’s excitement. Guskov again muttered something, and leaning his right elbow on his left knee in a most unnatural position, looked at S⁠⸺ and tried to smile contemptuously.

“Yes,” thought I, watching that smile, “I have not only seen him before, but have spoken with him somewhere.”

“We must have met somewhere before,” I said to him when, under the influence of the general silence, S⁠⸺’s laughter began to subside.

Guskov’s mobile face suddenly brightened, and his eyes, taking for the first time a sincerely pleased expression, turned to me.

“Certainly; I knew you at once!” he began in French. “In ’48 I had the pleasure of meeting you rather often in Moscow, at my sister’s⁠—the Ivashins.”

I apologized for not having recognized him in his present costume. He rose, approached me, and with his moist hand irresolutely and feebly pressed mine. Instead of looking at me, whom he professed to be so glad to see, he looked round in an unpleasantly boastful kind of way at the other officers. Either because he had been recognized by me who had seen him some years before in a drawing-room in a dress-coat, or because that recollection suddenly raised him in his own esteem, his face and even his movements, as it seemed to me, changed completely. They now expressed a lively intellect, childish self-satisfaction at the consciousness of that intellect, and a kind of contemptuous indifference. So that, I admit, notwithstanding the pitiful position he was in, my old acquaintance no longer inspired me with sympathy but with an almost inimical feeling.

I vividly recalled our first meeting. In ’48, during my stay in Moscow, I often visited Ivashin. We had grown up together and were old friends. His wife was a pleasant hostess and what is considered an amiable woman, but I never liked her. The winter I visited them, she often spoke with ill-concealed pride of her brother, who had lately finished his studies, and was, it seemed, among the best-educated and most popular young men in the best Petersburg society. Knowing by reputation Guskov’s father, who was very rich and held an important position, and knowing his sister’s leanings, I was prejudiced before I met Guskov. One evening, having come to see Ivashin, I found there a very pleasant-looking young man, not tall, in a black swallowtail coat and white waistcoat and tie; but the host omitted to introduce us to one another. The young man, evidently prepared to go to a ball, stood hat in hand in front of Ivashin, hotly but politely arguing about a common acquaintance of ours who had recently distinguished himself in the Hungarian campaign. He was maintaining that this acquaintance of ours was not at all a hero, or a man born for war, as was said of him, but merely a clever and