Chapter 3

Lukhnov drew two candles nearer to him, took out a large brown pocket- book full of paper money, and slowly, as if performing some rite, opened it on the table, took out two one-hundred rubles notes and placed them under the cards.

“Two hundred for the bank, the same as yesterday,” said he, adjusting his spectacles and opening a pack of cards.

“Very well,” said Ilyin, continuing his conversation with Turbin without looking at Lukhnov.

The game started. Lukhnov dealt the cards with machine-like precision, stopping now and then and deliberately jotting something down, or looking sternly over his spectacles and saying in low tones, “Pass up!” The fat landowner spoke louder than anyone else, audibly deliberating with himself and wetting his plump fingers when he turned down the corner of a card. The garrison officer silently and neatly noted the amount of his stake on his card and bent down small corners under the table. The Greek sat beside the banker, watching the game attentively with his sunken black eyes, and seemed to be waiting for something. Zavalshevski, standing by the table, would suddenly begin to fidget all over, take a red or blue bank-note [Footnote: Five-ruble notes were blue and ten-ruble notes red.] out of his trouser pocket, lay a card on it, slap it with his palm, and say, “Little seven, pull me through!” Then he would bite his mustache, shift from foot to foot, and keep fidgeting till his card was dealt. Ilyin sat eating veal and pickled cucumbers, which were placed beside him on the horse hair sofa, and hastily wiping his hands on his coat laid down one card after another. Turbin, who at first was sitting on the sofa, quickly saw how matters stood. Lukhnov did not look at or speak to Ilyin, only now and then his spectacles would turn for a moment towards the latter’s hand, but most of Ilyin’s cards lost.

“There now, I’d like to beat that card,” said Lukhnov of a card the fat landowner, who was staking half-rubles, had put down.

“You beat Ilyin’s, never mind me!” remarked the squire.

And indeed Ilyin’s cards lost more often than any of the others. He would tear up the losing card nervously under the table and choose another with trembling fingers. Turbin rose from the sofa and asked the Greek to let him sit by the banker. The Greek moved to another place; the count took his chair and began watching Lukhnov’s hands attentively, not taking his eyes off them.

“Ilyin!” he suddenly said in his usual voice, which quiet unintentionally drowned all the others. “Why do you keep to a routine? You don’t know how to play.”

“It’s all the same how one plays.”

“But you’re sure to lose that way. Let me play for you.”

“No, please excuse me. I always do it myself. Play for yourself if you like.”

“I said I should not play for myself, but I should like to play for you. I am vexed that you are losing.”

“I suppose it’s my fate.”

The count was silent, but leaning on his elbows he again gazed intently at the banker’s hands.

“Abominable!” he suddenly said in a loud, long-drawn tone.

Lukhnov glanced at him.

“Abominable, quite abominable!” he repeated still louder, looking straight into Lukhnov’s eyes.

The game continued.

“It is not right!” Turbin remarked again, just as Lukhnov beat a heavily backed card of Ilyin’s.

“What is it you don’t like, Count?” inquired the banker with polite indifference.

“This! — that you let Ilyin win his simples and beat his corners. That’s what’s bad.”

Lukhnov made a slight movement with his brows and shoulders, expressing the advisability of submitting to fate in everything, and continued to play.

“Blucher!” shouted the count, rising and whistling to the dog. “At him!” he added quickly.

Blucher, bumping his back against the sofa as he leaped from under it and nearly upsetting the garrison officer, ran to his master and growled, looking around at everyone and moving his tail as if asking, “Who is misbehaving here, eh?”

Lukhnov put down his cards and moved his chair to one side.

“One can’t play like that,” he said. “I hate dogs. What kind of a game is it when you bring a whole pack of hounds in here?”

“Especially a dog like that. I believe they are called ‘leeches,’” chimed in the garrison officer.

“Well, are we going to play or not, Michael Vasilich?” said Lukhnov to their host.

“Please don’t interfere with us, Count,” said Ilyin, turning to Turbin.

“Come here a minute,” said Turbin, taking Ilyin’s arm and going behind the partition with him.

The count’s words, spoken in his usual tone, were distinctly audible from there. His voice always carried across three rooms.

“Are you daft, eh? Don’t you see that that gentleman in spectacles is a sharper of the first water?”

“Come now, enough! What are you saying?”

“No enough about it! Stop playing, I tell you. It’s nothing to me. Another time I’d pluck you myself, but somehow I’m sorry to see you fleeced. And maybe you have Crown money too?”

“No ... why do you imagine such things?”

“Ah, my lad, I’ve been that way myself so I know all those sharpers’ tricks. I tell you the one in spectacles is a sharper. Stop playing! I ask you as a comrade.”

“Well then, I’ll only finish this one deal.”

“I know what ‘one deal’ means. Well, we’ll see.”

They went back. In that one deal Ilyin put down so many cards and so many of them were beaten that he lost a large amount.

Turbin put his hands in the middle of the table “Now stop it! Come along.”

“No, I can’t. Leave me alone, do!” said Ilyin, irritably shuffling some bent cards without looking at Turbin.

“Well, go to the devil! Go on losing for certain, if that pleases you. It’s time for me to be off. Let’s go to the Marshal’s, Savalshevski.”

They went out. All remained silent and Lukhnov dealt no more cards until the sound of their steps and of Blucher’s claws on the passage floor had died away.

“What a devil of a fellow!” said the landowner, laughing.

“Well, he won’t interfere now,” remarked the garrison officer hastily, and still in a whisper.

And the play continued.