Chapter XVI

The great room of the barracks was filled with people--a crowd of naval, artillery, and infantry officers. Some were sleeping, others were talking, seated on a caisson or on the carriage of a siege-gun. The largest group of the three, seated on their cloaks spread on the ground, were drinking porter and playing cards.

“Ah! Koseltzoff’s come back! Bravo! And your wound?” said divers voices from different sides.

Here also he was liked, and they were rejoiced at his return.

After having shaken hands with his acquaintances, Koseltzoff joined the gay group of card-players. One of them, thin, with a long nose, and a large mustache which encroached on his cheeks, cut the cards with his white, slender fingers on one of which was a great seal ring. He seemed disturbed, and dealt with an affected carelessness. On his right, lying half raised on his elbow, a gray-haired major staked and paid a half-ruble every time with exaggerated calmness. On his left, crouching on his heels, an officer with a red and shining face joked and smiled with an effort, and when his card was laid down, one of his hands moved in the empty pocket of his trousers. He played a heavy game, but without any money--a fact which visibly irritated the dark officer with the handsome face. Another officer, pale, thin, and bald, with an enormous nose and a large mouth, walking about the room with a bundle of bank-notes in his hand, counted down the money on the bank and won every time.

Koseltzoff drank a small glass of brandy and sat down beside the players.

“Come, Mikhaïl Semenovitch, come; put up your stake!” said the officer who was cutting the cards; “I’ll bet you have brought back a lot of money.”

“Where could I have got it? On the contrary, I spent my last penny in town!”

“Really! You must have fleeced some one at Sympheropol, I’m sure!”

“What an idea!” replied Koseltzoff, not wanting his words to be believed, and unbuttoning his uniform, to be more comfortable, he took a few old cards.

“I have nothing to risk, but, devil take me! who can foresee luck? A gnat can sometimes accomplish wonders! Let’s go on drinking to keep our courage up.”

Shortly after he swallowed a second small glass of brandy, a little porter into the bargain, and lost his last three rubles, while a hundred and fifty were charged to the account of the little officer with the sweat-moistened face.

“Have the kindness to send me the money,” said the banker, interrupting the deal to look at him.

“Allow me to put off sending it until to-morrow,” replied the one addressed, rising. His hand was nervously moving in his empty pocket.

“Hum!” said the banker, spitefully throwing the last cards of the pack right and left. “We can’t play in this way,” he rejoined; “I will stop the game. It can’t be done, Zakhar Ivanovitch. We are playing cash down, and not for credit.”

“Do you distrust me? That would be strange indeed!”

“From whom have I to get eight rubles?” the major who had just won asked at this moment. “I have paid out more than twenty, and when I win I get nothing.”

“How do you think I can pay you when there is no money on the table?”

“That’s nothing to me!” cried the major, rising. “I am playing with you, and not with this gentleman!”

“As long as I tell you,” said the perspiring officer--“as long as I tell you I will pay you to-morrow, how do you dare insult me?”

“I’ll say what I like. This is no way of doing!” cried the major, excited.

“Come, be quiet, Fédor Fédorovitch!” shouted several players at once, turning around.

Let us drop the curtain on this scene. To-morrow, perhaps to-day, each of these men will go to meet death gayly, proudly, and will die calmly and firmly. The only consolation of a life the conditions of which freeze with horror the coldest imagination, of a life which has nothing human in it, to which all hope is interdicted, is forgetfulness, annihilation of the consciousness of the reality. In the soul of every man lies dormant the noble spark which at the proper time will make a hero of him; but this spark grows tired of shining always. Nevertheless, when the fatal moment comes, it will burst into a flame which will illumine grand deeds.