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Updated: May 23, 2025
There was a card party at the rooms of Naroumoff, of the Horse Guards. The long winter night passed away imperceptibly, and it was five o'clock in the morning before the company sat down to supper. Those who had won ate with a good appetite; the others sat staring absently at their empty plates.
"Perhaps they were marked cards!" said a third. "I do not think so," replied Tomsky, gravely. "What!" said Naroumoff, "you have a grandmother who knows how to hit upon three lucky cards in succession, and you have never yet succeeded in getting the secret of it out of her?"
"Are there any Russian novels? Send me one, my dear, pray send me one!" "Good-by, grandmother. I am in a hurry. . . . Goodby, Lizavetta Ivanovna. What made you think that Naroumoff was in the Engineers?" And Tomsky left the boudoir. Lizaveta Ivanovna was left alone. She laid aside her work, and began to look out of the window.
Naroumoff conducted Hermann to Chekalinsky's residence. They passed through a suite of rooms, filled with attentive domestics. The place was crowded. Generals and Privy Counsellors were playing at whist, young men were lolling carelessly upon the velvet-covered sofas, eating ices and smoking pipes.
"Do you wish me to settle with you?" he said to Hermann. "If you please," replied the latter. Chekalinsky drew from his pocket a number of banknotes and paid at once. Hermann took up his money and left the table. Naroumoff could not recover from his astonishment. Hermann drank a glass of lemonade and returned home. The next evening he again repaired to Chekalinsky's. The host was dealing.
"What!" said Naroumoff, "you have a grandmother who knows how to hit upon three lucky cards in succession, and you have never yet succeeded in getting the secret of it out of her?"
"Will you allow me to take a card?" said Hermann, stretching out his hand from behind a stout gentleman who was punting. Chekalinsky smiled and bowed silently, as a sign of acquiescence. Naroumoff laughingly congratulated Hermann on his abjuration of that abstention from cards which he had practised for so long a period, and wished him a lucky beginning.
Naroumoff introduced Hermann to him. Chekalinsky shook him by the hand in a friendly manner, requested him not to stand on ceremony, and then went on dealing. The game occupied some time. On the table lay more than thirty cards.
But hearing that Naroumoff was not an Engineer, she regretted that by her thoughtless question, she had betrayed her secret to the volatile Tomsky. Hermann was the son of a German who had become a naturalized Russian, and from whom he had inherited a small capital.
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