“He always had devilish good luck with me,” said Lieutenant O.  “I made a vow never to play with him again.”

“What a marvel you are, old fellow!” said S., nodding at me, and addressing O.  “You lost three hundred silver rubles, that’s what you lost to him.”

“More than that,” said the lieutenant savagely.

“And now you have come to your senses; it is rather late in the day, old man, for the rest of us have known for a long time that he was the cheat of the regiment,” said S., with difficulty restraining his laughter, and feeling very well satisfied with his fabrication.  “Here is Guskof right here,—­he fixes his cards for him.  That’s the reason of the friendship between them, old man” [Footnote:  Batenka MOI] . . . and Captain S., shaking all over, burst out into such a hearty “ha, ha, ha!” that he spilt the glass of mulled wine which he was holding in his hand.  On Guskof’s pale emaciated face there showed something like a color; he opened his mouth several times, raised his hands to his moustaches, and once more dropped them to his side where the pockets should have been, stood up, and then sat down again, and finally in an unnatural voice said to S.: 

“It’s no joke, Nikolai Ivanovitch, for you to say such things before people who don’t know me and who see me in this unlined jacket . . . because—­” His voice failed him, and again his small red hands with their dirty nails went from his jacket to his face, touching his moustache, his hair, his nose, rubbing his eyes, or needlessly scratching his cheek.

“As to saying that, everybody knows it, old fellow,” continued S., thoroughly satisfied with his jest, and not heeding Guskof’s complaint.  Guskof was still trying to say something; and placing the palm of his right hand on his left knee in a most unnatural position, and gazing at S., he had an appearance of smiling contemptuously.

“No,” said I to myself, as I noticed that smile of his, “I have not only seen him, but have spoken with him somewhere.”

“You and I have met somewhere,” said I to him when, under the influence of the common silence, S.’s laughter began to calm down.  Guskof’s mobile face suddenly lighted up, and his eyes, for the first time with a truly joyous expression, rested upon me.

“Why, I recognized you immediately,” he replied in French.  “In ’48 I had the pleasure of meeting you quite frequently in Moscow at my sister’s.”

I had to apologize for not recognizing him at first in that costume and in that new garb.  He arose, came to me, and with his moist hand irresolutely and weakly seized my hand, and sat down by me.  Instead of looking at me, though he apparently seemed so glad to see me, he gazed with an expression of unfriendly bravado at the officers.