"Have the horses put in!" cried the count, as he entered the sitting-room
of the hotel with all his friends including the gypsies.
"Sashka,--not the gypsy Sashka, but mine,--tell the superintendent that if
the horses are poor I will flog him. Now give us some tea. Zavalshevsky,
make some tea; I am going to Ilyin's; I want to find how things have gone
with him," added Turbin; and he went out into the corridor, and directed
his steps to the uhlan's room.
Ilyin was just through playing, and, having lost all his money down to his
last kopek, had thrown himself face down on the worn-out haircloth sofa,
and was picking the hairs out one by one, sticking them in his mouth,
biting them into two, and spitting them out again.
Two tallow candles, one of which was already burnt down to the paper, stood
on the card-cluttered ombre-table, and mingled their feeble rays with the
morning light which was beginning to shine through the window.
The uhlan's mind was vacant of all thought: that strange thick fog of the
gambling-passion muffled all the capabilities of his mind so that there was
not even room for regret.
Once he endeavored to think what was left for him to do, how he should get
away without a kopek, how he should pay back the fifteen thousand rubles
of public money that he had lost in gambling, what his colonel would say,
what his mother would say, what his comrades would say; and such fear came
over him, and such disgust at himself, that, in his anxiety to rid himself
of the thought of it, he arose and began to walk up and down through the
room, trying only to walk on the cracks of the floor; and then once more he
began to recall all the least details of the evening.
He vividly imagined that he was winning the whole back again: he takes a
nine, and lays down a king of spades on two thousand rubles; a queen lies
at the right, at the left an ace, at the right a king of diamonds--and all
was lost! but if he had had a six at the right and a king of diamonds at
the left, then he would have won it all back, he would have staked all
again on P, and would have won back his fifteen thousand rubles, then he
would have bought a good pacer of the colonel, an extra pair of horses, and
a phaëton. And what else besides? Ah! indeed it would have been a splendid,
splendid thing!
Again he threw himself down on the sofa, and began to bite the hairs once
more.
"Why are they singing songs in No. 7?" he wondered. "It must be, they are
having a jollification in Turbin's room. I'm of a good mind to go there,
and have a little drink."
Just at this moment the count came in.
"Well, have you been losing, brother, hey?" he cried.
"I will pretend to be asleep, otherwise I shall have to talk with him, and
I really want to sleep now."
Nevertheless Turbin went up to him, and laid his hand caressingly on his
head.... "Well, my dear little friend, have you been losing? have you had
bad luck? Tell me."
Ilyin made no reply.
The count took him by the arm.
"I have been losing. What is it to you?" muttered Ilyin, in a sleepy voice
expressing indifference and vexation; he did not change his position.
"Every thing?"
"Well, yes. What harm is there in it? All! What is it to you?"
"Listen: tell me the truth, as to a comrade," said the count, who, under
the influence of the wine that he had been drinking, was disposed to be
tender, and continued to smooth the other's hair. "You know I have taken a
fancy to you. Tell me the truth. If you have lost the public money, I will
help you; if you don't, it will be too late.... Was it public money?"
Ilyin leaped up from the sofa.
"If you wish me to tell you, don't speak to me so, because ... and I beg of
you don't speak to me.... I will blow my brains out--that's the only thing
that's left for me now!" he exclaimed with genuine despair, letting his
head sink into his hands, and bursting into tears, although but the moment
before he had been calmly thinking about his horses.
"_Ekh!_ you're a pretty young girl! Well, who might not have the same thing
happen to him? It isn't as bad as it might be; perhaps we can straighten
things out: wait for me here."
The count hastened from the room.
"Where is the _pomyeshchik_[69] Lukhnof's room?" he demanded of the
hall-boy.
[Footnote 69: Landed proprietor.]
The hall-boy offered to show the count the way. The count in spite of the
objections of the lackey, who said that his master had only just come in
and was preparing to retire, entered the room.
Lukhnof in his dressing-gown was sitting in front of a table, counting over
a number of packages of bank-notes piled up before him. On the table was a
bottle of Rheinwein, of which he was very fond. He had procured himself
this pleasure from his winnings.
Coldly, sternly, Lukhnof looked at the count over his glasses, affecting
not to recognize him.
"It seems that you do not know me," said the count, proceeding toward the
table with resolute steps.