It was all about a trifle.
They played pool – the prince, the big guest, Nekhlyúdov, Oliver, and someone else. Nekhlyúdov stands by the stove talking to someone, it was the big one’s turn to play. His ball happened to come just opposite the stove: there was not much room there, and he likes to play with a big swing.
Well, whether he didn’t see Nekhlyúdov or did it on purpose, he took a big swing at the ball and hit Nekhlyúdov hard in the chest with the butt of his cue. The poor fellow even groaned a little. And what next? He didn’t even say ‘beg pardon’ – the rude fellow – but went on without looking at him, and even muttered: ‘Why do they shove themselves forward? It has made me lose a ball.’ As if there was not plenty of room!
The other goes up to him, very pale, and says quite politely as if nothing had happened: ‘You should apologize first, sir. You pushed me.’
‘It’s not the time for me to apologize. I ought to have won,’ he says, ‘and now that fellow will score off my ball.’
The other says again: ‘You must apologize.’
‘Be off!’ he says. ‘Pestering like this!’ and keeps looking at his ball.
Nekhlyúdov came still nearer and took hold of his arm.
‘You’re a boor, sir,’ he says.
For all that he’s slim and young and rosy as a girl, yet his eyes glittered as fierce as if he were ready to eat him. The big guest is a strong man, and tall. Much bigger than Nekhlyúdov.
‘What?’ he says. ‘Do you call me a boor?’
And he shouts, and lifts his arm to strike him, but the others there jumped up, seized their arms, and dragged them apart.
They talk and talk – and Nekhlyúdov says:
‘Let him give me satisfaction! He has insulted me,’ he says – meaning that he wanted him to fight a duel. Of course they were gentlefolk – they have such customs … nothing can be done with them … in a word, they’re gentlefolk!
‘I won’t give him any kind of satisfaction. He’s only a boy – that’s all he is. I’ll pull his ears for him.’
‘If you don’t want to fight,’ he says, ‘you are not an honourable man.’ And he himself was almost weeping.
‘And you’re just an urchin – it’s impossible for you to insult me!’
Well, they got them apart and took them into separate rooms, as is usually done. Nekhlyúdov was friendly with the prince.
‘For God’s sake go and persuade him to accept a duel,’ he says. ‘He was drunk, but he may have come to his senses by this time. The affair must not end like this.’
The prince went. The big one says:
‘I have fought duels and I have fought in war, but I won’t fight a mere lad – I don’t want to: that’s all about it.’
Well, they talked and talked and finally left off; only the big guest left off coming to our place.
As far as sensitiveness went Nekhlyúdov was like a cockerel, very ambitious, but in other matters he had no sense at all. I remember once the prince says to him: ‘Whom have you with you here?’
‘Nobody,’ he says.
‘How’s that – nobody?’
‘Why should there be anybody?’
‘What do you mean by “Why should there be anybody?” ’
‘I’ve lived by myself up to now,’ he says, ‘so why is it impossible?’
‘Lived by yourself? You don’t mean it!’
And the prince roars with laughter, and the whiskered gentleman too. They did make fun of him!
‘So you’ve never …?’ they say.
‘Never!’
They died with laughter. Of course I understood at once why they laughed at him so. I watched to see what would come of it.
‘Come along now,’ says the prince. ‘At once!’
‘No, not on any account,’ he says.
‘Come, that’s enough, it’s too ridiculous,’ he says. ‘Have a drink to buck you up, and come along.’
I brought them a bottle of champagne. They drank it, and took the youngster along.
They returned after midnight and sat down to supper. There were a lot of them – all the very best: Atánov, Prince Rázin, Count Shustákh, and Mírtsov. They all congratulate Nekhlyúdov and laugh. They called me in, and I see they are all rather gay.
‘Congratulate the gentleman!’ they say.
‘On what?’ I ask.
Whatever did he call it?… On his initiation or instigation – I don’t quite remember.
‘I have the honour to congratulate you,’ I say.
And he sits there, quite red, and only smiles. How they laughed!
Well, they come afterwards into the billiard-room all very merry, but Nekhlyúdov was unlike himself: his eyes were bleared, his lips twitching, and he kept hiccoughing and couldn’t say a word properly. Of course, it being the first time, he was feeling bowled over. He went up to the table, put his elbows on it, and said:
‘To you it seems funny, but I am sad. Why did I do it? I shall not forgive myself, or you, prince, for it all my life!’
And he bursts into tears and weeps. Of course he had drunk too much and didn’t know himself what he was saying. The prince went up to him smiling.
‘That’s enough!’ he says. ‘It’s a mere trifle! … Come home, Anatole.’
‘I won’t go anywhere. Why did I do it?’ And he sobs. He wouldn’t go away from the billiard-table, and that was all there was to it. What it is when a fellow is young and not used to it … And he spoilt the table there and then. Next day he paid eighty rubles for having cut the cloth.
So he often used to come to us. Once he came in with the prince and the whiskered gentleman who always went about with the prince. He was an official, or a retired officer – Heaven only knows – but the gentlemen all called him ‘Fedót’. He had high cheek-bones and was very ugly, but dressed well and came in a carriage. Why the gentlemen liked him so, God only knows. It’s ‘Fedót, Fedót,’ and you see them treating him to food and drink, paying for him. But he was a desperate fellow! If he lost he did not pay, but if he won – that was different! The big guest has abused him and beaten him before my eyes, and challenged him to a duel.… But he always went about arm-in-arm with the prince. ‘You’d be lost without me!’ he says. ‘I’m Fedót and the others are not.’ Such a wag.
Well, so they come in, and say:
‘Let’s play pool, the three of us.’
‘All right,’ they say.
They began playing for three-ruble stakes. Nekhlyúdov and the prince jabber together. ‘You should just see,’ he says, ‘what a foot she has!’
‘Never mind her foot – it’s her hair that’s so beautiful.’
Of course they didn’t attend to the game but only talked together. But Fedót knows his business and plays trickily while they miss or run in. And he wins six rubles of each of them. Heaven only knows what accounts he had with the prince – they never paid one another any money; but Nekhlyúdov got out two three-ruble notes and held them out to him.
‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t take the money from you. Let’s play an ordinary game – double or quits, I mean either twice as much or nothing.’
I placed the balls for them. Fedót took odds and they began the game. Nekhlyúdov made strokes just to show off, and when he had a chance to pocket a ball and run out, he says: ‘No, I don’t want it – it’s too easy,’ but Fedót doesn’t neglect his business and keeps on scoring. Of course he didn’t show what he could do, but won the game as if by chance.
‘Let’s play double or quits again,’ he says.
‘All right.’
He won again.
‘We began with a trifle,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to take so much from you. Double or quits again, yes?’
‘Yes.’
Say what one will one’s sorry to lose fifty rubles, and Nekhlyúdov himself says: ‘Let’s have double or quits again.’ So it went on and on, more and more. At last he’d lost two hundred and eighty rubles. Fedót knows all the tricks: he would lose a single stake and win a double; and the prince sits there and sees that things are getting serious.