“Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine⁠ ⁠… winning it back’s impossible⁠ ⁠… Oh, how pleasant it was at home!⁠ ⁠… The knave, double or quits⁠ ⁠… it can’t be!⁠ ⁠… And why is he doing this to me?” Rostóv pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dólokhov refused to accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nikoláy submitted to him, and at one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other players, or peered at the now cold face of Dólokhov and tried to read what was passing in his mind.