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Rostv submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts, on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written “800 rubles” in clear upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed him, smiled at Dlokhov’s words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dlokhov’s hands which held the pack. Much depended on Rostv’s winning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the previous Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and though he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told Nicholas that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him to be more economical this time. Nicholas had replied that it would be more than enough for him and that he gave his word of honor not to take anything more till the spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left of that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his word. With a sinking heart he watched Dlokhov’s hands and thought, “Now then, make haste and let me have this card and I’ll take my cap and drive home to supper with Densov, Natsha, and Snya, and will certainly never touch a card again.” At that moment his home life, jokes with Ptya, talks with Snya, duets with Natsha, piquet with his father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskya rose before him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as if it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not conceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right rather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly appreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of unknown and undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a sinking heart the movement of Dlokhov’s hands. Those broad, reddish hands, with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down the pack and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.
“So you are not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dlokhov, and as if about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his chair, and began deliberately with a smile:
“Yes, gentlemen, I’ve been told there’s a rumor going about Moscow that I’m a sharper, so I advise you to be careful.”
“Come now, deal!” exclaimed Rostv.
“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dlokhov, and he took up the cards with a smile.
“Aah!” Rostv almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The seven he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost more than he could pay.
“Still, don’t ruin yourself!” said Dlokhov with a side glance at Rostv as he continued to deal.
An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested in their own play.
The whole interest was concentrated on Rostv. Instead of sixteen hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him, which he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dlokhov was no longer listening to stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostv’s hands and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had decided to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on that number because forty-three was the sum of his and Snya’s joint ages. Rostv, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the table which was scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and littered with cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that those broad-boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power.
“Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back’s impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or quits... it can’t be!... And why is he doing this to me?” Rostv pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dlokhov refused to accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other players, or peered at the now cold face of Dlokhov and tried to read what was passing in his mind.
“He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can’t want my ruin. Wasn’t he my friend? Wasn’t I fond of him? But it’s not his fault. What’s he to do if he has such luck?... And it’s not my fault either,” he thought to himself, “I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone, or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune? And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma’s name day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted! And I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did this new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the change? I sat all the time in this same place at this table, chose and placed cards, and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same way. When did it happen and what has happened? I am well and strong and still the same and in the same place. No, it can’t be! Surely it will all end in nothing!”
He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot. His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless efforts to seem calm.
The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand. Rostv had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dlokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding up the total of Rostv’s debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the figures in his clear, bold hand.
“Supper, it’s time for supper! And here are the gypsies!”
Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:
“Well, won’t you go on? I had a splendid card all ready,” as if it were the fun of the game which interested him most.
“It’s all up! I’m lost!” thought he. “Now a bullet through my brain—that’s all that’s left me!” And at the same time he said in a cheerful voice:
