“Ah, Darzan,” I cried to him, “the luck’s here! Stake on zéro!”
“I’ve lost everything, I have no money,” he answered drily. And as for the prince, it was as if he decidedly did not notice or recognize me.
“There’s money here!” I cried, pointing to my pile of gold. “How much do you want?”
“Devil take it!” cried Darzan, turning all red. “I don’t believe I asked you for money.”
“You’re being called,” Zershchikov pulled me by the sleeve.
I had been called, several times now and almost with curses, by the colonel, who had lost a bet of ten imperials to me.
“Kindly take it!” he cried, all purple with anger. “I’m not obliged to stand over you, and later you may say you didn’t get it. Count it up.”
“I trust you, I trust you, Colonel, without counting; only please don’t shout at me like that and don’t be angry.” And I raked in his pile of gold pieces with my hand.
“My dear sir, I beg you, get at someone else with your raptures, and not at me,” the colonel shouted sharply. “I didn’t herd swine with you!”
“It’s strange to let such people in—who is he?—some youngster,” came low-voiced exclamations.
But I wasn’t listening, I was staking at random, no longer on zéro. I staked a whole wad of hundred-rouble notes on the first eighteen numbers.
“Let’s go, Darzan,” the prince’s voice came from behind me.
“Home?” I turned to them. “Wait for me, let’s leave together, I’m through here.”
My stake won; it was a big win.
“Basta! ” I cried, and with trembling hands began raking up and pouring gold into my pockets, without counting and somehow clumsily crumpling the piles of banknotes with my fingers, wanting to stuff them all together into my side pocket. Suddenly the plump, signet-ringed hand of Aferdov, who was sitting next to me on the right and also staking large sums, reached for my three hundred-rouble notes and covered them with his palm.
“Excuse me, sir, that is not yours,” he pronounced sternly and distinctly, though in a rather soft voice.
That was the prelude which, a few days later, was destined to have such consequences. Now I swear on my honor that those three hundred-rouble notes were mine, but, to my ill fate, though I was certain they were mine, I still had a lingering fraction of a doubt, and for an honest man that is everything; and I am an honest man. Above all, I did not yet know for certain then that Aferdov was a thief; I did not yet know his last name then, so that at that moment I could actually think that I was mistaken and that those three hundred-rouble notes were not among the ones just counted out to me. I hadn’t counted my pile of money all the while and had only raked it in with my hands, but money had also been lying in front of Aferdov all the while, and right next to mine, albeit in good order and counted up. Finally, Aferdov was known there, was considered a rich man, was treated with respect. All this influenced me, and once again I didn’t protest. A terrible mistake! The main swinishness consisted in the fact that I was in ecstasy.
“It’s a great pity that I don’t remember for certain, but it seems terribly likely to me that it’s mine,” I said, my lips trembling with indignation. These words at once aroused a murmur.
“In order to say such things, one needs to remember for certain, but you yourself have been so good as to declare that you do not remember for certain,” Aferdov said with insufferable haughtiness.
“But who is he?—but how can it be permitted?” came several exclamations.
“It’s not the first time for him; earlier there was an incident with Rechberg over a ten-rouble note,” some mean little voice said beside me.
“Well, enough, enough!” I exclaimed, “I won’t protest, take it! Prince . . . where are the prince and Darzan? Gone? Gentlemen, did you see where the prince and Darzan went?” and, having finally picked up all my money, and holding in my hand several half-imperials I hadn’t had time to put in my pocket, I started after the prince and Darzan. The reader can see, I believe, that I’m not sparing myself and that I’m recollecting all of myself as I was at that moment, to the last vileness, so that what came afterwards will be understood.
The prince and Darzan had already gone downstairs, not paying the least attention to my calls and cries. I caught up with them, but paused for a second before the doorman and put three half-imperials in his hand, devil knows why; he looked at me in perplexity and didn’t even thank me. But it was all the same to me, and if Matvei had been there, I surely would have dished out a whole fistful of gold pieces, and it seems that’s what I wanted to do, but, running out to the porch, I suddenly recalled that I had dismissed him earlier. At that moment the prince’s trotter drove up, and he got into the sledge.
“I’m coming with you, Prince, to your place!” I cried, seized the flap and flung it open so as to get into his sledge; but Darzan suddenly jumped into the sledge past me, and the driver, tearing the flap from my hands, covered the two gentlemen.
“Devil take it!” I cried in frenzy. It came out as if I had unfastened the flap for Darzan, like a lackey.
“Home!” cried the prince.
“Stop!” I bellowed, clutching at the sledge, but the horse pulled, and I tumbled into the snow. It even seemed to me that they laughed. Jumping up, I instantly grabbed the first cab that came along and raced to the prince’s, urging my nag on every second.
IV
AS IF ON PURPOSE, the nag crawled on for an unnaturally long time, though I had promised a whole rouble. The driver kept whipping her up and, of course, whipped her enough for a rouble. My heart was sinking; I tried to start talking with the driver, but I couldn’t even get the words out, and mumbled some sort of nonsense. That was the state I was in when I ran up to the prince’s. He had just returned; he had taken Darzan home and was alone. Pale and angry, he was pacing his study. I repeat once more: he had lost terribly. He looked at me with some sort of distracted perplexity.
“You again!” he said, frowning.
“So as to have done with you, sir!” I said breathlessly. “How dared you act that way with me?”
He looked at me questioningly.
“If you were going with Darzan, you might just have told me you were going with Darzan, instead of which you started the horse, and I . . .”
“Ah, yes, it seems you fell in the snow,” and he laughed in my face.
“The response to that is a challenge, and therefore we shall first finish with our accounts . . .”
And with a trembling hand I began taking my money out and placing it on the sofa, on a little marble table, and even into some open book, in piles, handfuls, wads; several coins rolled onto the carpet.
“Ah, yes, it seems you won? . . . One can tell it by your tone.”
Never before had he spoken so impudently with me. I was very pale.