Page:Dostoevsky - The Gambler and Other Stories, Collected Edition, 1914.djvu/154

 but why describe it? I made the acquaintance of everyone at once. The naval man was the first I got to know; he is such an open fellow, told me everything: about his father and mother, about his sister married to an assessor in Tula, and about the town of Kronstadt. He promised to protect me and at once invited me to tea with him. I found him in the room where they usually play cards. There they gave me tea and were very insistent that I should play a game of chance with them. Whether they were laughing at me or not I don't know, but they were losing the whole night and they were still playing when I went away. Chalk, cards—and the room so full of smoke that it made my eyes smart. I did not play and they at once observed that I was talking of philosophy. After that no one said another word to me the whole time; but to tell the truth I was glad of it. I am not going to see them now; it's gambling with them, pure gambling. The clerk in the literary department has little gatherings in the evening, too. Well, there it is nice, quiet, harmless and delicate; everything is on refined footing.

Well, Varinka, I will remark in passing that our landlady is a very horrid woman and a regular old hag. You've seen Teresa. You know what she is like, as thin as a plucked, dried-up chicken. There are two of them in the house, Teresa and Faldoni. I don't know whether he has any other name, he always answers to that one and everyone calls him that. He is a red-haired, foul-tongued Finn, with only one eye and a snub nose: he is always swearing at Teresa, they almost fight.

On the whole life here is not exactly perfect at all times.

If only all would go to sleep at once at night and be quiet—that ever happens. They are for ever sitting somewhere playing, and sometimes things go on that one would be ashamed to describe. By now I have grown accustomed to it; but I wonder how people with families get along in such a Bedlam. There is a whole family of poor creatures living in one of our landlady's rooms, not in the same row with the other lodgings but on the other side, in a corner apart. They are quiet people! No one hears anything of them. They live in one little room dividing it with a screen. He is a clerk out of work, discharged from the service seven years ago for something. His name is Gorshkov—such a grey little man; he goes about in such greasy, such threadbare clothes that it is sad to see him; ever so much worse than mine. He is a pitiful, decrepit figure (we sometimes meet in the passage); his knees shake, his hands Rh