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Page 30
"The truth of the matter in his case," said Lieutenant O., "was that he
used to cheat everybody; it was impossible to play with him."
"He cheated every one, but now it's all gone up in his pipe;" and here
Captain S. laughed good-naturedly. "Our friend Guskof here lives with
him. He hasn't quite lost HIM yet: that's so, isn't it, old fellow?"
[Footnote: Batenka] he asked, addressing Guskof.
Guskof tried to laugh. It was a melancholy, sickly laugh, which
completely changed the expression of his countenance. Till this moment
it had seemed to me that I had seen and known this man before; and,
besides the name Guskof, by which Captain S. called him, was familiar to
me; but how and when I had seen and known him, I actually could not
remember.
"Yes," said Guskof, incessantly putting his hand to his moustaches, but
instantly dropping it again without touching them. "Pavel Dmitrievitch's
luck has been against him in this expedition, such a veine de malheur"
he added in a careful but pure French pronunciation, again giving me to
think that I had seen him, and seen him often, somewhere. "I know Pavel
Dmitrievitch very well. He has great confidence in me," he proceeded to
say; "he and I are old friends; that is, he is fond of me," he
explained, evidently fearing that it might be taken as presumption for
him to claim old friendship with the adjutant. "Pavel Dmitrievitch plays
admirably; but now, strange as it may seem, it's all up with him, he is
just about perfectly ruined; la chance a tourne," he added, addressing
himself particularly to me.
At first we had listened to Guskof with condescending attention; but as
soon as he made use of that second French phrase, we all involuntarily
turned from him.
"I have played with him a thousand times, and we agreed then that it was
strange," said Lieutenant O., with peculiar emphasis on the word STRANGE
[Footnote: Stranno]. "I never once won a ruble from him. Why was it,
when I used to win of others?"
"Pavel Dmitrievitch plays admirably: I have known him for a long time,"
said I. In fact, I had known the adjutant for several years; more than
once I had seen him in the full swing of a game, surrounded by officers,
and I had remarked his handsome, rather gloomy and always passionless
calm face, his deliberate Malo-Russian pronunciation, his handsome
belongings and horses, his bold, manly figure, and above all his skill
and self-restraint in carrying on the game accurately and agreeably.
More than once, I am sorry to say, as I looked at his plump white hands
with a diamond ring on the index-finger, passing out one card after
another, I grew angry with that ring, with his white hands, with the
whole of the adjutant's person, and evil thoughts on his account arose
in my mind. But as I afterwards reconsidered the matter coolly, I
persuaded myself that he played more skilfully than all with whom he
happened to play: the more so, because as I heard his general
observations concerning the game,--how one ought not to back out when
one had laid the smallest stake, how one ought not to leave off in
certain cases as the first rule for honest men, and so forth, and so
forth,--it was evident that he was always on the winning side merely
from the fact that he played more sagaciously and coolly than the rest
of us. And now it seemed that this self-reliant, careful player had been
stripped not only of his money but of his effects, which marks the
lowest depths of loss for an officer.
"He always had devilish good luck with me," said Lieutenant O. "I made a
vow never to play with him again."
"What a marvel you are, old fellow!" said S., nodding at me, and
addressing O. "You lost three hundred silver rubles, that's what you
lost to him."
"More than that," said the lieutenant savagely.
"And now you have come to your senses; it is rather late in the day, old
man, for the rest of us have known for a long time that he was the cheat
of the regiment," said S., with difficulty restraining his laughter, and
feeling very well satisfied with his fabrication. "Here is Guskof right
here,--he FIXES his cards for him. That's the reason of the friendship
between them, old man" [Footnote: BATENKA MOI] . . . and Captain S.,
shaking all over, burst out into such a hearty "ha, ha, ha!" that he
spilt the glass of mulled wine which he was holding in his hand. On
Guskof's pale emaciated face there showed something like a color; he
opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his moustaches, and
once more dropped them to his side where the pockets should have been,
stood up, and then sat down again, and finally in an unnatural voice
said to S.:
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