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“Come now, just this one more little card!”
“All right!” said Dlokhov, having finished the addition. “All right! Twenty-one rubles,” he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by which the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and taking up a pack he prepared to deal. Rostv submissively unbent the corner of his card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote twenty-one.
“It’s all the same to me,” he said. “I only want to see whether you will let me win this ten, or beat it.”
Dlokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostv detested at that moment those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists, which held him in their power.... The ten fell to him.
“You owe forty-three thousand, Count,” said Dlokhov, and stretching himself he rose from the table. “One does get tired sitting so long,” he added.
“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostv.
Dlokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to jest.
“When am I to receive the money, Count?”
Rostv, flushing, drew Dlokhov into the next room.
“I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he said.
“I say, Rostv,” said Dlokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas straight in the eyes, “you know the saying, ‘Lucky in love, unlucky at cards.’ Your cousin is in love with you, I know.”
“Oh, it’s terrible to feel oneself so in this man’s power,” thought Rostv. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it all, and felt that Dlokhov knew that he could save him from all this shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a mouse.
“Your cousin...” Dlokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted him.
“My cousin has nothing to do with this and it’s not necessary to mention her!” he exclaimed fiercely.
“Then when am I to have it?”
“Tomorrow,” replied Rostv and left the room.
To say “tomorrow” and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult, but to go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father, confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor, was terrible.
At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord. As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere of love which pervaded the Rostv household that winter and, now after Dlokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to have grown thicker round Snya and Natsha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Snya and Natsha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater, looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and smiling. Vra was playing chess with Shinshn in the drawing room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Densov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called “Enchantress,” which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit music:
Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls me still? What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?
He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black-agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natsha.
“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natsha. “Another verse,” she said, without noticing Nicholas.
“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas, glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Vra and his mother with the old lady.
“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natsha, running up to him.
“Is Papa at home?” he asked.
“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natsha, without answering him. “We are enjoying ourselves! Vasli Dmtrich is staying a day longer for my sake! Did you know?”
“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Snya.
“Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!” called the old countess from the drawing room.
Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade Natsha to sing.
“All wight! All wight!” shouted Densov. “It’s no good making excuses now! It’s your turn to sing the ba’cawolla—I entweat you!”
The countess glanced at her silent son.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing,” said he, as if weary of being continually asked the same question. “Will Papa be back soon?”
“I expect so.”
“Everything’s the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where am I to go?” thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room where the clavichord stood.
Snya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Densov’s favorite barcarolle. Natsha was preparing to sing. Densov was looking at her with enraptured eyes.
Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.
“Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There’s nothing to be happy about!” thought he.
Snya struck the first chord of the prelude.
“My God, I’m a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is the only thing left me—not singing!” his thoughts ran on. “Go away? But where to? It’s one—let them sing!”
He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Densov and the girls and avoiding their eyes.
“Niklenka, what is the matter?” Snya’s eyes fixed on him seemed to ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.
Nicholas turned away from her. Natsha too, with her quick instinct, had instantly noticed her brother’s condition. But, though she noticed it, she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow, sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young people often do. “No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by sympathy with anyone’s sorrow,” she felt, and she said to herself: “No, I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am.”
