‘Not playing, then?’ he asked. And Nikolay felt a strangely irrepressible urge to take a card, stake a small sum on it and get into the game.
‘I have no money on me,’ said Rostov.
‘I’ll trust you!’
Rostov staked five roubles on a card and lost, staked again and lost again. Dolokhov ‘made a killing’ by winning ten times in succession. He had now been dealing for quite some time. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘will you please put your money on your cards, or I might get the sums wrong.’
One of the players said he hoped he could be trusted.
‘Yes, you can, but I don’t want to get anything wrong. Please put your money on your cards,’ answered Dolokhov. ‘Don’t worry, you and I can settle up later,’ he added to Rostov.
The gambling continued. A footman brought round an endless supply of champagne.
Every one of Rostov’s cards lost, and eight hundred roubles were written up against him. He made as if to stake the whole eight hundred roubles on a single card, but while champagne was being poured out for him he thought again and changed back to his normal stake of twenty roubles.
‘Leave it there,’ said Dolokhov, though he seemed to be looking away from Rostov. ‘You’ll win it back faster. I keep losing to everyone else. From you I win. Or are you afraid of me?’ he asked again.
Rostov complied, let the eight-hundred stake go ahead, and laid down the seven of hearts, a card with a torn corner which he had picked up from the floor. He would long remember that card. He laid it down, the seven of hearts, took a small piece of chalk and wrote 800 on it in big round figures. He then drank the proffered glass of warm champagne, smiled at Dolokhov’s words, and waited with a sinking heart for another seven to turn up, watching the pack in Dolokhov’s hands. Winning or losing on that card meant a lot to Rostov. Only the previous Sunday his father, Count Ilya, had given his son two thousand roubles, and although he never liked talking about money he told him this was the last he would get till May and he begged him to be a bit more careful with it. Nikolay said that this was too much anyway, and, word of honour, he wouldn’t come back for any for more until the spring. Yet already he was down to his last twelve hundred. So if he were to lose on that seven of hearts it would mean not only having to find sixteen hundred roubles, but also going back on his word. So it was with a sinking heart that he watched Dolokhov’s hands, and thought, ‘Come on, quick, deal me that card, and I’ll get my cap and go home to supper with Denisov, Natasha and Sonya, and this time I know I’ll never touch the cards again.’ At that moment his family life – joking with Petya, chatting to Sonya, singing duets with Natasha, playing piquet10 with his father, even his comfortable bed in the house on Povarskaya Street – rose up in his imagination so clear, so bright, so lovely that it seemed like something from the distant past, something lost and gone that he had never properly appreciated. He couldn’t imagine that blind chance, by arranging for the seven to appear on the right, not the left, might rob him of the happiness that he now saw in such a new light, and plunge him into an abyss of unknown and uncertain misery. Surely it could never happen, but he still watched with dread in his heart as Dolokhov’s hands began to move. Those broad, reddish-coloured hands, with hairs curling out from the shirt cuffs, laid down the pack of cards and took up the glass and pipe that were offered to him.
‘So you’re not too scared to bet against me?’ repeated Dolokhov. Putting the cards down, he rocked back in his chair as though he were about to launch into a funny story, and began to speak, grinning and refusing to be hurried.
‘So, gentlemen, in this city the word is – so they say – that I’m rather sharp with the cards. I do advise you to watch your step when you’re playing with me.’
‘Deal, will you!’ said Rostov.
‘Ugh, the gossip in Moscow!’ said Dolokhov, and he took up the cards with a smile.
‘Aagh!’ Rostov almost screamed, raising both hands to cover his hair. The seven that he needed was lying face-up on top of the pack. He had lost more than he could pay.
‘You mustn’t go ruining yourself, though,’ said Dolokhov, flashing a quick glance at Rostov as he went on dealing.
CHAPTER 14
