‘Assez,’ he says, ‘assez!’
Not a bit of it! They keep increasing the stakes.
At last Nekhlyúdov owed him over five hundred rubles. Fedót puts down his cue and says:
‘Haven’t we had enough? I am tired,’ he says.
But really he was ready to play till sunrise if there was money in it – all his craftiness of course. The other was still more anxious to go on. ‘Let’s play, let’s play!’ he says.
‘No, really I’m tired … Come upstairs. You can take your revenge there.’
At our place gentlemen played cards upstairs. They’d start with preference and then go on to a gambling game.
Well, from that day on Fedót netted Nekhlyúdov so that he began coming to us every day. They’d have a game or two, and then it was ‘Upstairs, upstairs!’
What they did there Heaven only knows, but Nekhlyúdov became a different man, and everything was flourishing with Fedót.
Formerly Nekhlyúdov had been smart, clean, his hair well brushed; but now he was only like his real self in the morning; after having been upstairs he would come down dishevelled, with fluff on his coat and his hands dirty.
One day he comes down with the prince like that, pale, his lips trembling, and disputing about something.
‘I won’t permit him,’ he says, ‘to tell me I am …’ – however did he put it?… ‘unwell-mannered’ or something like that – ‘and that he won’t win against me. I have paid him,’ he says, ‘ten thousand rubles so he ought to be more careful before others.’
‘Come now,’ says the prince, ‘is it worth being angry with Fedót?’
‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t put up with it.’
‘Stop!’ he says. ‘How can you lower yourself so far as to have an affair with Fedót?’
‘But outsiders were present.’
‘What if there were outsiders! If you like, I’ll make him beg your pardon at once.’
‘No,’ says he.
And they jabbered something in French that I did not understand. Well, what do you think? That same evening they had supper with Fedót and the friendship continued.
Well, he’d sometimes come along.
‘How is it?’ he’d say. ‘Do I play well?’
Of course it’s our business to please everyone. ‘Very well,’ I say. But lord! – he just knocks the balls about without any kind of judgement. And ever since he got thick with Fedót he always played for money. Before that he did not like playing for any kind of stakes, not even for a lunch or champagne. Sometimes the prince would say:
‘Let’s play for a bottle of champagne.’
‘No,’ he’d say, ‘I’d rather just order one. Hullo there! Bring a bottle of champagne!’
But now he began to play only for money. He’d walk up and down all day at our place either playing billiards with someone or going upstairs. So I thinks to myself: ‘Why should others get it all, and not me?’
‘Why haven’t you played with me for such a long time, sir?’ I says.
And we started playing.
When I had won some five rubles off him: ‘Shall we play double or quits, sir?’ I says.
He doesn’t answer – doesn’t say ‘Fool!’ as he did before. So we play double or quits again and again. I won some eighty rubles off him. Well, what d’you think? He played with me every day. Only he’d wait till no one else was there, because of course he was ashamed to play with a marker. One day he happened to get a bit excited when he already owed me some sixty rubles.
‘Shall we play for the whole amount?’ he says.
‘All right,’ I say.
I won.
‘One hundred and twenty to one hundred and twenty?’
‘All right.’
I won again.
‘Two hundred and forty to two hundred and forty?’
‘Isn’t that too much?’ I says.
He doesn’t answer. We play. I win again.
‘Four hundred and eighty to four hundred and eighty?’
I say: ‘Why should I take advantage of you, sir? Play for a hundred rubles or leave it as it is.’
How he did shout! And how quiet he used to be!
‘I’ll knock you to bits!’ he says. ‘Either you play or you don’t!’
Well, I see there is no help for it.
‘Let it be three hundred and eighty,’ I says.
Of course I meant to lose.
I allowed him forty points. His score was fifty-two and mine thirty-six. He potted the yellow and scored eighteen,3 but left my ball standing well.
I struck the ball hard to make it rebound. No good, it cannoned and ran in and won the game again.
‘Listen, Peter,’ he says – he did not call me ‘Petrúshka’ – ‘I can’t pay you the whole now, but in two months’ time I could pay you three thousand, if necessary.’
And he flushed quite red and his voice even trembled.
‘Very good, sir,’ I says, and put down the cue. He paced up and down a bit and the perspiration just ran down his face.
‘Peter,’ he says, ‘let’s play for the whole amount!’
He was nearly crying.
I say:
‘What, play again, sir?’
‘Do please!’
And he hands me the cue himself. I took the cue and flung the balls on the table so that they fell onto the floor – of course I had to show off— and I say: ‘All right, sir!’
He was in such a hurry that he himself picked a ball up. I thought to myself: ‘I shan’t get the seven hundred anyway, so I might as well lose.’ So I purposely played badly. And what do you think?
‘Why,’ he says, ‘do you play badly on purpose?’
And his hands tremble, and when a ball rolls towards a pocket he spreads out his fingers, his mouth goes awry, and he stretches his head and his hands towards the pocket. So that I say:
‘That won’t help, sir!’
Well, when he had won that game, I says:
‘You’ll owe me a hundred and eighty rubles and a hundred and fifty games – and I’ll go and have supper.’
I put down my cue and went away.
I sit down at a little table by the door and look to see what he’ll do. What d’you think? He walks up and down – thinking I expect that nobody sees him – and pulls so at his hair! Then he walks about again muttering to himself, and suddenly gives another pull!
After that we didn’t see him for eight days or so. Then he came in once into the dining-room, looking as gloomy as anything, but didn’t go into the billiard-room.
The prince noticed him.
‘Come, let’s have a game!’ he said.
‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t play any more.’
‘Oh, nonsense! Come along!’
‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t. It would do you no good for me to come and it would do me harm.’
So he didn’t come for another ten days. Then in the holidays he looked in one day in a dress suit – evidently he had been paying calls – and remained for the rest of the day playing all the time: next day he came again, and the day after, and then things went on in the old way. I wanted to play with him again.
‘No, I won’t play with you,’ he says, ‘but come to me in a month’s time for the hundred and eighty rubles I owe you and you shall have them.’
All right. A month later I went to him.
‘On my word,’ he says, ‘I haven’t got it, but come back on Thursday.’
I went on the Thursday. He had such an excellent little flat.
‘Is the master at home?’ I says.
‘Not up yet,’ they tell me.
‘All right. I’ll wait.’
His valet was a serf of his own – an old, grey-haired fellow, simple and not up to any tricks. So we had a talk together.
‘What are we living here for?’ he says. ‘My master is running quite to waste, and we get no honour nor profit in this Petersburg of yours. When we came from the country we thought we’d be as it used to be when the old master – the Kingdom of Heaven be his! – was alive; visiting princes, counts, and generals. We thought we’d get some queenly countess with a dowry, and live like a nobleman; but it turns out that we do nothing but run from one restaurant to another – quite bad! Princess Rtíshcheva, you know, is an aunt of ours, and Prince Borotýnzev is our godfather. What d’you think? He’s only been to see them once, at Christmas, and hasn’t shown his nose there since. Even their servants laugh at me: “Seems your master doesn’t take after his papa!” they say. I once said to him: