“Well, enough, enough!” I exclaimed, “I won’t protest, take it! Prince . . . where are the prince and Darzan? Gone? Gentlemen, did you see where the prince and Darzan went?” and, having finally picked up all my money, and holding in my hand several half-imperials I hadn’t had time to put in my pocket, I started after the prince and Darzan. The reader can see, I believe, that I’m not sparing myself and that I’m recollecting all of myself as I was at that moment, to the last vileness, so that what came afterwards will be understood.
The prince and Darzan had already gone downstairs, not paying the least attention to my calls and cries. I caught up with them, but paused for a second before the doorman and put three half-imperials in his hand, devil knows why; he looked at me in perplexity and didn’t even thank me. But it was all the same to me, and if Matvei had been there, I surely would have dished out a whole fistful of gold pieces, and it seems that’s what I wanted to do, but, running out to the porch, I suddenly recalled that I had dismissed him earlier. At that moment the prince’s trotter drove up, and he got into the sledge.
“I’m coming with you, Prince, to your place!” I cried, seized the flap and flung it open so as to get into his sledge; but Darzan suddenly jumped into the sledge past me, and the driver, tearing the flap from my hands, covered the two gentlemen.
“Devil take it!” I cried in frenzy. It came out as if I had unfastened the flap for Darzan, like a lackey.
“Home!” cried the prince.
“Stop!” I bellowed, clutching at the sledge, but the horse pulled, and I tumbled into the snow. It even seemed to me that they laughed. Jumping up, I instantly grabbed the first cab that came along and raced to the prince’s, urging my nag on every second.
IV
AS IF ON PURPOSE, the nag crawled on for an unnaturally long time, though I had promised a whole rouble. The driver kept whipping her up and, of course, whipped her enough for a rouble. My heart was sinking; I tried to start talking with the driver, but I couldn’t even get the words out, and mumbled some sort of nonsense. That was the state I was in when I ran up to the prince’s. He had just returned; he had taken Darzan home and was alone. Pale and angry, he was pacing his study. I repeat once more: he had lost terribly. He looked at me with some sort of distracted perplexity.
“You again!” he said, frowning.
“So as to have done with you, sir!” I said breathlessly. “How dared you act that way with me?”
He looked at me questioningly.
“If you were going with Darzan, you might just have told me you were going with Darzan, instead of which you started the horse, and I . . .”
“Ah, yes, it seems you fell in the snow,” and he laughed in my face.
“The response to that is a challenge, and therefore we shall first finish with our accounts . . .”
And with a trembling hand I began taking my money out and placing it on the sofa, on a little marble table, and even into some open book, in piles, handfuls, wads; several coins rolled onto the carpet.
“Ah, yes, it seems you won? . . . One can tell it by your tone.”
Never before had he spoken so impudently with me. I was very pale.
“Here . . . I don’t know how much . . . has to be counted. I owe you up to three thousand . . . or how much? . . . more or less?”
“I don’t believe I’m forcing you to pay.”
“No, sir, I myself want to pay, and you should know why. I know there’s a thousand roubles in this wad—here!” And I started counting with trembling hands, but stopped. “Never mind, I know it’s a thousand. So I’m taking this thousand for myself, and all the rest, these piles, you can take for my debt, part of my debt. I think there’s as much as two thousand here, or maybe more!”
“But you’re still keeping a thousand for yourself ?” the prince bared his teeth.
“Do you need it? In that case . . . I wanted . . . I thought you wouldn’t want . . . but if you need it—here . . .”
“No, no need,” he turned away from me contemptuously and again began pacing the room.
“And devil knows what makes you pay it back,” he suddenly turned to me with a frightful challenge in his face.
“I’m paying it back in order to demand an accounting from you!” I yelled in my turn.
“Get out of here with your eternal words and gestures!” He suddenly stamped his feet at me as if in frenzy. “I wanted to throw you out long ago, you and your Versilov.”
“You’re out of your mind!” I cried. And it did look like it.
“The two of you have worn me out with your catchy phrases, nothing but phrases, phrases, phrases! About honor, for instance! Pah! I’ve long wanted to break . . . I’m glad, glad that the moment has come. I considered myself bound, and I blushed at being obliged to receive you . . . both! But now I don’t consider myself bound by anything, not by anything, know that! Your Versilov set me on to attack Mme. Akhmakov and disgrace her . . . Don’t you dare speak to me about honor after that. Because you’re dishonorable people . . . both, both! And weren’t you ashamed to take money from me?”
