‘ “Why don’t you go to see your auntie, sir? She is sad at not having seen you so long.”
‘ “It’s dull there, Demyánych!” he says.
‘Just look at that! The only pleasure he’s found is at the restaurants. If only he were in public service somewhere – but no, he is only interested in cards and the like, and such doings never lead to any good … Eh, eh, we’re ruining ourselves – ruining ourselves for nothing! We inherited from our deceased mistress – the Kingdom of Heaven be hers! – a very rich estate: more than a thousand serfs and more than three hundred thousand rubles’ worth of forest land. He’s mortgaged it all now, sold the forest, ruined the peasants, and nothing comes of it. In the master’s absence a steward is more than a master, as is well known. What does the steward care? He skins the peasants completely, and there’s an end of it. All he wants is to stuff his own pockets, though they all die of hunger. The other day two peasants came here to complain from the whole commune.
‘ “He’s ruined the serfs completely,” they said.
‘Well, he read the complaints, gave the peasants ten rubles each and said: “I shall come myself soon. As soon as I receive money I’ll settle up and leave town.”
‘But “settle up” indeed, when we keep making debts! Why, we have lived here the winter and have got through some eighty thousand rubles, and now there’s not a ruble left in the house! And it’s all because of his charitableness. Oh, what a simple gentleman he is – there are no words for it. It’s because of that he is perishing, perishing just for nothing!’
And the old man almost wept.
Nekhlyúdov woke up about eleven and called me in.
‘They haven’t sent me the money, but it is not my fault,’ he says. ‘Shut the door.’
I shut it.
‘Here,’ he says, ‘take this watch or this diamond pin and pawn it. They’ll give you more than a hundred and eighty rubles for it, and when I get the money I will buy them out,’ he says.
‘All right, sir,’ I say. ‘If you have no money it can’t be helped: let me have the watch – I’ll pawn it for you.’
I could see myself that the watch was worth three hundred rubles.
Well, I pawned it for a hundred rubles and brought him the ticket.
‘You’ll owe me eighty rubles, and you can redeem the watch yourself,’ I says.
Those eighty rubles are still owing me to this day!
So he kept coming to us every day again. I don’t know what arrangements there were between them but he and the prince always went about together, or they went upstairs with Fedót to play cards. And they had some queer accounts among the three of them! One gave to another, the other to the third, but you could not at all make out who was owing whom.
And he came to us in this way almost every day for two years. Only he had lost his old manner: he became bold, and it got to such a pitch that at times he’d borrow a ruble from me to pay his cab fare; yet he still played with the prince for a hundred rubles a game.
He grew thin, sallow, and gloomy. He’d come in, order a glass of absinthe at once, have a snack, and wash it down with port wine, and then he would seem a bit brighter.
He came one day during Carnival, and began playing with some hussar.
‘Do you want to have something on the game?’ says the hussar.
‘Certainly,’ he says. ‘How much?’
‘Shall it be a bottle of burgundy?’
‘All right.’
Well, the hussar won, and they sat down to dinner. They sat down, and Nekhlyúdov says at once:
‘Simon, a bottle of Clos Vougeot – and mind it’s properly warmed.’
Simon went out and brought some food, but no bottle.
‘Well, and the wine?’
Simon ran out and brought the joint.
‘Bring the wine,’ says Nekhlyúdov.
Simon says nothing.
‘Have you gone mad? We’re finishing dinner and there’s no wine. Who drinks it with the dessert?’
Simon ran out.
‘The proprietor would like to see you,’ he says.
Nekhlyúdov went quite red and jumped up from the table —
‘What does he want?’ he says.
The proprietor was standing at the door.
‘I can’t give you any more credit unless you pay me what you owe.’
‘But I told you I’d pay at the beginning of next month!’
‘As you please, but I can’t go on giving credit and not receiving anything. As it is I lose tens of thousands by bad debts.’
‘Oh, come, mon cher,’ he says, ‘surely you can trust me! Send up the bottle, and I will try to pay you as soon as possible.’
And he ran back.
‘What did they call you away for?’ asked the hussar.
‘Just to ask me about something.’
‘A little warm wine now would be just the thing,’ says the hussar.
‘Well, Simon, how about it?’
Poor Simon ran out again. Again there was no wine or anything. It was a bad lookout. Nekhlyúdov got up from the table and came to me.
‘For God’s sake, Petrúshka,’ he says, ‘let me have six rubles.’
He looked beside himself.
‘I haven’t got it, sir, on my word! As it is you’re owing me a lot.’
‘I’ll give you forty rubles in a week’s time for the six!’
‘If I had it,’ I says, ‘I wouldn’t dare refuse you, but really I haven’t got it.’
And what do you think? He rushed out, clenching his teeth, and ran up and down the corridor like a madman, banging himself on the forehead.
‘Oh, my God!’ he says. ‘What does it mean?’
He didn’t even go back to the dining-room, but jumped into a carriage and drove off.
How they laughed! The hussar says:
‘Where’s the gentleman who was dining with me?’
‘Gone,’ they say.
‘What do you mean – gone? What message did he leave?’
‘He didn’t leave any message,’ they tell him. ‘He just got in and drove away.’
‘A fine goose!’ he says.
‘Well,’ I think to myself, ‘now he won’t come for a long time, after such a disgrace.’ But next day towards evening he came again, just the same. He went to the billiard-room with a box of some kind he had brought with him. He took off his overcoat.
‘Let’s play!’ he says, looking from under his brows very cross.
We played a game.
‘That’s enough,’ he says. ‘Go and get me a pen and paper. I have to write a letter.’
Thinking nothing and guessing nothing, I brought the paper and put it on the table in the little room.
‘It’s all ready, sir,’ I says.
Well, so he sat down at the table and wrote and wrote something; then he jumped up frowning.
‘Go and see if my carriage has come!’
It happened on the Friday in Carnival Week, so none of our gentlemen were there: they had all gone to balls.
I was just going to find out about the carriage, but was hardly out of the door when he cried: ‘Petrúshka! Petrúshka!’ as if frightened of something.
I came back, and there he stood as white as a sheet, looking at me.
‘You were pleased to call me, sir?’ I says.
He was silent.
‘What is it you want, sir?’
He was still silent.
‘Oh, yes! Let’s have another game,’ he says.
Well, he won the game.
‘Have I learnt to play well?’ he says.
‘Yes,’ says I.
‘That’s it,’ he says. ‘Now go and find out about my carriage.’