Then, collecting my belongings, I crossed to where trente-et-quarante was being played⁠—a game which could boast of a more aristocratic public, and was played with cards instead of with a wheel. At this diversion the bank made itself responsible for a hundred thousand thalers as the limit, but the highest stake allowable was, as in roulette, four thousand florins. Although I knew nothing of the game⁠—and I scarcely knew the stakes, except those on black and red⁠—I joined the ring of players, while the rest of the crowd massed itself around me. At this distance of time I cannot remember whether I ever gave a thought to Polina; I seemed only to be conscious of a vague pleasure in seizing and raking in the banknotes which kept massing themselves in a pile before me.