An hour and a half went past, by which time most of the gamblers had lost all serious interest in their own play. All eyes were on Rostov. Instead of a mere sixteen hundred roubles he now had written up against him a long column of figures, which he would have put at something coming up to ten thousand, though a vague impression was dawning on him that it might have risen to fifteen thousand. In fact the total had already gone past twenty thousand roubles. Dolokhov was no longer listening to stories or telling them, he was following every movement of Rostov’s hands, with the odd passing glance at the total against him. He had decided to keep the game going until the total reached forty-three thousand. He had lighted on this figure because forty-three represented his age and Sonya’s added together. The table was a mess of wine stains, cards and chalk-marks, and Rostov sat there with his head in both hands. One impression tormented him relentlessly – those broad, reddish-coloured hands with the hairs curling out from the shirt-cuffs, those hands, loved and loathed, which held him in their power.
‘Six hundred roubles, ace, corner there,11 nine . . . No chance of winning it back! . . . How nice it would have been at home . . . Jack, no, it can’t be! . . . Why is he doing this to me? . . .’ Rostov wondered, thinking back. Now and then he went for a high stake, but Dolokhov would always decline and fix the stake himself. Nikolay always complied. One minute he was praying as he had done under fire on the bridge over the Enns; the next he was speculating that he might save himself by picking up the first card that came to hand in the crumpled pile under the table; then he counted the cords on his jacket and tried staking all his losses on a card with that number; then he looked round helplessly at the other gamblers, or stared into Dolokhov’s coldly impassive face and tried to work out what was going on inside him.
‘He knows full well what this loss means to me,’ he told himself. ‘Does he want to ruin me? He was my friend. I loved him . . . But it’s not really his fault – he can’t help it if he has a run of luck. It’s not my fault either,’ he kept saying to himself. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t murdered anybody or offended anybody. I don’t wish anybody any harm. Where did this disaster come from? When did it start? It all happened so quickly – I just sat down at this table thinking I might win a hundred roubles and buy Mamma that little casket for her name-day, and then go home. I was happy and free and in such a good mood. I didn’t realize how happy I was. When did that end, and when did this ghastly business begin? What signalled the change? I just stayed here in my place at this table picking out cards and pushing them forward, and watching those broad hands doing their tricks. What’s happened to me, and when did it happen? I’m fit and well, still the same, still in the same place. It’s just not possible. Surely it’s all going to come to nothing.’
He was red and sweating even though the room was not hot. His face looked terrible, a pathetic sight, all the worse for his useless efforts to look calm.
His total reached the fateful number – forty-three thousand. Rostov had just bent the corner of a new card to double up on the last three thousand put down to him when Dolokhov slammed the cards down on the table, pushed them to one side, took a piece of chalk and began totting up Rostov’s losses rapidly in his clear, bold hand. The chalk snapped as he did so.
‘Supper! Supper is served! And the gypsies are here.’ And indeed, some swarthy men and women were coming in from the cold, saying something in a gypsy accent. Nikolay knew it was all over, but he managed to say off-handedly, ‘Oh, aren’t we going on then? I had such a nice little card ready,’ as if the only thing that mattered to him was the fun of playing.
‘That’s it. I’m finished,’ he thought. ‘A bullet through my head – it’s the only way out,’ but his voice spoke breezily: ‘Come on, just one more card.’
‘All right,’ answered Dolokhov, finishing his adding up. ‘All right. Twenty-one roubles it is,’ he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one, the amount by which his total exceeded forty-three thousand. He took a new pack and sat there ready to deal. Rostov bent the corner of his card, but instead of the intended six thousand he complied with Dolokhov and carefully wrote down twenty-one.
‘I don’t mind one way or the other,’ he said. ‘I’d just like to know whether you’ll win or lose on that ten.’
Dolokhov had a grave look about him as he dealt. Oh, how Rostov loathed those reddish-coloured hands, with their stubby fingers and the hairs curling out from the shirt sleeves, those hands that had him in their power . . . The ten came up.
‘Forty-three thousand against you, Count,’ said Dolokhov, stretching as he rose from the table. ‘All this sitting down makes you feel tired,’ he said.
‘Yes, I’m tired too,’ said Rostov.
