And he lay down on the sofa again and began chewing the horsehair.
‘Why are they singing in No. 7?’ thought he. ‘There must be a spree on at Túrbin’s. Shall I go in and have a good drink?’
At this moment the count entered.
‘Well, old fellow, cleaned out, are you? Eh?’ cried he.
‘I’ll pretend to be asleep,’ thought Ilyín, ‘or else I shall have to speak to him, and I want to sleep.’
Túrbin, however, came up and stroked his head.
‘Well, my dear friend, cleaned out – lost everything? Tell me.’
Ilyín gave no answer.
The count pulled his arm.
‘I have lost. But what is that to you?’ muttered Ilyín in a sleepy, indifferent, discontented voice, without changing his position.
‘Everything?’
‘Well – yes. What of it? Everything. What is it to you?’
‘Listen. Tell me the truth as to a comrade,’ said the count, inclined to tenderness by the influence of the wine he had drunk and continuing to stroke Ilyín’s hair. ‘I have really taken a liking to you. Tell me the truth. If you have lost Crown money I’ll get you out of your scrape: it will soon be too late.… Had you Crown money?’
Ilyín jumped up from the sofa.
‘Well then, if you wish me to tell you, don’t speak to me, because … please don’t speak to me.… To shoot myself is the only thing!’ said Ilyín, with real despair, and his head fell on his hands and he burst into tears, though but a moment before he had been calmly thinking about amblers.
‘What pretty girlishness! Where’s the man who has not done the like? It’s not such a calamity; perhaps we can mend it. Wait for me here.’
The count left the room.
‘Where is Squire Lúkhnov’s room?’ he asked the boots.
The boots offered to show him the way. In spite of the valet’s remark that his master had only just returned and was undressing, the count went in. Lúkhnov was sitting at a table in his dressing-gown counting several packets of paper money that lay before him. A bottle of Rhine wine, of which he was very fond, stood on the table. After winning he permitted himself that pleasure. Lúkhnov looked coldly and sternly through his spectacles at the count as though not recognizing him.
‘You don’t recognize me, I think?’ said the count, resolutely stepping up to the table.
Lúkhnov made a gesture of recognition, and said: ‘What is it you want?’
‘I should like to play with you,’ said Túrbin, sitting down on the sofa.
‘Now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Another time with pleasure, Count! But now I am tired and am going to bed. Won’t you have a glass of wine? It is famous wine.’
‘But I want to play a little – now.’
‘I don’t intend to play any more to-night. Perhaps some of the other gentlemen will, but I won’t. You must please excuse me, Count.’
‘Then you won’t?’
Lúkhnov shrugged his shoulders to express his regret at his inability to comply with the count’s desire.
‘Not on any account?’
The same shrug.
‘But I particularly request it.… Well, will you play?’
Silence.
‘Will you play?’ the count asked again. ‘Mind!’
The same silence and a rapid glance over the spectacles at the count’s face which was beginning to frown.
‘Will you play?’ shouted the count very loud, striking the table with his hand so that the bottle toppled over and the wine was spilt. ‘You know you did not win fairly.… Will you play? I ask you for the third time.’
‘I said I would not. This is really strange, Count! And it is not at all proper to come and hold a knife to a man’s throat,’ remarked Lúkhnov, not raising his eyes. A momentary silence followed during which the count’s face grew paler and paler. Suddenly a terrible blow on the head stupefied Lúkhnov. He fell on the sofa trying to seize the money and uttered such a piercingly despairing cry as no one could have expected from so calm and imposing a person. Túrbin gathered up what money lay on the table, pushed aside the servant who ran in to his master’s assistance, and left the room with rapid strides.
‘If you want satisfaction I am at your service! I shall be in my room for another half-hour,’ said the count, returning to Lúkhnov’s door.
‘Thief! Robber! I’ll have the law on you …’ was all that was audible from the room.
Ilyín, who had paid no attention to the count’s promise to help him, still lay as before on the sofa in his room choking with tears of despair. Consciousness of what had really happened, which the count’s caresses and sympathy had evoked from behind the strange tangle of feelings, thoughts, and memories filling his soul, did not leave him. His youth, rich with hope, his honour, the respect of society, his dreams of love and friendship – all were utterly lost. The source of his tears began to run dry, a too passive feeling of hopelessness overcame him more and more, and thoughts of suicide, no longer arousing revulsion or horror, claimed his attention with increasing frequency. Just then the count’s firm footsteps were heard.
In Túrbin’s face traces of anger could still be seen, his hands shook a little, but his eyes beamed with kindly merriment and self-satisfaction.
‘Here you are, it’s won back!’ he said, throwing several bundles of paper money on the table. ‘See if it’s all there and then make haste and come into the saloon. I am just leaving,’ he added, as though not noticing the joy and gratitude and extreme agitation on Ilyín’s face, and whistling a gipsy song he left the room.
VIII
SÁSHKA, with a sash tied round his waist, announced that the horses were ready, but insisted that the count’s cloak, which, he said, with its fur collar was worth three hundred rubles, should be recovered, and the shabby blue one returned to the rascal who had changed it for the count’s at the Marshal’s; but Túrbin told him there was no need to look for the cloak, and went to his room to change his clothes.
The cavalryman kept hiccoughing as he sat silent beside his gipsy girl. The Captain of Police called for vodka, and invited everyone to come at once and have breakfast with him, promising that his wife would certainly dance with the gipsies. The handsome young man was profoundly explaining to Ilyúshka that there is more soulfulness in pianoforte music, and that it is not possible to play bémols on a guitar. The official sat in a corner sadly drinking his tea, and in the daylight seemed ashamed of his debauchery. The gipsies were disputing among themselves in their own tongue as to ‘hailing the guests’ again, which Stëshka opposed, saying that the baroráy (in gipsy language count or prince or, more literally, ‘great gentleman’) would be angry. In general the last embers of the debauch were dying down in everyone.
‘Well, one farewell song, and then off home!’ said the count, entering the parlour in travelling dress, fresh, merry, and handsomer than ever.
The gipsies again formed their circle and were just ready to begin when Ilyín entered with a packet of paper money in his hand and took the count aside.
‘I only had fifteen thousand rubles of Crown money and you have given me sixteen thousand three hundred,’ he said, ‘so this is yours.’
‘That’s a good thing. Give it here!’
Ilyín gave him the money and, looking timidly at the count, opened his lips to say something, but only blushed till tears came into his eyes and seizing the count’s hand began to press it.
‘You be off! … Ilyúshka! Listen! Here’s some money for you, but you must accompany me out of the town with songs!’ and he threw onto the guitar the thirteen hundred rubles Ilyín had brought him. But the count quite forgot to repay the hundred rubles he had borrowed of the cavalryman the day before.