“Take it right out, or they’ll think I’m holding on,” said Dólokhov.
“Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?” said Anatole.
“First-rate,” said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who with a bottle of rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.
Dólokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window sill. “Listen!” cried he, standing there and addressing those in the room. All were silent.
“I bet fifty imperials”—he spoke French that the Englishman might understand him, but he did not speak it very well—“I bet fifty imperials ... or do you wish to make it a hundred?” added he, addressing the Englishman.
“No, fifty,” replied the latter.
“All right. Fifty imperials ... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this spot” (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window) “and without holding on to anything. Is that right?”
“Quite right,” said the Englishman.
Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons of his coat and looking down at him—the Englishman was short—began repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.
“Wait!” cried Dólokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window sill to attract attention. “Wait a bit, Kurágin. Listen! If anyone else does the same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?”
The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though he kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating Dólokhov’s words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the Life Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window sill, leaned over, and looked down.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he muttered, looking down from the window at the stones of the pavement.
“Shut up!” cried Dólokhov, pushing him away from the window. The lad
Prev.
Back
Top