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

of offering to lend me any money, although he knows that I should certainly repay him, but he waits that I, in my position, should ask him for it. You understand what it would mean for me to have to go to him. Now, to you, for instance, I could say quite straight: Vous étes au-dessus de cela, mon cher, je n’ai pas le sou.106 And do you know,” said he, looking desperately into my eyes, “I tell you straight, I am now in terrible difficulties; Pouvez-vous me préter dix roubles argent?107 My sister must send me something by the next mail, et mon père⁠ ⁠…”

“Oh, with pleasure,” said I, though, on the contrary, it was painful and vexatious, especially because, having lost at cards the day before, I myself had only a little over five rubles, and they were in Nikita’s possession. “Directly,” I said, rising, “I will go and get them from the tent.”

“No, it will do later, ne vous dérangez pas.”108

But without listening to him, I crept into the closed tent where my bed stood, and where the captain lay asleep.

“Alexey Ivanich, please lend me ten rubles till our allowances are paid,” said I to the captain, shaking him.

“What! cleared out again? And it’s only yesterday you resolved not to play anymore!” said the captain, still half-asleep.

“No, I have not been playing! But I want it⁠—please lend it me.”

“Makatyuk!” shouted the captain to his orderly, “get me the money-box and bring it here.”

“Hush, not so loud,” I said, listening to Guskov’s measured footsteps outside the tent.

“What!⁠ ⁠… Why not so loud?”

“Oh, that fellow in the ranks asked me for a loan. He’s just outside.”

“If I had known that, I would not have given it you,” remarked the captain. “I have heard about him, he’s the dirtiest young scamp.”

Still the captain let me have the money all the same, ordered the money-box to be put away and the tent properly closed, and again repeating, “If I had known what it was for, I would not have given it you,” he wrapped himself, head and all, in his blanket. “Remember you owe me thirty-two now!” he shouted after me.

When I came out of the tent Guskov was pacing up and down in front of the little seats, his short bandy-legged figure in the ugly cap with the long white wool, disappearing in the darkness and reappearing as he passed in and out of the candlelight. He pretended not to notice me. I gave him the paper-money. He said “Merci!” and crumpling it up he put it in his trousers-pocket.

“I suppose play is in full swing at Paul Dmitrich’s now!” he then began.

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“He plays so queerly, always à rebours,109 and does not hedge. When you have luck it is all right, but then, when it goes against you, you may lose terribly. He is a proof of it. On this expedition he has lost more than fifteen hundred rubles, counting the things he has lost. And with what self-control he used to play formerly! So that that officer of yours seemed even to doubt his honour.”

“Oh, he did not mean anything.⁠ ⁠… Nikita, have we any Caucasian wine left?” I asked, very much relieved by Guskov’s loquacity. Nikita grumbled again, but brought us the wine all the same, and again crossly watched Guskov emptying his cup. In Guskov’s manner the former nonchalance again became apparent. I wished him to go away, and thought he stopped only because he did not like to go immediately after receiving the money. I was silent.

“How could you, with means at your disposal and no necessity, de gaieté de cœur110 make up your mind to come and serve in the Caucasus? That is what I don’t understand,” he said.

I tried to justify myself for this step that seemed to him so strange.

“I can imagine how uncongenial to you also the society of these officers must be, men without an idea of education. It is impossible for you and them to understand one another. Why, you may live here for ten years, and except cards and wine, and talk about rewards and campaigns, you will see nothing and hear nothing.”

I did not like his being so certain that I shared his opinion, and I assured him with perfect sincerity that I was very fond of cards and wine, and of talks about campaigns, and that I did not wish for better comrades than those I had. But he would not believe me.

“Oh, you do not really mean it,” he continued; “and the absence of women⁠—I mean femmes comme il faut111⁠—is not that a terrible privation? I don’t know what I wouldn’t give to transport myself into a drawing-room now, and take a peep, though but through a crack, at a charming woman.”

He was silent a moment and drank another cup of wine.

“Oh God, oh God! It is still possible we may some day meet again in Petersburg among men, live with human beings, with women.”

He emptied the bottle and said: “Oh, pardon, perhaps you would have taken some more, I am so terribly absentminded. And I’m afraid I have drunk too much, et je n’ai pas la tête forte.112 There was a time when I lived on the Morskaya113 au rez-de-chaussée.114 I had a delightful little flat and furniture⁠—you know I had a knack for arranging things elegantly and not too expensively. It is true mon père gave me the crockery, and plants, and excellent silver plate. Le matin je sortais,115 then calls, at five o’clock regulièrement I went to dine with her, and often found her alone. Il faut avouer que c’était une femme ravissante!