War and Peace (63 page)

“They coax me like the pussy-cat Vaska,” said Denisov good-humouredly.

“I’ll sing to you a whole evening,” said Natasha.

“The little witch, she can do anything with me!” said Denisov; and he unhooked his sword. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his partner firmly by the hand, raised his head and stood with one foot behind the other, waiting for the time. It was only on horseback and in the mazurka that Denisov’s low stature was not noticeable, and that he looked the dashing hero he felt himself to be. At the right bar in the time he glanced sideways with a triumphant and amused air at his partner, and making an unexpected tap with one foot he bounded springily like a ball from the floor and flew round, whirling his partner round with him. He flew inaudibly across the hall with one leg forward, and seemed not to see the chairs standing before him, darting straight at them; but all at once with a clink of his spurs and a flourish of his foot he stopped short on his
heels, stood so a second, with a clanking of spurs stamped with both feet, whirled rapidly round, and clapping the left foot against the right, again he flew round. Natasha’s instinct told her what he was going to do, and without herself knowing how she did it, she followed his lead, abandoning herself to him. At one moment he spun her round, first on his right arm, then on his left arm, then falling on one knee, twirled her round him and again galloped, dashing forward with such vehemence that he seemed to intend to race through the whole suite of rooms without taking breath. Then he stopped suddenly again and executed new and unexpected steps in the dance. When after spinning his partner round before her seat he drew up smartly with a clink of his spurs, bowing to her, Natasha did not even make him a curtsey. She looked at him smiling with a puzzled face, as though she did not recognise him.

“What does it mean?” she said.

Although Iogel would not acknowledge this mazurka as the real one, every one was enchanted with Denisov’s dancing of it, and he was continually being chosen as partner; while the old gentlemen, smiling, talked about Poland and the good old days. Denisov, flushed with his exertions and mopping his face with his handkerchief, sat by Natasha and would not leave her side all the rest of the ball.

For two days after the dance, Rostov had not seen Dolohov at his people’s house nor found him at home; on the third day he received a note from him.

“As I do not intend to be at your house again owing to causes of which you are aware, and am going to rejoin the regiment, I am giving a farewell supper to my friends—come to the English Hotel.” On the day fixed Rostov went at about ten o’clock, from the theatre where he had been with his family and Denisov, to the English Hotel. He was at once conducted to the best room in the hotel, which Dolohov had taken for the occasion.

Some twenty men were gathered about a table before which Dolohov was sitting between two candles. On the table lay money and notes, and Dolohov was keeping the bank. Nikolay had not seen him again since his offer and Sonya’s refusal, and he felt uneasy at the thought of meeting him.

Dolohov’s clear, cold glance met Rostov in the doorway as though he had been expecting him a long while.

“It’s a long while since we’ve met,” said he; “thanks for coming. I’ll just finish dealing here, and Ilyushka will make his appearance with his chorus.”

“I did go to see you,” said Rostov, flushing.

Dolohov made him no reply.

“You might put down a stake,” he said.

Rostov recalled at that instant a strange conversation he once had with Dolohov. “None but fools trust to luck in play,” Dolohov had said then. “Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dolohov said now, as though divining Rostov’s thought; and he smiled. Behind his smile Rostov saw in him that mood which he had seen in him at the club dinner and at other times, when Dolohov seemed, as it were, weary of the monotony of daily life, and felt a craving to escape from it by some strange, for the most part cruel, act.

Rostov felt ill at ease; he racked his brain and could not find in it a joke in which to reply to Dolohov’s words. But before he had time to do so, Dolohov, looking straight into Rostov’s face, said to him slowly and deliberately so that all could hear: “Do you remember, I was talking to you about play … he’s a fool who trusts to luck in play; one must play a sure game, and I want to try.”

“Try his luck, or try to play a sure game?” wondered Rostov.

“Indeed, and you’d better not play,” he added; and throwing down a pack he had just torn open, he said, “Bank, gentlemen!”

Moving the money forward, Dolohov began dealing.

Rostov sat near him, and at first he did not play. Dolohov glanced at him.

“Why don’t you play?” said Dolohov. And strange to say, Nikolay felt that he could not help taking up a card, staking a trifling sum on it, and beginning to play.

“I have no money with me,” said Rostov.

“I’ll trust you!”

Rostov staked five roubles on a card and lost it, staked again and again lost. Dolohov “killed,” that is, beat ten cards in succession from Rostov.

“Gentlemen,” he said, after dealing again for a little while, “I beg you to put the money on the cards or else I shall get muddled over the reckoning.”

One of the players said that he hoped he could trust him.

“I can trust you, but I’m afraid of making mistakes; I beg you to lay the money on the cards,” answered Dolohov. “You needn’t worry, we’ll settle our accounts,” he added to Rostov.

The play went on; a footman never ceased carrying round champagne.

All Rostov’s cards were beaten, and the sum of eight hundred roubles was scored against him. He wrote on a card eight hundred roubles, but while champagne was being poured out for him, he changed his mind and again wrote down the usual stake, twenty roubles.

“Leave it,” said Dolohov, though he did not seem to be looking at Rostov; “you’ll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the rest, while I win from you. Or perhaps you are afraid of me,” he repeated.

Rostov excused himself, left the stake of eight hundred and laid down the seven of hearts, a card with a corner torn, which he had picked up from the ground. Well he remembered that card afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts, wrote on it with a broken piece of chalk 800 in bold round figures; he drank the glass of warmed champagne that had been given him, smiled at Dolohov’s words, and with a sinking at his heart, waiting for the seven of hearts, he watched Dolohov’s hands that held the pack. The loss or gain of that card meant a great deal for Rostov. On the previous Sunday Count Ilya Andreitch had given his son two thousand roubles, and though he never liked speaking of money difficulties, he told him that this money was the last they would get till May, and so he begged him to be a little more careful. Nikolay said that that was too much really for him, and that he would give him his word of honour not to come for more before May. Now there was only twelve hundred out of that two thousand left. So that on the seven of hearts there hung not merely the loss of sixteen hundred roubles, but the consequent inevitable betrayal of his word. With a sinking heart he watched Dolohov’s hands and thought: “Well, make haste and deal me that card and I’ll take my cap and drive home to supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and I’m sure I’ll never take a card in my hand again.” At that moment his home life, his jokes with Petya, his talks with Sonya, his duets with Natasha, his game of picquet with his father, even his comfortable bed in the house in Povarsky, rose before his imagination with such vividness, such brightness, and such charm, that it seemed as though it were all some long past, lost, and hitherto unappreciated happiness. He could not conceive that a stupid chance, leading the seven to
the right rather than to the left, could deprive him of all that happiness felt now with new comprehension and seen in a new radiance, could hurl him into the abyss of unknown and undefined misery. It could not be; but yet it was with a thrill of dread that he waited for the movement of Dolohov’s hands. Those broad-boned, reddish hands, with hairs visible under the shirt-cuffs, laid down the pack of cards and took up the glass and pipe that had been handed him.

“So you’re not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dolohov; and as though he were about to tell a good story, he laid down the cards, leaned back in his chair, and began deliberately with a smile:

“Yes, gentlemen, I have been told there’s a story going about Moscow that I’m too sharp with cards, so I advise you to be a little on your guard with me.”

“Come, deal away!” said Rostov.

“Ugh, these Moscow gossips!” said Dolohov, and he took up the cards with a smile.

“Aaah!” Rostov almost screamed, putting both his hands up to his hair. The seven he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost more than he could pay.

“Don’t swim beyond your depth, though,” said Dolohov, with a passing glance at Rostov, and he went on.

Within an hour and a half the greater number of the players were no longer seriously interested in their own play.

The whole interest of the game was concentrated on Rostov. Instead of a mere loss of sixteen hundred roubles he had by now scored against him a long column of figures, which he had added up to the tenth thousand, though he vaguely supposed that by now it had risen to fifteen thousand. In reality the score already exceeded twenty thousand roubles. Dolohov was not now listening to stories, or telling them, he followed every movement of Rostov’s hands, and from time to time took a cursory survey of his score with him. He had resolved to keep the play up till that score had reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on that number because it represented the sum of his and Sonya’s ages. Rostov sat with his head propped in both hands, before the wine-stained table scrawled over with scorings and littered with cards. One torturing sensation
never left him; those broad-boned, reddish hands, with the hairs visible under the shirt-cuffs, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power.

“Six hundred roubles, ace, corner, nine; winning it back’s out of the question!… And how happy I should be at home.… The knave double or quits, it can’t be!… And why is he doing this to me?…” Rostov pondered and thought. Sometimes he put a higher stake on a card; but Dolohov refused it and fixed the stake himself. Nikolay submitted to him, and at one moment he was praying to God, as he had prayed under fire on the bridge of Amschteten; at the next he tried his fortune on the chance that the card that he would first pick up among the heap of crumpled ones under the table would save him; then he reckoned up the rows of braidings on his coat, and tried staking the whole amount of his losses on a card of that number, then he looked round for help to the others playing, or stared into Dolohov’s face, which looked quite cold now, and tried to penetrate into what was passing within him.

“He knows, of course, what this loss means to me. Surely he can’t want me to be ruined? Why, he was my friend. I loved him.… But, indeed, it’s not his fault; what’s he to do, if he has all the luck? And it’s not my fault,” he kept saying to himself. “I have done nothing wrong. I haven’t murdered or hurt any one, or wished any one harm, have I? What is this awful calamity for? And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with the idea of winning a hundred roubles, and buying mamma that little casket for her name-day, and going home. I was so happy, so free, so light-hearted. And I didn’t even know then how happy I was. When did all that end, and when did this new awful state of things begin? What was the outward token of that change? I still went on sitting in the same place at this table, and in the same way picking out cards and putting them forward, and watching those deft, broad-boned hands. When did it come to pass, and what has come to pass? I am strong and well, and still the same, and still in the same place. No; it cannot be. It will all be sure to end in nothing.”

He was all red and in a sweat though the room was not hot. And his face was painful and piteous to see, particularly from its helpless efforts to seem calm.

The score reached the fateful number of forty-three thousand roubles. Rostov already had the card ready which he meant to stake for double or quits on the three thousand, that had just been put down to his
score, when Dolohov slapped the pack of cards down on the table, pushed it away, and taking the chalk began rapidly in his clear, strong hand, writing down the total of Rostov’s losses, breaking the chalk as he did so.

“Supper, supper-time. And here are the gypsies.” And some swarthy men and women did in fact come in from the cold outside, saying something with their gypsy accent. Nikolay grasped that it was all over; but he said in an indifferent voice:

“What, won’t you go on? And I have such a nice little card all ready.” As though what chiefly interested him was the game itself.

“It’s all over, I’m done for,” he thought. “Now a bullet through the head’s the only thing left for me,” and at the same time he was saying in a cheerful voice:

“Come, just one more card.”

“Very good,” answered Dolohov, finishing his addition. “Very good. Twenty-one roubles … done,” he said, pointing to the figure 21, over and above the round sum of forty-three thousand, and taking a pack, he made ready to deal, Rostov submissively turned down the corner, and instead of the 8000 he had meant to write, noted down 21.

“It’s all the same to me,” he said; “only it’s interesting to me to know whether you will win on that ten or let me have it.”

Dolohov began seriously dealing. Oh, how Rostov hated at that moment those reddish hands, with their short fingers and the hairs visible under the shirt sleeves, those hands that held him in their clutches.… The ten was not beaten. “Forty-three thousand to your score, count,” said Dolohov, and he got up from the table stretching. “One does get tired sitting so long,” he said.

“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostov.

Dolohov cut him short, as though to warn him it was not for him to take a light tone.

“When am I to receive the money, count?”