The Uhlan cornet, Ilyín, had not been long awake. The evening before he had sat down to cards at eight o’clock, and had lost pretty steadily for fifteen hours on end—till eleven in the morning. He had lost a considerable sum, but did not know exactly how much, because he had about 3000 roubles of his own, and 15,000 service-money which had long since got mixed up with it, and he feared to count lest he should find his forebodings confirmed that some of the Government money was already missing. It was nearly noon when he fell asleep, and he had slept that heavy, dreamless sleep which comes only to a very young man, and after a heavy loss. Waking at six o’clock (just at the time when Count Toúrbin arrived at the hotel), and seeing the floor all around strewn with cards and bits of chalk, and the chalk-marked tables in the middle of the room, he recalled with terror last night’s play, and the last card, a knave on which he lost 500 roubles; but not yet quite convinced of the reality of all this, he drew his money from under his pillow and began to count. He recognised some notes which had passed from hand to hand several times with “corners” and “transports,” and he recollected the whole course of the game. He had none of his own 3000 roubles left, and some 2500 Government money were also gone.
The Uhlan had been playing for four nights running.
He had come from Moscow, where the service-money had been entrusted to him, and he had been detained at K⸺ by the superintendent of the post-house on the pretext that there were no horses, but really because the latter had an agreement with the hotel keeper to detain all travellers a day. The Uhlan, a bright young lad, who had just received 3000 roubles from his parents in Moscow for his equipment on entering his regiment, was glad to spend a few days in the