Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (587 page)

I put down my stakes standing, silent, frowning and clenching my teeth.  At the third round, Zerstchikov called aloud zero, which had not turned up all day.  A hundred and forty half imperials were counted out to me in gold.  I had seven chances left and I went on, though everything seemed whirling round, and dancing before my eyes.

“Come here!” I shouted right across the table to a player beside whom I had been sitting before, a grey-headed man with a moustache, and a purple face, wearing evening dress, who had been for some hours staking small sums with ineffable patience and losing stake after stake: “come this end!  There’s luck here!”

“Are you speaking to me?” the moustached gentleman shouted from the other end of the table, with a note of menacing surprise in his voice.

“Yes, you!  You’ll go on losing for ever there!”

“That’s not your business, please not to interfere!”

But I could not restrain myself.  An elderly officer was sitting facing me at the other side of the table.  Looking at my stake he muttered to his neighbour:

“That’s queer, zero.  No, I won’t venture on zero.”

“Do, colonel!” I shouted laying down another stake.

“Kindly leave me alone, and don’t force your advice upon me,” he rapped out sharply.  “You are making too much noise!”

“I am giving you good advice; would you like to bet on zero’s turning up directly: ten gold pieces, I’ll bet that, will you take it?”

And I laid down ten half imperials.

“A bet of ten gold pieces!  That I can do,” he brought out drily and severely.  “I’ll bet against you that zero won’t turn up.”

“Ten louis d’or, colonel.”

“What do you mean by ten louis d’or?”

“Ten half imperials, colonel, and, in grand language, ten louis d’or.”

“Well, then, say they are half imperials, and please don’t joke with me.”

I did not of course hope to win the bet; there were thirty-six chances against one that zero would not turn up again; but I proposed it out of swagger, and because I wanted to attract every one’s attention.  I quite saw that for some reason nobody here liked me, and that they all would have taken particular pleasure in letting me know it.  The roulette wheel was sent spinning, — and what was the general amazement when it stopped at zero again!  There was actually a general shout.  The glory of my success dazed me completely.  Again a hundred and forty half imperials were counted out to me.  Zerstchikov asked me if I would not like to take part of them in notes, but I mumbled something inarticulate in reply, for I was literally incapable of expressing myself in a calm and definite way.  My head was going round and my legs felt weak.  I suddenly felt that I would take a fearful risk at once; moreover, I had a longing to do something more, to make another bet, to carry off some thousands from some one.  Mechanically I scooped up my notes and gold in the hollow of my hand, and could not collect myself to count them.  At that moment I noticed Prince Sergay and Darzan behind me: they had only just come from their faro saloon, where as I heard afterwards they had lost their last farthing.

“Ah!  Darzan,” I cried “There’s luck here!  Stake on zero!”

“I’ve been losing, I’ve no money,” he answered drily; Prince Sergay actually appeared not to notice or recognize me.

“Here’s money,” I cried pointing to my heap of gold.  “As much as you like.”

“Hang it all!” cried Darzan, flushing crimson; “I didn’t ask you for money, I believe.”

“You are being called,” said Zerstchikov pulling my arm.

The colonel who had lost ten half imperials to me had called to me several times almost abusingly.

“Kindly take this!” he shouted, purple with rage.  “It’s not for me to stand over you, but if I don’t you’ll be saying afterwards you haven’t had the money.  Count it.”

“I trust you, I trust you, colonel, without counting; only please don’t shout at me like that and don’t be angry,” and I drew his heap of gold towards me.

“Sir, I beg you to keep your transports for some one else and not to force them on me,” the colonel rasped out.  “I’ve never fed pigs with you!”

“It’s queer to admit such people”— “Who is he?”— “Only a lad,” I heard exclamations in undertones.

But I did not listen, I was staking at random, not on zero this time.  I staked a whole heap of hundred rouble notes on the first eighteen numbers.

“Let’s go, Darzan,” I heard Prince Sergay’s voice behind me.

“Home?” I asked, turning round to them.  “Wait for me: we’ll go together, I’ve had enough.”

My stake won, I had gained a big sum.  “Enough!” I cried, and without counting the money I began with trembling hands, gathering up the gold and dropping it into my pockets, and clumsily crumpling the notes in my fingers, and trying to stuff them all at once into my side pocket.  Suddenly Aferdov, who was sitting next to me on the right and had been playing for high stakes, laid a fat hand with a ring on the first finger over three of my hundred-rouble notes.

“Excuse me that’s not yours,” he brought out sternly and incisively, though he spoke rather softly.

This was the prelude, which was destined a few days afterwards to have such a serious sequel.  Now I swear on my honour those three notes were mine, but to my misfortune, at the time, though I was convinced they were mine I still had the fraction of a doubt, and for an honest man, that is enough; and I am an honest man.  What made all the difference was that I did not know at the time that Aferdov was a thief: I did not even know his name then, so that at that moment I might very well imagine I had made a mistake, and that those three notes were really not in the heap that had just been paid me.  I had not counted my gains at all, I had simply gathered up the heaps with my hands, and there had been money lying in front of Aferdov too, and quite close to mine, but in neat heaps and counted.  Above all Aferdov was known here and looked upon as a wealthy man; he was treated with respect: all this had an influence on me and again I did not protest.  A terrible mistake!  The whole beastly incident was the result of my enthusiasm.

“I am awfully sorry, I don’t remember for certain; but I really think they are mine,” I brought out with lips trembling with indignation.  These words at once aroused a murmur.

“To say things like that, you ought to REMEMBER for certain, but you’ve graciously announced yourself that you DON’T remember for certain,” Aferdov observed with insufferable superciliousness.

“Who is he?”— “It can’t be allowed!”  I heard several exclamations.

“That’s not the first time he has done it; there was the same little game over a ten-rouble note with Rechberg just now,” a mean little voice said somewhere near.

“That’s enough! that’s enough!” I exclaimed, “I am not protesting, take it . . . where’s Prince . . . where are Prince Sokolsky and Darzan?  Have they gone?  Gentlemen, did you see which way Prince Sokolsky and Darzan went?”  And gathering up all my money at last, I could not succeed in getting some of the half imperials into my pocket, and holding them in my hands I rushed to overtake Prince Sergay and Darzan.  The reader will see, I think, that I don’t spare myself, and am recording at this moment what I was then, and all my nastiness, so as to explain the possibility of what followed.

Prince Sergay and Darzan were going downstairs, without taking the slightest notice of my shouts, and calls to them.  I had overtaken them, but I stopped for a moment before the hall-porter, and, goodness knows why, thrust three half imperials into his hand; he gazed at me in amazement and did not even thank me.  But that was nothing to me, and if Matvey had been there I should probably have pressed handfuls of gold upon him; and so indeed I believe I meant to do, but as I ran out on the steps, I suddenly remembered that I had let him go home when I arrived.  At that moment Prince Sergay’s horse came up, and he got into his sledge.

“I am coming with you, prince, and to your flat!” I cried, clutching the fur cover and throwing it open, to get into the empty seat; but all at once Darzan skipped past me into the sledge, and the coachman snatched the fur cover out of my hands, and tucked it round them.

“Damn it all!” I cried dumbfoundered; it looked as though I had unbuttoned the cover for Darzan’s benefit, like a flunkey.

“Home!” shouted Prince Sergay.

“Stop!” I roared, clutching at the sledge, but the horse started, and I was sent rolling in the snow.  I even fancied they were laughing.  Jumping up I took the first sledge I came across, and dashed after Prince Sergay, urging on the wretched nag at every second.

4

As ill-luck would have it, the wretched beast crawled along with unnatural slowness, though I promised the driver a whole rouble.  The driver did nothing but lash the beast to earn his rouble.  My heart was sinking: I began trying to talk to the driver, but I could not even articulate my words, and I muttered something incoherent.  This was my condition when I ran up to Prince Sergay’s!  He had only just come back; he had left Darzan on the way, and was alone.  Pale and ill-humoured, he was pacing up and down his study.  I repeat again he had lost heavily that evening.  He looked at me with a sort of preoccupied wonder.

“You again!” he brought out frowning.

“To settle up with you for good, sir!” I said breathlessly.  “How dared you treat me like that!”

He looked at me inquiringly.

“If you meant to drive with Darzan you might have answered that you were going with him, but you started your horse, and I. . . .”

“Oh yes, you tumbled into the snow,” he said and laughed into my face.

“An insult like that can be only answered with a challenge, so to begin with we’ll settle accounts. . . .”

And with a trembling hand I began pulling out my money and laying it on the sofa, on the marble table, and even on an open book, in heaps, in handfuls, and in rolls of notes; several coins rolled on the carpet.

“Oh, yes, you’ve won, it seems? . . .  One can tell that from your tone.”

He had never spoken to me so insolently before.  I was very pale.

“Here . . . I don’t know how much . . . it must be counted.  I owe you three thousand . . . or how much? . . .  More or less?”

“I am not pressing you to pay, I believe.”

“No, it’s I want to pay, and you ought to know why.  I know that in that roll there’s a thousand roubles, here!”  And I began with trembling fingers to count the money, but gave it up.  “It doesn’t matter, I know it’s a thousand.  Well, that thousand I will keep for myself, but all the rest, all these heaps, take for what I owe you, for part of what I owe you: I think there’s as much as two thousand or may be more!”

“But you are keeping a thousand for yourself then?” said Prince Sergay with a grin.

“Do you want it?  In that case . . . I was meaning . . . I was thinking you didn’t wish it . . . but if you want it here it is. . . .”

“No, you need not,” he said turning away from me contemptuously, and beginning to pace up and down again.

“And what the devil’s put it into your head to want to pay it back?” he said, turning to me suddenly, with a horrible challenge in his face.

“I’m paying it back to be free to insist on your giving me satisfaction!” I vociferated.

“Go to the devil with your everlasting words and gesticulations!” he stamped at me suddenly, as though in a frenzy.  “I have been wanting to get rid of you both for ages; you and your Versilov.”

“You’ve gone out of your mind!” I shouted and indeed it did look like it.

“You’ve worried me to death with your high-sounding phrases, and never anything but phrases, phrases, phrases!  Of honour for instance!  Tfoo!  I’ve been wanting to have done with you for a long time. . . .  I am glad, glad, that the minute has come.  I considered myself bound, and blushed that I was forced to receive you . . . both!  But now I don’t consider myself bound in any way, in any way, let me tell you!  Your Versilov induced me to attack Madame Ahmakov and to cast aspersions on her. . . .  Don’t dare to talk of honour to me after that.  For you are dishonourable people . . . both of you, both of you; I wonder you weren’t ashamed to take my money!”

There was a darkness before my eyes.

“I borrowed from you as a comrade,” I began, speaking with a dreadful quietness.  “You offered it me yourself, and I believed in your affection. . . .”

“I am not your comrade!  That’s not why I have given you money, you know why it is.”

“I borrowed on account of what you owed Versilov; of course it was stupid, but I . . .”

“You could not borrow on Versilov’s account without his permission . . . and I could not have given you his money without his permission.  I gave you my own money, and you knew it; knew it and took it; and I allowed this hateful farce to go on in my house!”

“What did I know?  What farce!  Why did you give it to me?”

“Pour vos beaux yeux, mon cousin!” he said, laughing straight in my face.

“Go to hell!” I cried.  “Take it all, here’s the other thousand too!  Now we are quits, and to-morrow. . . .”

And I flung at him the roll of hundred rouble notes I had meant to keep to live upon.  The notes hit him in the waistcoat and flopped on the floor.

With three rapid strides he stepped close up to me:

“Do you dare to tell me,” he said savagely articulating his words as it were syllable by syllable; “that all this time you’ve been taking my money you did not know your sister was with child by me?”

“What! what!” I screamed, and suddenly my legs gave way under me and I sank helplessly on the sofa.  He told me himself afterwards that I literally turned as white as a handkerchief.  I was stunned.  I remember we still stared into each other’s faces in silence.  A look of dismay passed over his face; he suddenly bent down, took me by the shoulder and began supporting me.  I distinctly remember his set smile, in which there was incredulity and wonder.  Yes, he had never dreamed of his words having such an effect, for he was absolutely convinced of my knowledge.

It ended in my fainting, but only for a moment: I came to myself; I got on my feet, gazed at him and reflected — and suddenly the whole truth dawned upon my mind which had been so slow to awaken!  If some one had told me of it before and asked me what I should have done at such a moment, I should no doubt have answered that I should have torn him in pieces.  But what happened was quite different and quite independent of my will: I suddenly covered my face with both hands and began sobbing bitterly.  It happened of itself.  All at once the child came out again in the young man.  It seemed that fully half of my soul was still a child’s.  I fell on the sofa and sobbed out, “Liza! Liza!  Poor unhappy girl!”  Prince Sergay was completely convinced all at once.