Gambling Tragedy - episode from Leo Tolstoy story “Two Hussars”.

The uhlan cornet, Ilyin, had not long been awake. The evening before he had sat down to cards at eight o’clock and had lost pretty steadily for fifteen hours on end - till eleven in the morning. He had lost a considerable sum but did not know exactly how much, because he had about three thousand rubles of his own, and fifteen thousand of Crown money which had long since got mixed up with his own, and he feared to count lest his fears that some of the Crown money was already gone should be confirmed. It was nearly noon when he fell asleep and he had slept that heavy dreamless sleep which only very young men sleep after a heavy loss. Waking at six o’clock (just when Count Turbin arrived at the hotel), and seeing the floor all around strewn with cards and bits of chalk, and the chalk-marked tables in the middle of the room, he recalled with horror last night’s play, and the last card - a knave on which he lost five hundred rubles; but not yet quite convinced of the reality of all this, he drew his money from under the pillow and began to count it. He recognized some notes which had passed from hand to hand several times with “corners” and “transports” and he recalled the whole course of the game. He had none of his own three thousand rubles left, and some two thousand five hundred of the government money was also gone.

Ilyin had been playing for four nights running.

He had come from Moscow where the crown money had been entrusted to him and at K– had been detained by the superintendent of the post-house on the pretext that there were no horses, but really because the superintendent had an agreement with the hotel-keeper to detain all travellers for a day. The uhlan, a bright young lad who had just received three thousand rubles from his parents in Moscow for his equipment on entering his regiment, was glad to spend a few days in the town of K– during the elections and hoped to enjoy himself thoroughly. He knew one of the landed gentry there who had a family, and he was thinking of looking them up and flirting with the daughters, when the cavalryman turned up to make his acquaintance. Without any evil intention the cavalryman introduced him that same evening, in the general saloon or common room of the hotel, to his acquaintances, Lukhnov and other gamblers. And ever since then the uhlan had been playing cards, not asking at the post-station for horses, much less going to visit his acquaintance the landed proprietor, and not even leaving his room for four days on end.

Having dressed and drunk tea he went to the window. He felt that he would like to go for a stroll to get rid of the recollections that haunted him, and he put on his cloak and went out into the street. The sun was already hidden behind the white houses with the red roofs and it was getting dusk. It was warm for winter. Large wet snowflakes were falling slowly into the muddy street. Suddenly at the thought that he had slept all through the day now ending, a feeling of intolerable sadness overcame him.

“This day, now past, can never be recovered,” he thought.

“I have ruined my youth!” he suddenly said to himself, not because he really thought he had ruined his youth - he did not even think about it - but because the phrase happened to occcur to him.

“And what am I to do now?” thought he. “Borrow from someone and go away?” A lady passed him along the pavement. “There’s a stupid woman,” thought he for some reason. “There’s no one to borrow from . . . I have ruined my youth!” He came to the bazaar. A tradesman in a fox-fur cloak stood at the door of his shop touting for customers. “If I had not withdrawn that eight I should have recovered my losses.” An old beggar-woman followed him whimpering. “There’s no one to borrow from.” A man drove past in a bearskin cloak; a policeman was standing at his post. “What unusual thing could I do? Fire at them? No, it’s dull . . . I have ruined my youth! . . . Ah, if only I could drive in a troyka: Gee-up, beauties! . . . I’ll go back. Lukhnov will come soon, and we’ll play.”

He returned to the hotel and again counted his money. No, he had made no mistake the first time: there were still two thousand five hundred rubles of Crown money missing. I’ll stake twenty-five rubles, than make a ‘corner’ . . . seven-fold it, fifteen-fold thirty, sixty . . . three thousand rubles. Then I’ll buy the horse-collars and be off. He won’t let me, the rascal! I have ruined my youth!”

That is what was going on in the uhlan’s head when Lukhnov actually entered the room.

“Have you been up long, Michael Vasilich?” asked Lukhnov, slowly removing the gold spectacles from his skinny nose and carefully wiping them with a red silk handkerchief.

“No, I’ve only just got up - I slept uncommonly well.”

“Some hussar or other has arrived. He has put up with Zavalshevski - had you heard?”

“No, I hadn’t. But how is it no one else is here yet?”

“They must have gone to Pryakhin’s. They’ll be here directly.”

And sure enough a little later there came into the room a garrison officer who always accompanied Lukhnov, a Greek merchant with an enormous brown hooked nose and sunken black eyes, and a fat puffy landowner, the proprietor of a distillery, who played whole nights, always staking “simples” of half a ruble each. Everybody wished to begin playing as soon as possible, but the principal gamesters, especially Lukhnov who was telling about a robbery in Moscow in an exceedingly calm manner, did not refer to the subject.

“Just fancy,” he said, “a city like Moscow, the historic capital, a metropolis, and men dressed up as devils go about there with crooks, frighten stupid people, and rob the passers-by - and that’s the end of it! What are the police about? That’s the question.”

The uhlan listened attentively to the story about the robbers, but when a pause came he rose and quietly ordered cards to be brought. The fat landowner was the first to speak out.

“Well, gentlemen, why lose precious time? If we mean business let’s begin.”

“Yes, you walked off with a pile of half-rubles last night soyou like it,” said the Greek.

“I think we might start,” said the garrison officer.

Ilyin looked at Lukhnov. Lukhnov looking him in the eye quietly continued his story about robbers dressed up like devils with claws.

“Will you keep the bank?” asked the uhlan.

“Isn’t it too early?”

“Belov!” shouted the uhlan, blushing for some unknown reason, “bring me some dinner - I haven’t had anything to eat yet, gentlemen - and a bottle of champagne and some cards.”

At this moment the count and Zavalshevski entered the room. It turned out that Turbin and Ilyin belonged to the same division. They took to one another at once, clinked glasses, drank champagne together, and were on intimate terms in five minutes. The count seemed to like Ilyin very much; he looked smilingly at him and teased him about his youth.

“There’s an uhlan of the right sort!” he said. “What moustaches! Dear me, what moustaches!”

Even what little down there was on Ilyin’s lip was quite white.

“I suppose you are going to play?” said the count. “Well, I wish you luck, Ilyin! I should think you are a master at it,” he added with a smile.

“Yes, they mean to start,” said Lukhnov, tearing open a bundle of a dozen packs of cards, “and you’ll joint in too, Count, won’t you?”

“No, not today. I should clear you all out if I did. When I begin ‘cornering’ in earnest the bank begins to crack! But I have nothing to play with - I was cleaned out at a station near Volochok. I met some infantry fellow there with rings on his fingers - a sharper I should think - and he plucked me clean.”

“Why, did you stay at that station long?” asked Ilyin.

“I sat there for twenty-two hours. I shan’t forget that accursed station! And the superintendent won’t forget me either . . . ”

“How’s that?”

“I drive up, you know; out rushes the superintendent looking a regular brigand. ‘No horses!’ says he. Now I must tell you that it’s my rule, if there are no horses I don’t take off my fur cloak but go into the superintendent’s own room - not into the public room but into his private room - and I have all the doors and windows opened on the ground that it’s smoky. Well, that’s just what I did there. You remember what frosts we had last month? About twenty degrees! [Footnote: Reaumur = thirteen below zero Fahrenheit.] The superintendent began to argue; I punched his head. There was an old woman there, and girls and other women; they kicked up a row, snatched up their pots and pans, and were rushing off to the village. . . . I went to the door and said, ‘Let me have horses and I’ll be off. If not, no one shall go out: I’ll freeze you all.’”

“That’s an infernally good plan!” said the puffy squire, rolling with laughter. “It’s the way they freeze out cockroaches . . . ”

“But I didn’t watch carefully enough and the superintendent got away with the women. Only one old woman remained in pawn on the top of the stove; she kept sneezing and saying prayers. Afterwards we began negotiating: the superintendent came and from a distance began persuading me to let the old woman go, but I set Blucher at him a bit. Blucher’s splendid at tackling superintendents! But still the rascal didn’t let me have horses until the next morning. Meanwhile that infantry fellow came along. I joined him in another room, and we began to play. You have seen Blucher? . . . Blucher! . . . ” and he gave a whistle.

Blucher rushed in, and the players condescendingly paid some attention to him though it was evident that they wished to attend to quite other matters.

“But why don’t you play, gentlemen? Please don’t let me prevent you. I am a chatterbox, you see,” said Turbin. “play is play whether one likes it or not.”

Lukhnov drew two candles nearer to him, took out a large brown pocket- book full of paper money, and slowly, as if performing some rite, opened it on the table, took out two one-hundred rubles notes and placed them under the cards.

“Two hundred for the bank, the same as yesterday,” said he, adjusting his spectacles and opening a pack of cards.

“Very well,” said Ilyin, continuing his conversation with Turbin without looking at Lukhnov.

The game started. Lukhnov dealt the cards with machine-like precision, stopping now and then and deliberately jotting something down, or looking sternly over his spectacles and saying in low tones, “Pass up!” The fat landowner spoke louder than anyone else, audibly deliberating with himself and wetting his plump fingers when he turned down the corner of a card. The garrison officer silently and neatly noted the amount of his stake on his card and bent down small corners under the table. The Greek sat beside the banker, watching the game attentively with his sunken black eyes, and seemed to be waiting for something. Zavalshevski, standing by the table, would suddenly begin to fidget all over, take a red or blue bank-note [Footnote: Five-ruble notes were blue and ten-ruble notes red.] out of his trouser pocket, lay a card on it, slap it with his palm, and say, “Little seven, pull me through!” Then he would bite his moustache, shift from foot to foot, and keep fidgeting till his card was dealt. Ilyin sat eating veal and pickled cucumbers, which were placed beside him on the horse hair sofa, and hastily wiping his hands on his coat laid down one card after another. Turbin, who at first was sitting on the sofa, quickly saw how matters stood. Lukhnov did not look at or speak to Ilyin, only now and then his spectacles would turn for a moment towards the latter’s hand, but most of Ilyin’s cards lost.

“There now, I’d like to beat that card,” said Lukhnov of a card the fat landowner, who was staking half-rubles, had put down.

“You beat Ilyin’s, never mind me!” remarked the squire.

And indeed Ilyin’s cards lost more often than any of the others. He would tear up the losing card nervously under the table and choose another with trembling fingers. Turbin rose from the sofa and asked the Greek to let him sit by the banker. The Greek moved to another place; the count took his chair and began watching Lukhnov’s hands attentively, not taking his eyes off them.

“Ilyin!” he suddenly said in his usual voice, which quiet unintentionally drowned all the others. “Why do you keep to a routine? You don’t know how to play.”

“It’s all the same how one plays.”

“But you’re sure to lose that way. Let me play for you.”

“No, please excuse me. I always do it myself. play for yourself if you like.”

“I said I should not play for myself, but I should like to play for you. I am vexed that you are losing.”

“I suppose it’s my fate.”

The count was silent, but leaning on his elbows he again gazed intently at the banker’s hands.

“Abominable!” he suddenly said in a loud, long-drawn tone.

Lukhnov glanced at him.

“Abominable, quite abominable!” he repeated still louder, looking straight into Lukhnov’s eyes.

The game continued.

“It is not right!” Turbin remarked again, just as Lukhnov beat a heavily backed card of Ilyin’s.

“What is it you don’t like, Count?” inquired the banker with polite indifference.

“This! - that you let Ilyin win his simples and beat his corners. That’s what’s bad.”

Lukhnov made a slight movement with his brows and shoulders, expressing the advisability of submitting to fate in everything, and continued to play.

“Blucher!” shouted the count, rising and whistling to the dog. “At him!” he added quickly.

Blucher, bumping his back against the sofa as he leapt from under it and nearly upsetting the garrison officer, ran to his master and growled, looking around at everyone and moving his tail as if asking, “Who is misbehaving here, eh?”

Lukhnov put down his cards and moved his chair to one side.

“One can’t play like that,” he said. “I hate dogs. What kind of a game is it when you bring a whole pack of hounds in here?”

“Especially a dog like that. I believe they are called ‘leeches,’” chimed in the garrison officer.

“Well, are we going to play or not, Michael Vasilich?” said Lukhnov to their host.

“Please don’t interfere with us, Count,” said Ilyin, turning to Turbin.

“Come here a minute,” said Turbin, taking Ilyin’s arm and going behind the partition with him.

The count’s words, spoken in his usual tone, were distinctly audible from there. His voice always carried across three rooms.

“Are you daft, eh? Don’t you see that that gentleman in spectacles is a sharper of the first water?”

“Come now, enough! What are you saying?”

“No enough about it! Stop playing, I tell you. It’s nothing to me. Another time I’d pluck you myself, but somehow I’m sorry to see you fleeced. And maybe you have Crown money too?”

“No . . . why do you imagine such things?”

“Ah, my lad, I’ve been that way myself so I know all those sharpers’ tricks. I tell you the one in spectacles is a sharper. Stop playing! I ask you as a comrade.”

“Well then, I’ll only finish this one deal.”

“I know what ‘one deal’ means. Well, we’ll see.”

They went back. In that one deal Ilyin put down so many cards and so many of them were beaten that he lost a large amount.

Turbin put his hands in the middle of the table “Now stop it! Come along.”

“No, I can’t. Leave me alone, do!” said Ilyin, irritably shuffling some bent cards without looking at Turbin.

“Well, go to the devil! Go on losing for certain, if that pleases you. It’s time for me to be off. Let’s go to the Marshal’s, Savalshevski.”

They went out. All remained silent and Lukhnov dealt no more cards until the sound of their steps and of Blucher’s claws on the passage floor had died away.

“What a devil of a fellow!” said the landowner, laughing.

“Well, he won’t interfere now,” remarked the garrison officer hastily, and still in a whisper.

And the play continued.

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