Guskof wore a melancholy, almost guilty smile as though it were awkward for him to look into my face after his confession.  He drank still another glass of liquor, and ate ravenously, emptying the saucepan.

“Yes; for you it must be a relief all the same,” said I, for the sake of saying something,—­“your acquaintance with the adjutant.  He is a very good man, I have heard.”

“Yes,” replied the cashiered officer, “he is a kind man; but he can’t help being what he is, with his education, and it is useless to expect it.”

A flush seemed suddenly to cross his face.  “You remarked his coarse jest this evening about the ambuscade;” and Guskof, though I tried several times to interrupt him, began to justify himself before me, and to show that he had not run away from the ambuscade, and that he was not a coward as the adjutant and Capt.  S. tried to make him out.

“As I was telling you,” he went on to say, wiping his hands on his jacket, “such people can’t show any delicacy toward a man, a common soldier, who hasn’t much money either.  That’s beyond their strength.  And here recently, while I haven’t received anything at all from my sister, I have been conscious that they have changed toward me.  This sheepskin jacket, which I bought of a soldier, and which hasn’t any warmth in it, because it’s all worn off” (and here he showed me where the wool was gone from the inside), “it doesn’t arouse in him any sympathy or consideration for my unhappiness, but scorn, which he does not take pains to hide.  Whatever my necessities may be, as now when I have nothing to eat except soldiers’ gruel, and nothing to wear,” he continued, casting down his eyes, and pouring out for himself still another glass of liquor, “he does not even offer to lend me some money, though he knows perfectly well that I would give it back to him; but he waits till I am obliged to ask him for it.  But you appreciate how it is for me to go to him.  In your case I should say, square and fair, vous etes audessus de cela, mon cher, je n’ai pas le sou.  And you know,” said he, looking straight into my eyes with an expression of desperation, “I am going to tell you, square and fair, I am in a terrible situation:  pouvez-vous me preter dix rubles argent?  My sister ought to send me some by the mail, et mon pere—­”

“Why, most willingly,” said I, although, on the contrary, it was trying and unpleasant, especially because the evening before, having lost at cards, I had left only about five rubles in Nikita’s care.  “In a moment,” said I, arising, “I will go and get it at the tent.”

“No, by and by:  ne vous derangez pas.”

Nevertheless, not heeding him, I hastened to the closed tent, where stood my bed, and where the captain was sleeping.

“Aleksei Ivanuitch, let me have ten rubles, please, for rations,” said I to the captain, shaking him.

“What! have you been losing again?  But this very evening, you were not going to play any more,” murmured the captain, still half asleep.