'Oh, please, Vasily Dmitrich,' Natasha was saying. 'Do come and dance.'
'Oh, Countess, weally and twuly, I . . .' Denisov was saying.
'Come off it, Vaska,' said Nikolay.
'They're stwoking me like a kitten,' said Denisov with great good humour.
'I'll sing for you - all night!' said Natasha.
'Little sorsowess, she's got me wapped awound her little finger!' said Denisov, unbuckling his sabre. He came out from behind the chairs, took his partner firmly by the hand, tilted his head back and put one foot forward, waiting for the beat. Denisov's short stature went unnoticed only when he was on horseback or dancing the mazurka; then he looked every inch the dashing hero he always felt himself to be. When the beat came round he gave a smile of triumph, took a sideways glance at his partner, suddenly stamped his foot and leapt off the floor like a rubber ball, soaring away and whirling his partner round with him. He swooped silently half-way across the room on one foot, heading straight for some chairs which he didn't seem to have seen, only to stop dead suddenly, spurs jingling, legs apart, down on his heels, holding it there for a second, then off again, stamping both feet, jangling his spurs, spinning round dizzily, clicking his heels, swooping off into another turn. Instinctively aware of what he was going to do next, Natasha abandoned herself and followed his lead quite unconsciously. He whirled her round on his right arm, then on his left, dropped down on one knee and guided her round, then leapt up again and galloped away madly as if he intended sweeping through every room in the palace without stopping for breath. But then - a sudden stop, a pause, and off again into some new and adventurous steps. With a final swirling flourish he swung his partner back into her place, halted smartly with jingling spurs and bowed to her, but Natasha didn't even curtsey in return. She was staring at him quizzically with a smile on her puzzled face, as if she didn't know him.
'What was that all about?' she said.
Although Iogel refused to accept this kind of dancing as a proper mazurka, everyone was delighted with Denisov's performance, and he was in great demand as a partner. Meanwhile old gentlemen smiled the time away, going on about Poland and the good old days, and as for Denisov, red in the face from his exertions in the mazurka and mopping his brow with a handkerchief, he sat down next to Natasha and never left her side for the rest of the evening.
CHAPTER 13
For the next two days Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own home, nor did he catch him in when he called. On the third day he received a note from him.
Since I have no intention of visiting your house again for reasons which are well known to you, and I am going back to join the regiment soon, I am giving a farewell supper tonight for my friends. Come to the English Hotel.
Shortly before ten o'clock that evening Rostov went on to the English Hotel from the theatre where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was taken straight to the best room in the hotel, which Dolokhov had hired for the night.
A couple of dozen young men were gathered around a table where Dolokhov was sitting between two candles. There were gold coins and banknotes on the table, and Dolokhov was keeping the bank. Nikolay had not seen him since his proposal and Sonya's refusal, and he felt some embarrassment at the thought of meeting him again.
Dolokhov's clear, cold eyes met Rostov even as he came in through the door, as if he had long been waiting for him.
'We haven't met for some time,' he said. 'Thanks for coming. Just let me finish dealing - and Ilyushka will soon be here with his singers.'
'I called on you several times,' said Rostov, reddening.
Dolokhov didn't respond.
'You can place your bet now,' he said.
Rostov instantly recalled a curious conversation he had once had with Dolokhov, who had said to him, 'Relying on luck's a fool's game.'
'Unless you're too scared to bet against me?' Dolokhov said now, as if he could guess what was going through Rostov's mind, and he smiled. Rostov could see lurking behind that smile the same mood that had settled on him at the club dinner, and on other occasions when Dolokhov had seemed to be tired of life with its dull routine and desperate to escape from it by doing something reckless and usually cruel.
Rostov felt uneasy. He racked his brains for some flippant response to Dolokhov's words, but couldn't think of anything. And while he was gathering his thoughts Dolokhov looked him straight in the face and said with slow deliberation for all to hear, 'Remember what we used to say about relying on luck? . . . It's a fool's game. You should play safe, and I'd like to have a go.'
'What at - relying on luck or playing safe?' wondered Rostov. 'No, you'd better stay out of it,' Dolokhov added. Snapping down a newly opened pack, he said, 'Gentlemen, the bank!'
Pushing some money forward, Dolokhov started to deal.
Rostov sat down next to him. At first he held back. Dolokhov kept glancing at him.
'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
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 offhandedly, '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.
Dolokhov cut him short as if to remind Rostov that this was no laughing matter.
'When shall I have the money, Count?'
Rostov blushed as he drew Dolokhov aside into the next room.
'I can't pay it all just like that. Will you take an IOU?'
'Listen, Rostov,' said Dolokhov with a sunny smile, looking Nikolay straight in the eye, 'you know what they say, "Lucky in love, unlucky at cards." Your cousin's in love with you. I know that.'
'Oh! How horrible to be like this - in this man's power,' thought Rostov. He knew what a shock the news of this loss would be to his father and mother - oh, if only he could be rid of it all! - and he sensed that Dolokhov now wanted to play cat and mouse with him, in the full knowledge that only he could free him from all the shame and grief.
'Your cousin . . .' Dolokhov started to say, but Nikolay cut him short.
'My cousin has nothing to do with this! Keep her out of it!' he cried with fury.
'When do I get it, then?' asked Dolokhov.
'Tomorrow,' said Rostov, and left the room.
CHAPTER 15
To utter the word 'tomorrow' with a semblance of politeness was not too difficult, but to arrive home alone, to see sisters and brother, mother and father, to confess and ask for money which he had no right to after giving his word of honour, was ghastly.
They were still up. The younger members of the family had come back from the theatre to a good supper, and were now gathered round the clavichord. The moment Nikolay set foot in the hall he felt himself absorbed into the poetic atmosphere of love which had ruled their household that winter and seemed to have intensified around Sonya and Natasha ever since Dolokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, like pressure building up before a storm. Sonya and Natasha, still wearing the light-blue dresses they had worn for the theatre, stood by the clavichord, pretty girls and conscious of it, happy and smiling. Vera was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawing-room. The old countess, waiting for her son and her husband to come home, was playing patience with an elderly gentlewoman who lived in with them. Denisov, with his gleaming eyes and unkempt hair, was sitting at the clavichord with one leg pushed back behind him, playing chords with his stubby little fingers and rolling his eyes as he applied his thin, reedy but tuneful voice to a poem of his own composition, 'The Sorceress', which he was trying to set to music.
O sorcewess, what is this
power that lingers,
Weturning me to my forsaken lyre?
What wapture this that floods into my fingers?
Why did you fill my waging heart with fire?
He was singing with great passion, his black, agate eyes gleaming at the frightened but delighted Natasha.
'Oh, that's splendid! Perfect!' Natasha cried. 'Another verse please,' she said, not noticing Nikolay.
'Nothing's changed here,' thought Nikolay, glancing into the drawing-room, where he could see Vera and his mother and the old lady sitting with her.
'Oh, here he is! Nikolay!' Natasha ran over to him.
'Is Papa back yet?' he asked.
'Oh, I'm so pleased you've come,' said Natasha, ignoring his question. 'We're having such a marvellous time. Vasily Dmitrich is staying on another day just for me. Did you know?'
'No, Papa is still out,' answered Sonya.
'Darling Nikolay, is that you? Come here, my dear,' came the old countess's voice from the drawing-room. Nikolay went in to see his mother, kissed her hand, sat down by her table and started to watch her hands in silence as they placed the cards. From the hall came the sounds of laughter and happy voices urging Natasha to sing.
'All wight! All wight!' Denisov cried. 'No excuses now, it's your turn to sing the barcawolle - at my wequest!'
The countess glanced at her silent son.
'Is something wrong?' she asked him.
'No, no,' he said, as if he'd heard this question many times before and was getting fed up with it. 'Will Papa be long?'
'No, I shouldn't think so.'
'Nothing's changed here. They don't know a thing about it. What can I do with myself?' thought Nikolay, and he went back into the hall where they were playing the clavichord.
Sonya was at the keyboard, playing the prelude to Denisov's favourite barcarolle. Natasha was getting ready to sing. Denisov was watching her, enraptured. Nikolay began pacing up and down the room.
'Why do they want to get her singing? What can she sing? There's nothing to be happy about,' thought Nikolay.