Collected Shorter Fiction, Volume 1

by Leo Tolstoy

  Well, Nekhlyúdov came a second and a third time and began coming often. He’d come in the morning and in the evening. Billiards, pool, snooker, he learnt them all. He grew bolder, got to know everybody, and began to play a decent game. Naturally, being a young man of good family and with money, everybody respected him. Only once he had a row with the big guest.

  It was all about a trifle.

  They played pool – the prince, the big guest, Nekhlyúdov, Oliver, and someone else. Nekhlyúdov stands by the stove talking to someone, it was the big one’s turn to play. His ball happened to come just opposite the stove: there was not much room there, and he likes to play with a big swing.

  Well, whether he didn’t see Nekhlyúdov or did it on purpose, he took a big swing at the ball and hit Nekhlyúdov hard in the chest with the butt of his cue. The poor fellow even groaned a little. And what next? He didn’t even say ‘beg pardon’ – the rude fellow – but went on without looking at him, and even muttered: ‘Why do they shove themselves forward? It has made me lose a ball.’ As if there was not plenty of room!

  The other goes up to him, very pale, and says quite politely as if nothing had happened: ‘You should apologize first, sir. You pushed me.’

  ‘It’s not the time for me to apologize. I ought to have won,’ he says, ‘and now that fellow will score off my ball.’

  The other says again: ‘You must apologize.’

  ‘Be off!’ he says. ‘Pestering like this!’ and keeps looking at his ball.

  Nekhlyúdov came still nearer and took hold of his arm.

  ‘You’re a boor, sir,’ he says.

  For all that he’s slim and young and rosy as a girl, yet his eyes glittered as fierce as if he were ready to eat him. The big guest is a strong man, and tall. Much bigger than Nekhlyúdov.

  ‘What?’ he says. ‘Do you call me a boor?’

  And he shouts, and lifts his arm to strike him, but the others there jumped up, seized their arms, and dragged them apart.

  They talk and talk – and Nekhlyúdov says:

  ‘Let him give me satisfaction! He has insulted me,’ he says – meaning that he wanted him to fight a duel. Of course they were gentlefolk – they have such customs … nothing can be done with them … in a word, they’re gentlefolk!

  ‘I won’t give him any kind of satisfaction. He’s only a boy – that’s all he is. I’ll pull his ears for him.’

  ‘If you don’t want to fight,’ he says, ‘you are not an honourable man.’ And he himself was almost weeping.

  ‘And you’re just an urchin – it’s impossible for you to insult me!’

  Well, they got them apart and took them into separate rooms, as is usually done. Nekhlyúdov was friendly with the prince.

  ‘For God’s sake go and persuade him to accept a duel,’ he says. ‘He was drunk, but he may have come to his senses by this time. The affair must not end like this.’

  The prince went. The big one says:

  ‘I have fought duels and I have fought in war, but I won’t fight a mere lad – I don’t want to: that’s all about it.’

  Well, they talked and talked and finally left off; only the big guest left off coming to our place.

  As far as sensitiveness went Nekhlyúdov was like a cockerel, very ambitious, but in other matters he had no sense at all. I remember once the prince says to him: ‘Whom have you with you here?’

  ‘Nobody,’ he says.

  ‘How’s that – nobody?’

  ‘Why should there be anybody?’

  ‘What do you mean by “Why should there be anybody?” ’

  ‘I’ve lived by myself up to now,’ he says, ‘so why is it impossible?’

  ‘Lived by yourself? You don’t mean it!’

  And the prince roars with laughter, and the whiskered gentleman too. They did make fun of him!

  ‘So you’ve never …?’ they say.

  ‘Never!’

  They died with laughter. Of course I understood at once why they laughed at him so. I watched to see what would come of it.

  ‘Come along now,’ says the prince. ‘At once!’

  ‘No, not on any account,’ he says.

  ‘Come, that’s enough, it’s too ridiculous,’ he says. ‘Have a drink to buck you up, and come along.’

  I brought them a bottle of champagne. They drank it, and took the youngster along.

  They returned after midnight and sat down to supper. There were a lot of them – all the very best: Atánov, Prince Rázin, Count Shustákh, and Mírtsov. They all congratulate Nekhlyúdov and laugh. They called me in, and I see they are all rather gay.

  ‘Congratulate the gentleman!’ they say.

  ‘On what?’ I ask.

  Whatever did he call it?… On his initiation or instigation – I don’t quite remember.

  ‘I have the honour to congratulate you,’ I say.

  And he sits there, quite red, and only smiles. How they laughed!

  Well, they come afterwards into the billiard-room all very merry, but Nekhlyúdov was unlike himself: his eyes were bleared, his lips twitching, and he kept hiccoughing and couldn’t say a word properly. Of course, it being the first time, he was feeling bowled over. He went up to the table, put his elbows on it, and said:

  ‘To you it seems funny, but I am sad. Why did I do it? I shall not forgive myself, or you, prince, for it all my life!’

  And he bursts into tears and weeps. Of course he had drunk too much and didn’t know himself what he was saying. The prince went up to him smiling.

  ‘That’s enough!’ he says. ‘It’s a mere trifle! … Come home, Anatole.’

  ‘I won’t go anywhere. Why did I do it?’ And he sobs. He wouldn’t go away from the billiard-table, and that was all there was to it. What it is when a fellow is young and not used to it … And he spoilt the table there and then. Next day he paid eighty rubles for having cut the cloth.

  So he often used to come to us. Once he came in with the prince and the whiskered gentleman who always went about with the prince. He was an official, or a retired officer – Heaven only knows – but the gentlemen all called him ‘Fedót’. He had high cheek-bones and was very ugly, but dressed well and came in a carriage. Why the gentlemen liked him so, God only knows. It’s ‘Fedót, Fedót,’ and you see them treating him to food and drink, paying for him. But he was a desperate fellow! If he lost he did not pay, but if he won – that was different! The big guest has abused him and beaten him before my eyes, and challenged him to a duel.… But he always went about arm-in-arm with the prince. ‘You’d be lost without me!’ he says. ‘I’m Fedót and the others are not.’ Such a wag.

  Well, so they come in, and say:

  ‘Let’s play pool, the three of us.’

  ‘All right,’ they say.

  They began playing for three-ruble stakes. Nekhlyúdov and the prince jabber together. ‘You should just see,’ he says, ‘what a foot she has!’

  ‘Never mind her foot – it’s her hair that’s so beautiful.’

  Of course they didn’t attend to the game but only talked together. But Fedót knows his business and plays trickily while they miss or run in. And he wins six rubles of each of them. Heaven only knows what accounts he had with the prince – they never paid one another any money; but Nekhlyúdov got out two three-ruble notes and held them out to him.

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t take the money from you. Let’s play an ordinary game – double or quits, I mean either twice as much or nothing.’

  I placed the balls for them. Fedót took odds and they began the game. Nekhlyúdov made strokes just to show off, and when he had a chance to pocket a ball and run out, he says: ‘No, I don’t want it – it’s too easy,’ but Fedót doesn’t neglect his business and keeps on scoring. Of course he didn’t show what he could do, but won the game as if by chance.

  ‘Let’s play double or quits again,’ he says.

  ‘All right.’

  He won again.

  ‘We began with a trifle,’ he says. ‘
I don’t want to take so much from you. Double or quits again, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Say what one will one’s sorry to lose fifty rubles, and Nekhlyúdov himself says: ‘Let’s have double or quits again.’ So it went on and on, more and more. At last he’d lost two hundred and eighty rubles. Fedót knows all the tricks: he would lose a single stake and win a double; and the prince sits there and sees that things are getting serious.

  ‘Assez,’ he says, ‘assez!’

  Not a bit of it! They keep increasing the stakes.

  At last Nekhlyúdov owed him over five hundred rubles. Fedót puts down his cue and says:

  ‘Haven’t we had enough? I am tired,’ he says.

  But really he was ready to play till sunrise if there was money in it – all his craftiness of course. The other was still more anxious to go on. ‘Let’s play, let’s play!’ he says.

  ‘No, really I’m tired … Come upstairs. You can take your revenge there.’

  At our place gentlemen played cards upstairs. They’d start with preference and then go on to a gambling game.

  Well, from that day on Fedót netted Nekhlyúdov so that he began coming to us every day. They’d have a game or two, and then it was ‘Upstairs, upstairs!’

  What they did there Heaven only knows, but Nekhlyúdov became a different man, and everything was flourishing with Fedót.

  Formerly Nekhlyúdov had been smart, clean, his hair well brushed; but now he was only like his real self in the morning; after having been upstairs he would come down dishevelled, with fluff on his coat and his hands dirty.

  One day he comes down with the prince like that, pale, his lips trembling, and disputing about something.

  ‘I won’t permit him,’ he says, ‘to tell me I am …’ – however did he put it?… ‘unwell-mannered’ or something like that – ‘and that he won’t win against me. I have paid him,’ he says, ‘ten thousand rubles so he ought to be more careful before others.’

  ‘Come now,’ says the prince, ‘is it worth being angry with Fedót?’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t put up with it.’

  ‘Stop!’ he says. ‘How can you lower yourself so far as to have an affair with Fedót?’

  ‘But outsiders were present.’

  ‘What if there were outsiders! If you like, I’ll make him beg your pardon at once.’

  ‘No,’ says he.

  And they jabbered something in French that I did not understand. Well, what do you think? That same evening they had supper with Fedót and the friendship continued.

  Well, he’d sometimes come along.

  ‘How is it?’ he’d say. ‘Do I play well?’

  Of course it’s our business to please everyone. ‘Very well,’ I say. But lord! – he just knocks the balls about without any kind of judgement. And ever since he got thick with Fedót he always played for money. Before that he did not like playing for any kind of stakes, not even for a lunch or champagne. Sometimes the prince would say:

  ‘Let’s play for a bottle of champagne.’

  ‘No,’ he’d say, ‘I’d rather just order one. Hullo there! Bring a bottle of champagne!’

  But now he began to play only for money. He’d walk up and down all day at our place either playing billiards with someone or going upstairs. So I thinks to myself: ‘Why should others get it all, and not me?’

  ‘Why haven’t you played with me for such a long time, sir?’ I says.

  And we started playing.

  When I had won some five rubles off him: ‘Shall we play double or quits, sir?’ I says.

  He doesn’t answer – doesn’t say ‘Fool!’ as he did before. So we play double or quits again and again. I won some eighty rubles off him. Well, what d’you think? He played with me every day. Only he’d wait till no one else was there, because of course he was ashamed to play with a marker. One day he happened to get a bit excited when he already owed me some sixty rubles.

  ‘Shall we play for the whole amount?’ he says.

  ‘All right,’ I say.

  I won.

  ‘One hundred and twenty to one hundred and twenty?’

  ‘All right.’

  I won again.

  ‘Two hundred and forty to two hundred and forty?’

  ‘Isn’t that too much?’ I says.

  He doesn’t answer. We play. I win again.

  ‘Four hundred and eighty to four hundred and eighty?’

  I say: ‘Why should I take advantage of you, sir? Play for a hundred rubles or leave it as it is.’

  How he did shout! And how quiet he used to be!

  ‘I’ll knock you to bits!’ he says. ‘Either you play or you don’t!’

  Well, I see there is no help for it.

  ‘Let it be three hundred and eighty,’ I says.

  Of course I meant to lose.

  I allowed him forty points. His score was fifty-two and mine thirty-six. He potted the yellow and scored eighteen,3 but left my ball standing well.

  I struck the ball hard to make it rebound. No good, it cannoned and ran in and won the game again.

  ‘Listen, Peter,’ he says – he did not call me ‘Petrúshka’ – ‘I can’t pay you the whole now, but in two months’ time I could pay you three thousand, if necessary.’

  And he flushed quite red and his voice even trembled.

  ‘Very good, sir,’ I says, and put down the cue. He paced up and down a bit and the perspiration just ran down his face.

  ‘Peter,’ he says, ‘let’s play for the whole amount!’

  He was nearly crying.

  I say:

  ‘What, play again, sir?’

  ‘Do please!’

  And he hands me the cue himself. I took the cue and flung the balls on the table so that they fell onto the floor – of course I had to show off— and I say: ‘All right, sir!’

  He was in such a hurry that he himself picked a ball up. I thought to myself: ‘I shan’t get the seven hundred anyway, so I might as well lose.’ So I purposely played badly. And what do you think?

  ‘Why,’ he says, ‘do you play badly on purpose?’

  And his hands tremble, and when a ball rolls towards a pocket he spreads out his fingers, his mouth goes awry, and he stretches his head and his hands towards the pocket. So that I say:

  ‘That won’t help, sir!’

  Well, when he had won that game, I says:

  ‘You’ll owe me a hundred and eighty rubles and a hundred and fifty games – and I’ll go and have supper.’

  I put down my cue and went away.

  I sit down at a little table by the door and look to see what he’ll do. What d’you think? He walks up and down – thinking I expect that nobody sees him – and pulls so at his hair! Then he walks about again muttering to himself, and suddenly gives another pull!

  After that we didn’t see him for eight days or so. Then he came in once into the dining-room, looking as gloomy as anything, but didn’t go into the billiard-room.

  The prince noticed him.

  ‘Come, let’s have a game!’ he said.

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t play any more.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense! Come along!’

  ‘No,’ he says, ‘I won’t. It would do you no good for me to come and it would do me harm.’

  So he didn’t come for another ten days. Then in the holidays he looked in one day in a dress suit – evidently he had been paying calls – and remained for the rest of the day playing all the time: next day he came again, and the day after, and then things went on in the old way. I wanted to play with him again.

  ‘No, I won’t play with you,’ he says, ‘but come to me in a month’s time for the hundred and eighty rubles I owe you and you shall have them.’

  All right. A month later I went to him.

  ‘On my word,’ he says, ‘I haven’t got it, but come back on Thursday.’

  I went on the Thursday. He had such an excellent little flat.

  ‘Is the master at home?’ I says.


  ‘Not up yet,’ they tell me.

  ‘All right. I’ll wait.’

  His valet was a serf of his own – an old, grey-haired fellow, simple and not up to any tricks. So we had a talk together.

  ‘What are we living here for?’ he says. ‘My master is running quite to waste, and we get no honour nor profit in this Petersburg of yours. When we came from the country we thought we’d be as it used to be when the old master – the Kingdom of Heaven be his! – was alive; visiting princes, counts, and generals. We thought we’d get some queenly countess with a dowry, and live like a nobleman; but it turns out that we do nothing but run from one restaurant to another – quite bad! Princess Rtíshcheva, you know, is an aunt of ours, and Prince Borotýnzev is our godfather. What d’you think? He’s only been to see them once, at Christmas, and hasn’t shown his nose there since. Even their servants laugh at me: “Seems your master doesn’t take after his papa!” they say. I once said to him:

  ‘ “Why don’t you go to see your auntie, sir? She is sad at not having seen you so long.”

  ‘ “It’s dull there, Demyánych!” he says.

  ‘Just look at that! The only pleasure he’s found is at the restaurants. If only he were in public service somewhere – but no, he is only interested in cards and the like, and such doings never lead to any good … Eh, eh, we’re ruining ourselves – ruining ourselves for nothing! We inherited from our deceased mistress – the Kingdom of Heaven be hers! – a very rich estate: more than a thousand serfs and more than three hundred thousand rubles’ worth of forest land. He’s mortgaged it all now, sold the forest, ruined the peasants, and nothing comes of it. In the master’s absence a steward is more than a master, as is well known. What does the steward care? He skins the peasants completely, and there’s an end of it. All he wants is to stuff his own pockets, though they all die of hunger. The other day two peasants came here to complain from the whole commune.

  ‘ “He’s ruined the serfs completely,” they said.

  ‘Well, he read the complaints, gave the peasants ten rubles each and said: “I shall come myself soon. As soon as I receive money I’ll settle up and leave town.”

  ‘But “settle up” indeed, when we keep making debts! Why, we have lived here the winter and have got through some eighty thousand rubles, and now there’s not a ruble left in the house! And it’s all because of his charitableness. Oh, what a simple gentleman he is – there are no words for it. It’s because of that he is perishing, perishing just for nothing!’