You’re Sappho, I’m Phaon, agreed. But there’s one thing still troubling me: You don’t know your way to the sea.[254]
At that they got even more offended and began scolding me indecently, and I, unfortunately, tried to make things better by telling them a very educated anecdote about Piron, how he wasn’t accepted into the French Academy, and in revenge wrote his own epitaph for his gravestone: Çi-gît Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas même académicien.[255] Then they up and thrashed me.”
“But what for, what for?”
“For my education. A man can be thrashed for all sorts of reasons,” Maximov summed up meekly and sententiously.
“Eh, enough, it’s all bad, I don’t want to listen, I thought there would be some fun in it,” Grushenka suddenly cut them off. Mitya, thrown into a flutter, stopped laughing at once. The tall pan rose to his feet and, with the haughty look of a man bored by company unsuited to him, began pacing from one corner to the other, holding his hands behind his back. “Look at him pacing!” Grushenka glanced at him contemptuously. Mitya began to worry; besides, he noticed that the pan on the sofa kept glancing at him irritably.
“Pan” Mitya cried, “let us drink, panie! And the other pan, too: let us drink, panowie!” In a second he moved three glasses together and poured champagne.
“To Poland, panowie, I drink to your Poland, to the Polish land!” Mitya exclaimed.[256]
“Bardzo mi to milo, panie, wypijem (That is very nice, panie, let us drink),” the pan on the sofa said gravely and benevolently, taking his glass.
“And the other pan, what’s his name? Hey, Excellency, take a glass!” Mitya fussed.
“Pan Vrublevsky,” the pan on the sofa prompted.
Pan Vrublevsky came swinging up to the table and, standing, accepted his glass.
“To Poland, panowie, hurrah!” Mitya shouted, raising his glass.
All three men drank. Mitya seized the bottle and immediately poured three more glasses.
“Now to Russia, panowie, and let us be brothers!”
“Pour some for us,” said Grushenka, “I’ll drink to Russia, too.”
“So will I,” said Kalganov.
“I wouldn’t mind, either, sirs ... to our dear Russia, our old granny,” Maximov joined in, giggling.
“Everyone, everyone!” cried Mitya. “Innkeeper, more bottles!”
The three remaining bottles that Mitya had brought were produced. Mitya poured.
“To Russia, hurrah!” he proclaimed again. Everyone drank except the pans, and Grushenka finished her glass at one gulp. The panowie did not even touch theirs.
“What about you, panowie?” Mitya exclaimed. “Is that how you are?”
Pan Vrublevsky took his glass, raised it, and pronounced in a booming voice:
“To Russia within her borders before 1772!”[257]
“Oto bardzo pieknie (Now that’s better)!” shouted the other pan, and they both drained their glasses.
“You’re both fools, panowie!” suddenly escaped from Mitya.
“Pa-nie!” both pans shouted threateningly, turning on Mitya like fighting cocks. Pan Vrublevsky especially was boiling.
“Ale nie mozno nie miec slabosci do swojego kraju (Can a man not love his own land) ?” he proclaimed. “Silence! No quarreling! There are to be no quarrels!” Grushenka cried commandingly and stamped her foot on the floor. Her face was flushed, her eyes gleaming. The glass she had just drunk was telling on her. Mitya got terribly frightened.
“Panowie, forgive me! It was my fault, I’ll stop. Vrublevsky, Pan Vrublevsky, I’ll stop...!”
“You keep quiet at least, sit down, you silly man!” Grushenka snarled at him with spiteful vexation.
They all sat down, they all fell silent, they all looked at one another.
“Gentlemen, I am the cause of everything!” Mitya began again, grasping nothing from Grushenka’s exclamation. “Why are we all sitting here? What shall we do ... for some fun, for some more fun?”
“Ah, it really isn’t terribly much fun,” Kalganov mumbled lazily.
“Why not a little game of baccarat like before, sirs ... ?” Maximov suddenly tittered.
“Baccarat? Splendid!” Mitya picked up, “if only the pans ...”
“?fznf, panie!” the pan on the sofa responded as though reluctantly.
“True,” Pan Vrublevsky agreed.
“‘Puzhno’? What does ‘puzhno’ mean?” asked Grushenka.
“It means late, pani, the hour is late,” the pan on the sofa explained.
“For them it’s always late, for them it’s always impossible!” Grushenka almost shrieked in vexation. “They’re bored sitting here, so they want everyone else to be bored, too. Before you came, Mitya, they just sat here saying nothing, puffing themselves up in front of me...”
“My goddess!” cried the pan on the sofa, “it shall be as you say. Widze nielaske i jestem smutny (I see you are ill disposed towards me and it makes me sad). Jestem gotow (I am ready), panie,” he concluded, turning to Mitya.
“Begin, panie!” Mitya picked up, snatching his money from his pocket and laying out two hundred-rouble bills on the table.
“I want to lose a lot to you, pan. Take the cards. Make the bank.”
“We should get cards from the innkeeper,” the short pan said gravely and emphatically.
“To najlepszy sposób (It’s the best way),” Pan Vrublevsky seconded.
“From the innkeeper? Very good, I understand, let them be from the innkeeper, that’s fine, panowie! Cards!” Mitya called to the innkeeper.
The innkeeper brought an unopened deck of cards and announced to Mitya that the girls were already gathering, that the Jews with cymbals would probably arrive soon as well, and that the troika with provisions had not arrived yet. Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to make arrangements at once. But there were only three girls, and no Maria yet. And he himself did not know what arrangements to make, or why he had run out: he only gave orders for them to take some treats, some candies and toffees from the box and give them to the girls. “And some vodka for Andrei, some vodka for Andrei,” he added hastily, “I offended Andrei!” Here Maximov, who came running after him, suddenly touched his shoulder.
“Give me five roubles,” he whispered to Mitya, “I’d like to chance a little baccarat, too, hee, hee!”
“Wonderful! Splendid! Here, take ten!”he again pulled all the money from his pocket and found ten roubles. “And if you lose, come again, come again...”
“Very well, sir,” Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back to the room. Mitya also returned at once and apologized for keeping them waiting. The pans had already sat down and opened the deck. They looked much more amiable, almost friendly. The pan on the sofa lit up a new pipe and prepared to deal; there was even a sort of solemn look on his face.
“Take seats, panowie,” Pan Vrublevsky announced.
“No, I won’t play anymore,” replied Kalganov. “I’ve already lost fifty roubles to them.”
“The pan was unlucky, the pan may be luckier this time,” the pan on the sofa observed in his direction.