"No one," says he.
"What do you mean,--'no one'!"
"Why should I?" says Nekhliudof.
"How so,--why should you?"
"I have always lived thus. Why shouldn't I continue to live the same way?"
"You don't say so? Did you ever!"
And saying this, the prince burst into a peal of laughter, and the
whiskered bárin also roared. They couldn't get over it.
"What, never?" they asked.
"Never!"
They were dying with laughter. Of course I understood well enough what they
were laughing at him for. I keep my eyes open. "What," thinks I, "will come
of it?"
"Come," says the prince, "come right off."
"No; not for any thing," was his answer.
"Now, that is absurd," says the prince. "Come along!"
They went out.
They came back at one o'clock. They sat down to supper; quite a crowd of
them were assembled. Some of our very best customers,--Atánof, Prince
Razin, Count Shustakh, Mirtsof. And all congratulate Nekhliudof, laughing
as they do so. They call me in: I see that they are pretty jolly.
"Congratulate the bárin," they shout.
"What on?" I ask.
How did he call it? His initiation or his enlightenment; I can't remember
exactly.
"I have the honor," says I, "to congratulate you."
And he sits there very red in the face, yet he smiles. Didn't they have fun
with him though!
Well and good. They went afterwards to the billiard-room, all very gay; and
Nekhliudof went up to the billiard-table, leaned on his elbow, and said,--
"It's amusing to you, gentlemen," says he, "but it's sad for me. Why," says
he, "did I do it? Prince," says he, "I shall never forgive you or myself
as long as I live."
And he actually burst into tears. Evidently he did not know himself what he
was saying. The prince went up to him with a smile.
"Don't talk nonsense," says he. "Let's go home, Anatoli."
"I won't go anywhere," says the other. "Why did I do that?"
And the tears poured down his cheeks. He would not leave the
billiard-table, and that was the end of it. That's what it means for a
young and inexperienced man to....
In this way he used often to come to us. Once he came with the prince, and
the whiskered man who was the prince's crony; the gentlemen always called
him "Fedotka." He had prominent cheek-bones, and was homely enough, to be
sure; but he used to dress neatly and ride in a carriage. What was the
reason that the gentlemen were so fond of him? I really could not tell.
"Fedotka! Fedotka!" they'd call, and ask him to eat and to drink, and
they'd spend their money paying up for him; but he was a thorough-going
beat. If ever he lost, he would be sure not to pay; but if he won, you bet
he wouldn't fail to collect his money. Often too he came to grief: yet
there he was, walking arm in arm with the prince.
"You are lost without me," he would say to the prince. "I am, Fedot,"[51]
says he; "but not a Fedot of that sort."
[Footnote 51: _Fedot, da nyé tot_, an untranslatable play on the word.]
And what jokes he used to crack, to be sure! Well, as I said, they had
already arrived that time, and one of them says, "Let's have the balls for
three-handed pool."
"All right," says the other.
They began to play at three rubles a stake. Nekhliudof and the prince play,
and chat about all sorts of things meantime.
"Ah!" says one of them, "you mind only what a neat little foot she has."
"Oh," says the other, "her foot is nothing; her beauty is her wealth of
hair."
Of course they paid no attention to the game, only kept on talking to one
another.
As to Fedotka, that fellow was alive to his work; he played his very best,
but they didn't do themselves justice at all.
And so he won six rubles from each of them. God knows how many games he had
won from the prince, yet I never knew them to pay each other any money; but
Nekhliudof took out two greenbacks, and handed them over to him.
"No," says he, "I don't want to take your money. Let's square it: play
'quits or double,'[52]--either double or nothing."
[Footnote 52: _Kitudubl_ = Fr. _quitte ou double_.]
I set the balls. Fedotka began to play the first hand. Nekhliudof seemed to
play only for fun: sometimes he would come very near winning a game, yet
just fail of it. Says he, "It would be too easy a move, I won't have it
so." But Fedotka did not forget what he was up to. Carelessly he proceeded
with the game, and thus, as if it were unexpectedly, won.
"Let us play double stakes once more," says he.
"All right," says Nekhliudof.
Once more Fedotka won the game.
"Well," says he, "it began with a mere trifle. I don't wish to win much
from you. Shall we make it once more or nothing?"
"Yes."
Say what you may, but fifty rubles is a pretty sum, and Nekhliudof himself
began to propose, "Let us make it double or quit." So they played and
played.
It kept going worse and worse for Nekhliudof. Two hundred and eighty rubles
were written up against him. As to Fedotka, he had his own method: he would
lose a simple game, but when the stake was doubled, he would win sure.
As for the prince, he sits by and looks on. He sees that the matter is
growing serious.
"Enough!"[53] says he, "hold on."
[Footnote 53: _asé_ = _assez_.]
My! they keep increasing the stake.
At last it went so far that Nekhliudof was in for more than five hundred
rubles. Fedotka laid down his cue, and said,--
"Aren't you satisfied for to-day? I'm tired," says he.
Yet I knew he was ready to play till dawn of day, provided there was money
to be won. Stratagem, of course. And the other was all the more anxious to
go on. "Come on! Come on!"
"No,--'pon my honor, I'm tired. Come," says Fedot; "let's go up-stairs;
there you shall have your revanche."
Up-stairs with us meant the place where the gentlemen used to play cards.
From that very day, Fedotka wound his net round him so that he began to
come every day. He would play one or two games of billiards, and then
proceed up-stairs,--every day up-stairs.
What they used to do there, God only knows; but it is a fact that from that
time he began to be an entirely different kind of man, and seemed hand in
glove with Fedotka. Formerly he used to be stylish, neat in his dress, with
his hair slightly curled even; but now it would be only in the morning that
he would be any thing like himself; but as soon as he had paid his visit
up-stairs, he would not be at all like himself.
Once he came down from up-stairs with the prince, pale, his lips trembling,
and talking excitedly.
"I cannot permit such a one as _he_ is," says he, "to say that I am
not"--How did he express himself? I cannot recollect, something like "not
refined enough," or what,--"and that he won't play with me any more. I tell
you I have paid him ten thousand, and I should think that he might be a
little more considerate, before others, at least."
"Oh, bother!" says the prince, "is it worth while to lose one's temper with
Fedotka?"
"No," says the other, "I will not let it go so."
"Why, old fellow, how can you think of such a thing as lowering yourself to
have a row with Fedotka?"
"That is all very well; but there were strangers there, mind you."
"Well, what of that?" says the prince; "strangers? Well, if you wish, I
will go and make him ask your pardon."
"No," says the other.
And then they began to chatter in French, and I could not understand what
it was they were talking about.
And what would you think of it? That very evening he and Fedotka ate supper
together, and they became friends again.
Well and good. At other times again he would come alone.
"Well," he would say, "do I play well?"
It's our business, you know, to try to make everybody contented, and so I
would say, "Yes, indeed;" and yet how could it be called good play, when he
would poke about with his cue without any sense whatever?
And from that very evening when he took in with Fedotka, he began to play
for money all the time. Formerly he didn't care to play for stakes, either
for a dinner or for champagne. Sometimes the prince would say,--
"Let's play for a bottle of champagne."
"No," he would say. "Let us rather have the wine by itself. Hollo there!
bring a bottle!"
And now he began to play for money all the time; he used to spend his
entire days in our establishment. He would either play with some one in the
billiard-room, or he would go "up-stairs."
Well, thinks I to myself, every one else gets something from him, why don't
I get some advantage out of it?
"Well, sir," says I one day, "it's a long time since you have had a game
with me."