feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_10_part_7.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 8.chapter 7
feat_summary_id: book 8, chapter 7
feat_summary: {"name": "book 8, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section11/", "summary": "The Former and Indisputable One Dmitri's arrival is awkward and his presence is unwanted by the lovers. But the scene has evidently been somewhat awkward between the lovers before his arrival, and the wine and food he brings help to lift everyone's spirits. The young people play cards", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter VII. The First And Rightful Lover
  
  
  With his long, rapid strides, Mitya walked straight up to the table.
  
  "Gentlemen," he said in a loud voice, almost shouting, yet stammering at
  every word, "I ... I'm all right! Don't be afraid!" he exclaimed,
  "I--there's nothing the matter," he turned suddenly to Grushenka, who had
  shrunk back in her chair towards Kalganov, and clasped his hand tightly.
  "I ... I'm coming, too. I'm here till morning. Gentlemen, may I stay with
  you till morning? Only till morning, for the last time, in this same
  room?"
  
  So he finished, turning to the fat little man, with the pipe, sitting on
  the sofa. The latter removed his pipe from his lips with dignity and
  observed severely:
  
  "_Panie_, we're here in private. There are other rooms."
  
  "Why, it's you, Dmitri Fyodorovitch! What do you mean?" answered Kalganov
  suddenly. "Sit down with us. How are you?"
  
  "Delighted to see you, dear ... and precious fellow, I always thought a
  lot of you." Mitya responded, joyfully and eagerly, at once holding out
  his hand across the table.
  
  "Aie! How tight you squeeze! You've quite broken my fingers," laughed
  Kalganov.
  
  "He always squeezes like that, always," Grushenka put in gayly, with a
  timid smile, seeming suddenly convinced from Mitya's face that he was not
  going to make a scene. She was watching him with intense curiosity and
  still some uneasiness. She was impressed by something about him, and
  indeed the last thing she expected of him was that he would come in and
  speak like this at such a moment.
  
  "Good evening," Maximov ventured blandly on the left. Mitya rushed up to
  him, too.
  
  "Good evening. You're here, too! How glad I am to find you here, too!
  Gentlemen, gentlemen, I--" (He addressed the Polish gentleman with the pipe
  again, evidently taking him for the most important person present.) "I
  flew here.... I wanted to spend my last day, my last hour in this room, in
  this very room ... where I, too, adored ... my queen.... Forgive me,
  _panie_," he cried wildly, "I flew here and vowed-- Oh, don't be afraid,
  it's my last night! Let's drink to our good understanding. They'll bring
  the wine at once.... I brought this with me." (Something made him pull out
  his bundle of notes.) "Allow me, _panie_! I want to have music, singing, a
  revel, as we had before. But the worm, the unnecessary worm, will crawl
  away, and there'll be no more of him. I will commemorate my day of joy on
  my last night."
  
  He was almost choking. There was so much, so much he wanted to say, but
  strange exclamations were all that came from his lips. The Pole gazed
  fixedly at him, at the bundle of notes in his hand; looked at Grushenka,
  and was in evident perplexity.
  
  "If my suverin lady is permitting--" he was beginning.
  
  "What does 'suverin' mean? 'Sovereign,' I suppose?" interrupted Grushenka.
  "I can't help laughing at you, the way you talk. Sit down, Mitya, what are
  you talking about? Don't frighten us, please. You won't frighten us, will
  you? If you won't, I am glad to see you ..."
  
  "Me, me frighten you?" cried Mitya, flinging up his hands. "Oh, pass me
  by, go your way, I won't hinder you!..."
  
  And suddenly he surprised them all, and no doubt himself as well, by
  flinging himself on a chair, and bursting into tears, turning his head
  away to the opposite wall, while his arms clasped the back of the chair
  tight, as though embracing it.
  
  "Come, come, what a fellow you are!" cried Grushenka reproachfully.
  "That's just how he comes to see me--he begins talking, and I can't make
  out what he means. He cried like that once before, and now he's crying
  again! It's shameful! Why are you crying? _As though you had anything to
  cry for!_" she added enigmatically, emphasizing each word with some
  irritability.
  
  "I ... I'm not crying.... Well, good evening!" He instantly turned round
  in his chair, and suddenly laughed, not his abrupt wooden laugh, but a
  long, quivering, inaudible nervous laugh.
  
  "Well, there you are again.... Come, cheer up, cheer up!" Grushenka said
  to him persuasively. "I'm very glad you've come, very glad, Mitya, do you
  hear, I'm very glad! I want him to stay here with us," she said
  peremptorily, addressing the whole company, though her words were
  obviously meant for the man sitting on the sofa. "I wish it, I wish it!
  And if he goes away I shall go, too!" she added with flashing eyes.
  
  "What my queen commands is law!" pronounced the Pole, gallantly kissing
  Grushenka's hand. "I beg you, _panie_, to join our company," he added
  politely, addressing Mitya.
  
  Mitya was jumping up with the obvious intention of delivering another
  tirade, but the words did not come.
  
  "Let's drink, _panie_," he blurted out instead of making a speech. Every
  one laughed.
  
  "Good heavens! I thought he was going to begin again!" Grushenka exclaimed
  nervously. "Do you hear, Mitya," she went on insistently, "don't prance
  about, but it's nice you've brought the champagne. I want some myself, and
  I can't bear liqueurs. And best of all, you've come yourself. We were
  fearfully dull here.... You've come for a spree again, I suppose? But put
  your money in your pocket. Where did you get such a lot?"
  
  Mitya had been, all this time, holding in his hand the crumpled bundle of
  notes on which the eyes of all, especially of the Poles, were fixed. In
  confusion he thrust them hurriedly into his pocket. He flushed. At that
  moment the innkeeper brought in an uncorked bottle of champagne, and
  glasses on a tray. Mitya snatched up the bottle, but he was so bewildered
  that he did not know what to do with it. Kalganov took it from him and
  poured out the champagne.
  
  "Another! Another bottle!" Mitya cried to the innkeeper, and, forgetting
  to clink glasses with the Pole whom he had so solemnly invited to drink to
  their good understanding, he drank off his glass without waiting for any
  one else. His whole countenance suddenly changed. The solemn and tragic
  expression with which he had entered vanished completely, and a look of
  something childlike came into his face. He seemed to have become suddenly
  gentle and subdued. He looked shyly and happily at every one, with a
  continual nervous little laugh, and the blissful expression of a dog who
  has done wrong, been punished, and forgiven. He seemed to have forgotten
  everything, and was looking round at every one with a childlike smile of
  delight. He looked at Grushenka, laughing continually, and bringing his
  chair close up to her. By degrees he had gained some idea of the two
  Poles, though he had formed no definite conception of them yet.
  
  The Pole on the sofa struck him by his dignified demeanor and his Polish
  accent; and, above all, by his pipe. "Well, what of it? It's a good thing
  he's smoking a pipe," he reflected. The Pole's puffy, middle-aged face,
  with its tiny nose and two very thin, pointed, dyed and impudent-looking
  mustaches, had not so far roused the faintest doubts in Mitya. He was not
  even particularly struck by the Pole's absurd wig made in Siberia, with
  love-locks foolishly combed forward over the temples. "I suppose it's all
  right since he wears a wig," he went on, musing blissfully. The other,
  younger Pole, who was staring insolently and defiantly at the company and
  listening to the conversation with silent contempt, still only impressed
  Mitya by his great height, which was in striking contrast to the Pole on
  the sofa. "If he stood up he'd be six foot three." The thought flitted
  through Mitya's mind. It occurred to him, too, that this Pole must be the
  friend of the other, as it were, a "bodyguard," and no doubt the big Pole
  was at the disposal of the little Pole with the pipe. But this all seemed
  to Mitya perfectly right and not to be questioned. In his mood of doglike
  submissiveness all feeling of rivalry had died away.
  
  Grushenka's mood and the enigmatic tone of some of her words he completely
  failed to grasp. All he understood, with thrilling heart, was that she was
  kind to him, that she had forgiven him, and made him sit by her. He was
  beside himself with delight, watching her sip her glass of champagne. The
  silence of the company seemed somehow to strike him, however, and he
  looked round at every one with expectant eyes.
  
  "Why are we sitting here though, gentlemen? Why don't you begin doing
  something?" his smiling eyes seemed to ask.
  
  "He keeps talking nonsense, and we were all laughing," Kalganov began
  suddenly, as though divining his thought, and pointing to Maximov.
  
  Mitya immediately stared at Kalganov and then at Maximov.
  
  "He's talking nonsense?" he laughed, his short, wooden laugh, seeming
  suddenly delighted at something--"ha ha!"
  
  "Yes. Would you believe it, he will have it that all our cavalry officers
  in the twenties married Polish women. That's awful rot, isn't it?"
  
  "Polish women?" repeated Mitya, perfectly ecstatic.
  
  Kalganov was well aware of Mitya's attitude to Grushenka, and he guessed
  about the Pole, too, but that did not so much interest him, perhaps did
  not interest him at all; what he was interested in was Maximov. He had
  come here with Maximov by chance, and he met the Poles here at the inn for
  the first time in his life. Grushenka he knew before, and had once been
  with some one to see her; but she had not taken to him. But here she
  looked at him very affectionately: before Mitya's arrival, she had been
  making much of him, but he seemed somehow to be unmoved by it. He was a
  boy, not over twenty, dressed like a dandy, with a very charming fair-
  skinned face, and splendid thick, fair hair. From his fair face looked out
  beautiful pale blue eyes, with an intelligent and sometimes even deep
  expression, beyond his age indeed, although the young man sometimes looked
  and talked quite like a child, and was not at all ashamed of it, even when
  he was aware of it himself. As a rule he was very willful, even
  capricious, though always friendly. Sometimes there was something fixed
  and obstinate in his expression. He would look at you and listen, seeming
  all the while to be persistently dreaming over something else. Often he
  was listless and lazy, at other times he would grow excited, sometimes,
  apparently, over the most trivial matters.
  
  "Only imagine, I've been taking him about with me for the last four days,"
  he went on, indolently drawling his words, quite naturally though, without
  the slightest affectation. "Ever since your brother, do you remember,
  shoved him off the carriage and sent him flying. That made me take an
  interest in him at the time, and I took him into the country, but he keeps
  talking such rot I'm ashamed to be with him. I'm taking him back."
  
  "The gentleman has not seen Polish ladies, and says what is impossible,"
  the Pole with the pipe observed to Maximov.
  
  He spoke Russian fairly well, much better, anyway, than he pretended. If
  he used Russian words, he always distorted them into a Polish form.
  
  "But I was married to a Polish lady myself," tittered Maximov.
  
  "But did you serve in the cavalry? You were talking about the cavalry.
  Were you a cavalry officer?" put in Kalganov at once.
  
  "Was he a cavalry officer indeed? Ha ha!" cried Mitya, listening eagerly,
  and turning his inquiring eyes to each as he spoke, as though there were
  no knowing what he might hear from each.
  
  "No, you see," Maximov turned to him. "What I mean is that those pretty
  Polish ladies ... when they danced the mazurka with our Uhlans ... when
  one of them dances a mazurka with a Uhlan she jumps on his knee like a
  kitten ... a little white one ... and the _pan_-father and _pan_-mother
  look on and allow it.... They allow it ... and next day the Uhlan comes
  and offers her his hand.... That's how it is ... offers her his hand, he
  he!" Maximov ended, tittering.
  
  "The _pan_ is a _lajdak_!" the tall Pole on the chair growled suddenly and
  crossed one leg over the other. Mitya's eye was caught by his huge greased
  boot, with its thick, dirty sole. The dress of both the Poles looked
  rather greasy.
  
  "Well, now it's _lajdak_! What's he scolding about?" said Grushenka,
  suddenly vexed.
  
  "_Pani_ Agrippina, what the gentleman saw in Poland were servant girls,
  and not ladies of good birth," the Pole with the pipe observed to
  Grushenka.
  
  "You can reckon on that," the tall Pole snapped contemptuously.
  
  "What next! Let him talk! People talk, why hinder them? It makes it
  cheerful," Grushenka said crossly.
  
  "I'm not hindering them, _pani_," said the Pole in the wig, with a long
  look at Grushenka, and relapsing into dignified silence he sucked his pipe
  again.
  
  "No, no. The Polish gentleman spoke the truth." Kalganov got excited
  again, as though it were a question of vast import. "He's never been in
  Poland, so how can he talk about it? I suppose you weren't married in
  Poland, were you?"
  
  "No, in the Province of Smolensk. Only, a Uhlan had brought her to Russia
  before that, my future wife, with her mamma and her aunt, and another
  female relation with a grown-up son. He brought her straight from Poland
  and gave her up to me. He was a lieutenant in our regiment, a very nice
  young man. At first he meant to marry her himself. But he didn't marry
  her, because she turned out to be lame."
  
  "So you married a lame woman?" cried Kalganov.
  
  "Yes. They both deceived me a little bit at the time, and concealed it. I
  thought she was hopping; she kept hopping.... I thought it was for fun."
  
  "So pleased she was going to marry you!" yelled Kalganov, in a ringing,
  childish voice.
  
  "Yes, so pleased. But it turned out to be quite a different cause.
  Afterwards, when we were married, after the wedding, that very evening,
  she confessed, and very touchingly asked forgiveness. 'I once jumped over
  a puddle when I was a child,' she said, 'and injured my leg.' He he!"
  
  Kalganov went off into the most childish laughter, almost falling on the
  sofa. Grushenka, too, laughed. Mitya was at the pinnacle of happiness.
  
  "Do you know, that's the truth, he's not lying now," exclaimed Kalganov,
  turning to Mitya; "and do you know, he's been married twice; it's his
  first wife he's talking about. But his second wife, do you know, ran away,
  and is alive now."
  
  "Is it possible?" said Mitya, turning quickly to Maximov with an
  expression of the utmost astonishment.
  
  "Yes. She did run away. I've had that unpleasant experience," Maximov
  modestly assented, "with a _monsieur_. And what was worse, she'd had all
  my little property transferred to her beforehand. 'You're an educated
  man,' she said to me. 'You can always get your living.' She settled my
  business with that. A venerable bishop once said to me: 'One of your wives
  was lame, but the other was too light-footed.' He he!"
  
  "Listen, listen!" cried Kalganov, bubbling over, "if he's telling lies--and
  he often is--he's only doing it to amuse us all. There's no harm in that,
  is there? You know, I sometimes like him. He's awfully low, but it's
  natural to him, eh? Don't you think so? Some people are low from self-
  interest, but he's simply so, from nature. Only fancy, he claims (he was
  arguing about it all the way yesterday) that Gogol wrote _Dead Souls_
  about him. Do you remember, there's a landowner called Maximov in it, whom
  Nozdryov thrashed. He was charged, do you remember, 'for inflicting bodily
  injury with rods on the landowner Maximov in a drunken condition.' Would
  you believe it, he claims that he was that Maximov and that he was beaten!
  Now can it be so? Tchitchikov made his journey, at the very latest, at the
  beginning of the twenties, so that the dates don't fit. He couldn't have
  been thrashed then, he couldn't, could he?"
  
  It was difficult to imagine what Kalganov was excited about, but his
  excitement was genuine. Mitya followed his lead without protest.
  
  "Well, but if they did thrash him!" he cried, laughing.
  
  "It's not that they thrashed me exactly, but what I mean is--" put in
  Maximov.
  
  "What do you mean? Either they thrashed you or they didn't."
  
  "What o'clock is it, _panie_?" the Pole, with the pipe, asked his tall
  friend, with a bored expression. The other shrugged his shoulders in
  reply. Neither of them had a watch.
  
  "Why not talk? Let other people talk. Mustn't other people talk because
  you're bored?" Grushenka flew at him with evident intention of finding
  fault. Something seemed for the first time to flash upon Mitya's mind.
  This time the Pole answered with unmistakable irritability.
  
  "_Pani_, I didn't oppose it. I didn't say anything."
  
  "All right then. Come, tell us your story," Grushenka cried to Maximov.
  "Why are you all silent?"
  
  "There's nothing to tell, it's all so foolish," answered Maximov at once,
  with evident satisfaction, mincing a little. "Besides, all that's by way
  of allegory in Gogol, for he's made all the names have a meaning. Nozdryov
  was really called Nosov, and Kuvshinikov had quite a different name, he
  was called Shkvornev. Fenardi really was called Fenardi, only he wasn't an
  Italian but a Russian, and Mamsel Fenardi was a pretty girl with her
  pretty little legs in tights, and she had a little short skirt with
  spangles, and she kept turning round and round, only not for four hours
  but for four minutes only, and she bewitched every one..."
  
  "But what were you beaten for?" cried Kalganov.
  
  "For Piron!" answered Maximov.
  
  "What Piron?" cried Mitya.
  
  "The famous French writer, Piron. We were all drinking then, a big party
  of us, in a tavern at that very fair. They'd invited me, and first of all
  I began quoting epigrams. 'Is that you, Boileau? What a funny get-up!' and
  Boileau answers that he's going to a masquerade, that is to the baths, he
  he! And they took it to themselves, so I made haste to repeat another,
  very sarcastic, well known to all educated people:
  
  
      Yes, Sappho and Phaon are we!
      But one grief is weighing on me.
      You don't know your way to the sea!
  
  
  They were still more offended and began abusing me in the most unseemly
  way for it. And as ill-luck would have it, to set things right, I began
  telling a very cultivated anecdote about Piron, how he was not accepted
  into the French Academy, and to revenge himself wrote his own epitaph:
  
  
      Ci-git Piron qui ne fut rien,
      Pas meme academicien.
  
  
  They seized me and thrashed me."
  
  "But what for? What for?"
  
  "For my education. People can thrash a man for anything," Maximov
  concluded, briefly and sententiously.
  
  "Eh, that's enough! That's all stupid, I don't want to listen. I thought
  it would be amusing," Grushenka cut them short, suddenly.
  
  Mitya started, and at once left off laughing. The tall Pole rose upon his
  feet, and with the haughty air of a man, bored and out of his element,
  began pacing from corner to corner of the room, his hands behind his back.
  
  "Ah, he can't sit still," said Grushenka, looking at him contemptuously.
  Mitya began to feel anxious. He noticed besides, that the Pole on the sofa
  was looking at him with an irritable expression.
  
  "_Panie!_" cried Mitya, "let's drink! and the other _pan_, too! Let us
  drink."
  
  In a flash he had pulled three glasses towards him, and filled them with
  champagne.
  
  "To Poland, _panovie_, I drink to your Poland!" cried Mitya.
  
  "I shall be delighted, _panie_," said the Pole on the sofa, with dignity
  and affable condescension, and he took his glass.
  
  "And the other _pan_, what's his name? Drink, most illustrious, take your
  glass!" Mitya urged.
  
  "Pan Vrublevsky," put in the Pole on the sofa.
  
  Pan Vrublevsky came up to the table, swaying as he walked.
  
  "To Poland, _panovie!_" cried Mitya, raising his glass. "Hurrah!"
  
  All three drank. Mitya seized the bottle and again poured out three
  glasses.
  
  "Now to Russia, _panovie_, and let us be brothers!"
  
  "Pour out some for us," said Grushenka; "I'll drink to Russia, too!"
  
  "So will I," said Kalganov.
  
  "And I would, too ... to Russia, the old grandmother!" tittered Maximov.
  
  "All! All!" cried Mitya. "Trifon Borissovitch, some more bottles!"
  
  The other three bottles Mitya had brought with him were put on the table.
  Mitya filled the glasses.
  
  "To Russia! Hurrah!" he shouted again. All drank the toast except the
  Poles, and Grushenka tossed off her whole glass at once. The Poles did not
  touch theirs.
  
  "How's this, _panovie_?" cried Mitya, "won't you drink it?"
  
  Pan Vrublevsky took the glass, raised it and said with a resonant voice:
  
  "To Russia as she was before 1772."
  
  "Come, that's better!" cried the other Pole, and they both emptied their
  glasses at once.
  
  "You're fools, you _panovie_," broke suddenly from Mitya.
  
  "_Panie!_" shouted both the Poles, menacingly, setting on Mitya like a
  couple of cocks. Pan Vrublevsky was specially furious.
  
  "Can one help loving one's own country?" he shouted.
  
  "Be silent! Don't quarrel! I won't have any quarreling!" cried Grushenka
  imperiously, and she stamped her foot on the floor. Her face glowed, her
  eyes were shining. The effects of the glass she had just drunk were
  apparent. Mitya was terribly alarmed.
  
  "_Panovie_, forgive me! It was my fault, I'm sorry. Vrublevsky, _panie_
  Vrublevsky, I'm sorry."
  
  "Hold your tongue, you, anyway! Sit down, you stupid!" Grushenka scolded
  with angry annoyance.
  
  Every one sat down, all were silent, looking at one another.
  
  "Gentlemen, I was the cause of it all," Mitya began again, unable to make
  anything of Grushenka's words. "Come, why are we sitting here? What shall
  we do ... to amuse ourselves again?"
  
  "Ach, it's certainly anything but amusing!" Kalganov mumbled lazily.
  
  "Let's play faro again, as we did just now," Maximov tittered suddenly.
  
  "Faro? Splendid!" cried Mitya. "If only the _panovie_--"
  
  "It's lite, _panovie_," the Pole on the sofa responded, as it were
  unwillingly.
  
  "That's true," assented Pan Vrublevsky.
  
  "Lite? What do you mean by 'lite'?" asked Grushenka.
  
  "Late, _pani_! 'a late hour' I mean," the Pole on the sofa explained.
  
  "It's always late with them. They can never do anything!" Grushenka almost
  shrieked in her anger. "They're dull themselves, so they want others to be
  dull. Before you came, Mitya, they were just as silent and kept turning up
  their noses at me."
  
  "My goddess!" cried the Pole on the sofa, "I see you're not well-disposed
  to me, that's why I'm gloomy. I'm ready, _panie_," added he, addressing
  Mitya.
  
  "Begin, _panie_," Mitya assented, pulling his notes out of his pocket, and
  laying two hundred-rouble notes on the table. "I want to lose a lot to
  you. Take your cards. Make the bank."
  
  "We'll have cards from the landlord, _panie_," said the little Pole,
  gravely and emphatically.
  
  "That's much the best way," chimed in Pan Vrublevsky.
  
  "From the landlord? Very good, I understand, let's get them from him.
  Cards!" Mitya shouted to the landlord.
  
  The landlord brought in a new, unopened pack, and informed Mitya that the
  girls were getting ready, and that the Jews with the cymbals would most
  likely be here soon; but the cart with the provisions had not yet arrived.
  Mitya jumped up from the table and ran into the next room to give orders,
  but only three girls had arrived, and Marya was not there yet. And he did
  not know himself what orders to give and why he had run out. He only told
  them to take out of the box the presents for the girls, the sweets, the
  toffee and the fondants. "And vodka for Andrey, vodka for Andrey!" he
  cried in haste. "I was rude to Andrey!"
  
  Suddenly Maximov, who had followed him out, touched him on the shoulder.
  
  "Give me five roubles," he whispered to Mitya. "I'll stake something at
  faro, too, he he!"
  
  "Capital! Splendid! Take ten, here!"
  
  Again he took all the notes out of his pocket and picked out one for ten
  roubles. "And if you lose that, come again, come again."
  
  "Very good," Maximov whispered joyfully, and he ran back again. Mitya,
  too, returned, apologizing for having kept them waiting. The Poles had
  already sat down, and opened the pack. They looked much more amiable,
  almost cordial. The Pole on the sofa had lighted another pipe and was
  preparing to throw. He wore an air of solemnity.
  
  "To your places, gentlemen," cried Pan Vrublevsky.
  
  "No, I'm not going to play any more," observed Kalganov, "I've lost fifty
  roubles to them just now."
  
  "The _pan_ had no luck, perhaps he'll be lucky this time," the Pole on the
  sofa observed in his direction.
  
  "How much in the bank? To correspond?" asked Mitya.
  
  "That's according, _panie_, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred, as much as
  you will stake."
  
  "A million!" laughed Mitya.
  
  "The Pan Captain has heard of Pan Podvysotsky, perhaps?"
  
  "What Podvysotsky?"
  
  "In Warsaw there was a bank and any one comes and stakes against it.
  Podvysotsky comes, sees a thousand gold pieces, stakes against the bank.
  The banker says, '_Panie_ Podvysotsky, are you laying down the gold, or
  must we trust to your honor?' 'To my honor, _panie_,' says Podvysotsky.
  'So much the better.' The banker throws the dice. Podvysotsky wins. 'Take
  it, _panie_,' says the banker, and pulling out the drawer he gives him a
  million. 'Take it, _panie_, this is your gain.' There was a million in the
  bank. 'I didn't know that,' says Podvysotsky. '_Panie_ Podvysotsky,' said
  the banker, 'you pledged your honor and we pledged ours.' Podvysotsky took
  the million."
  
  "That's not true," said Kalganov.
  
  "_Panie_ Kalganov, in gentlemanly society one doesn't say such things."
  
  "As if a Polish gambler would give away a million!" cried Mitya, but
  checked himself at once. "Forgive me, _panie_, it's my fault again, he
  would, he would give away a million, for honor, for Polish honor. You see
  how I talk Polish, ha ha! Here, I stake ten roubles, the knave leads."
  
  "And I put a rouble on the queen, the queen of hearts, the pretty little
  _panienotchka_, he he!" laughed Maximov, pulling out his queen, and, as
  though trying to conceal it from every one, he moved right up and crossed
  himself hurriedly under the table. Mitya won. The rouble won, too.
  
  "A corner!" cried Mitya.
  
  "I'll bet another rouble, a 'single' stake," Maximov muttered gleefully,
  hugely delighted at having won a rouble.
  
  "Lost!" shouted Mitya. "A 'double' on the seven!"
  
  The seven too was trumped.
  
  "Stop!" cried Kalganov suddenly.
  
  "Double! Double!" Mitya doubled his stakes, and each time he doubled the
  stake, the card he doubled was trumped by the Poles. The rouble stakes
  kept winning.
  
  "On the double!" shouted Mitya furiously.
  
  "You've lost two hundred, _panie_. Will you stake another hundred?" the
  Pole on the sofa inquired.
  
  "What? Lost two hundred already? Then another two hundred! All doubles!"
  
  And pulling his money out of his pocket, Mitya was about to fling two
  hundred roubles on the queen, but Kalganov covered it with his hand.
  
  "That's enough!" he shouted in his ringing voice.
  
  "What's the matter?" Mitya stared at him.
  
  "That's enough! I don't want you to play any more. Don't!"
  
  "Why?"
  
  "Because I don't. Hang it, come away. That's why. I won't let you go on
  playing."
  
  Mitya gazed at him in astonishment.
  
  "Give it up, Mitya. He may be right. You've lost a lot as it is," said
  Grushenka, with a curious note in her voice. Both the Poles rose from
  their seats with a deeply offended air.
  
  "Are you joking, _panie_?" said the short man, looking severely at
  Kalganov.
  
  "How dare you!" Pan Vrublevsky, too, growled at Kalganov.
  
  "Don't dare to shout like that," cried Grushenka. "Ah, you turkey-cocks!"
  
  Mitya looked at each of them in turn. But something in Grushenka's face
  suddenly struck him, and at the same instant something new flashed into
  his mind--a strange new thought!
  
  "_Pani_ Agrippina," the little Pole was beginning, crimson with anger,
  when Mitya suddenly went up to him and slapped him on the shoulder.
  
  "Most illustrious, two words with you."
  
  "What do you want?"
  
  "In the next room, I've two words to say to you, something pleasant, very
  pleasant. You'll be glad to hear it."
  
  The little _pan_ was taken aback and looked apprehensively at Mitya. He
  agreed at once, however, on condition that Pan Vrublevsky went with them.
  
  "The bodyguard? Let him come, and I want him, too. I must have him!" cried
  Mitya. "March, _panovie_!"
  
  "Where are you going?" asked Grushenka, anxiously.
  
  "We'll be back in one moment," answered Mitya.
  
  There was a sort of boldness, a sudden confidence shining in his eyes. His
  face had looked very different when he entered the room an hour before.
  
  He led the Poles, not into the large room where the chorus of girls was
  assembling and the table was being laid, but into the bedroom on the
  right, where the trunks and packages were kept, and there were two large
  beds, with pyramids of cotton pillows on each. There was a lighted candle
  on a small deal table in the corner. The small man and Mitya sat down to
  this table, facing each other, while the huge Vrublevsky stood beside
  them, his hands behind his back. The Poles looked severe but were
  evidently inquisitive.
  
  "What can I do for you, _panie_?" lisped the little Pole.
  
  "Well, look here, _panie_, I won't keep you long. There's money for you,"
  he pulled out his notes. "Would you like three thousand? Take it and go
  your way."
  
  The Pole gazed open-eyed at Mitya, with a searching look.
  
  "Three thousand, _panie_?" He exchanged glances with Vrublevsky.
  
  "Three, _panovie_, three! Listen, _panie_, I see you're a sensible man.
  Take three thousand and go to the devil, and Vrublevsky with you--d'you
  hear? But, at once, this very minute, and for ever. You understand that,
  _panie_, for ever. Here's the door, you go out of it. What have you got
  there, a great-coat, a fur coat? I'll bring it out to you. They'll get the
  horses out directly, and then--good-by, _panie_!"
  
  Mitya awaited an answer with assurance. He had no doubts. An expression of
  extraordinary resolution passed over the Pole's face.
  
  "And the money, _panie_?"
  
  "The money, _panie_? Five hundred roubles I'll give you this moment for
  the journey, and as a first installment, and two thousand five hundred to-
  morrow, in the town--I swear on my honor, I'll get it, I'll get it at any
  cost!" cried Mitya.
  
  The Poles exchanged glances again. The short man's face looked more
  forbidding.
  
  "Seven hundred, seven hundred, not five hundred, at once, this minute,
  cash down!" Mitya added, feeling something wrong. "What's the matter,
  _panie_? Don't you trust me? I can't give you the whole three thousand
  straight off. If I give it, you may come back to her to-morrow....
  Besides, I haven't the three thousand with me. I've got it at home in the
  town," faltered Mitya, his spirit sinking at every word he uttered. "Upon
  my word, the money's there, hidden."
  
  In an instant an extraordinary sense of personal dignity showed itself in
  the little man's face.
  
  "What next?" he asked ironically. "For shame!" and he spat on the floor.
  Pan Vrublevsky spat too.
  
  "You do that, _panie_," said Mitya, recognizing with despair that all was
  over, "because you hope to make more out of Grushenka? You're a couple of
  capons, that's what you are!"
  
  "This is a mortal insult!" The little Pole turned as red as a crab, and he
  went out of the room, briskly, as though unwilling to hear another word.
  Vrublevsky swung out after him, and Mitya followed, confused and
  crestfallen. He was afraid of Grushenka, afraid that the _pan_ would at
  once raise an outcry. And so indeed he did. The Pole walked into the room
  and threw himself in a theatrical attitude before Grushenka.
  
  "_Pani_ Agrippina, I have received a mortal insult!" he exclaimed. But
  Grushenka suddenly lost all patience, as though they had wounded her in
  the tenderest spot.
  
  "Speak Russian! Speak Russian!" she cried, "not another word of Polish!
  You used to talk Russian. You can't have forgotten it in five years."
  
  She was red with passion.
  
  "_Pani_ Agrippina--"
  
  "My name's Agrafena, Grushenka, speak Russian or I won't listen!"
  
  The Pole gasped with offended dignity, and quickly and pompously delivered
  himself in broken Russian:
  
  "_Pani_ Agrafena, I came here to forget the past and forgive it, to forget
  all that has happened till to-day--"
  
  "Forgive? Came here to forgive me?" Grushenka cut him short, jumping up
  from her seat.
  
  "Just so, _pani_, I'm not pusillanimous, I'm magnanimous. But I was
  astounded when I saw your lovers. Pan Mitya offered me three thousand, in
  the other room to depart. I spat in the _pan's_ face."
  
  "What? He offered you money for me?" cried Grushenka, hysterically. "Is it
  true, Mitya? How dare you? Am I for sale?"
  
  "_Panie, panie!_" yelled Mitya, "she's pure and shining, and I have never
  been her lover! That's a lie...."
  
  "How dare you defend me to him?" shrieked Grushenka. "It wasn't virtue
  kept me pure, and it wasn't that I was afraid of Kuzma, but that I might
  hold up my head when I met him, and tell him he's a scoundrel. And he did
  actually refuse the money?"
  
  "He took it! He took it!" cried Mitya; "only he wanted to get the whole
  three thousand at once, and I could only give him seven hundred straight
  off."
  
  "I see: he heard I had money, and came here to marry me!"
  
  "_Pani_ Agrippina!" cried the little Pole. "I'm--a knight, I'm--a nobleman,
  and not a _lajdak_. I came here to make you my wife and I find you a
  different woman, perverse and shameless."
  
  "Oh, go back where you came from! I'll tell them to turn you out and
  you'll be turned out," cried Grushenka, furious. "I've been a fool, a
  fool, to have been miserable these five years! And it wasn't for his sake,
  it was my anger made me miserable. And this isn't he at all! Was he like
  this? It might be his father! Where did you get your wig from? He was a
  falcon, but this is a gander. He used to laugh and sing to me.... And I've
  been crying for five years, damned fool, abject, shameless I was!"
  
  She sank back in her low chair and hid her face in her hands. At that
  instant the chorus of Mokroe began singing in the room on the left--a
  rollicking dance song.
  
  "A regular Sodom!" Vrublevsky roared suddenly. "Landlord, send the
  shameless hussies away!"
  
  The landlord, who had been for some time past inquisitively peeping in at
  the door, hearing shouts and guessing that his guests were quarreling, at
  once entered the room.
  
  "What are you shouting for? D'you want to split your throat?" he said,
  addressing Vrublevsky, with surprising rudeness.
  
  "Animal!" bellowed Pan Vrublevsky.
  
  "Animal? And what sort of cards were you playing with just now? I gave you
  a pack and you hid it. You played with marked cards! I could send you to
  Siberia for playing with false cards, d'you know that, for it's just the
  same as false banknotes...."
  
  And going up to the sofa he thrust his fingers between the sofa back and
  the cushion, and pulled out an unopened pack of cards.
  
  "Here's my pack unopened!"
  
  He held it up and showed it to all in the room. "From where I stood I saw
  him slip my pack away, and put his in place of it--you're a cheat and not a
  gentleman!"
  
  "And I twice saw the _pan_ change a card!" cried Kalganov.
  
  "How shameful! How shameful!" exclaimed Grushenka, clasping her hands, and
  blushing for genuine shame. "Good Lord, he's come to that!"
  
  "I thought so, too!" said Mitya. But before he had uttered the words,
  Vrublevsky, with a confused and infuriated face, shook his fist at
  Grushenka, shouting:
  
  "You low harlot!"
  
  Mitya flew at him at once, clutched him in both hands, lifted him in the
  air, and in one instant had carried him into the room on the right, from
  which they had just come.
  
  "I've laid him on the floor, there," he announced, returning at once,
  gasping with excitement. "He's struggling, the scoundrel! But he won't
  come back, no fear of that!..."
  
  He closed one half of the folding doors, and holding the other ajar called
  out to the little Pole:
  
  "Most illustrious, will you be pleased to retire as well?"
  
  "My dear Dmitri Fyodorovitch," said Trifon Borissovitch, "make them give
  you back the money you lost. It's as good as stolen from you."
  
  "I don't want my fifty roubles back," Kalganov declared suddenly.
  
  "I don't want my two hundred, either," cried Mitya, "I wouldn't take it
  for anything! Let him keep it as a consolation."
  
  "Bravo, Mitya! You're a trump, Mitya!" cried Grushenka, and there was a
  note of fierce anger in the exclamation.
  
  The little _pan_, crimson with fury but still mindful of his dignity, was
  making for the door, but he stopped short and said suddenly, addressing
  Grushenka:
  
  "_Pani_, if you want to come with me, come. If not, good-by."
  
  And swelling with indignation and importance he went to the door. This was
  a man of character: he had so good an opinion of himself that after all
  that had passed, he still expected that she would marry him. Mitya slammed
  the door after him.
  
  "Lock it," said Kalganov. But the key clicked on the other side, they had
  locked it from within.
  
  "That's capital!" exclaimed Grushenka relentlessly. "Serve them right!"
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 8, Chapter 7
target: The Former and Indisputable One Dmitri's arrival is awkward and his presence is unwanted by the lovers. But the scene has evidently been somewhat awkward between the lovers before his arrival, and the wine and food he brings help to lift everyone's spirits. The young people play cards