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Updated: May 27, 2025
The alarm was sounded; all but Vulich jumped up and rushed to arms. "Stake, va banque!" he cried to one of the most ardent gamblers. "Seven," the latter answered as he hurried off. Notwithstanding the general confusion, Vulich calmly finished the deal seven was the card. By the time he reached the cordon a violent fusillade was in progress.
That unpleasant duty discharged, Vulich dashed forward, carried the soldiers along after him, and, to the very end of the affair, fought the Chechenes with the utmost coolness. When Lieutenant Vulich came up to the table, we all became silent, expecting to hear, as usual, something original.
Some maintained that probably the pan had been obstructed; others whispered that the powder had been damp the first time, and that, afterwards, Vulich had sprinkled some fresh powder on it; but I maintained that the last supposition was wrong, because I had not once taken my eyes off the pistol. "You are lucky at play!" I said to Vulich...
I have noticed and many old soldiers have corroborated my observation that a man who is to die in a few hours frequently bears on his face a certain strange stamp of inevitable fate, so that it is difficult for practised eyes to be mistaken. "You will die to-day!" I said to Vulich. He turned towards me rapidly, but answered slowly and quietly: "May be so, may be not."...
Vulich did not trouble himself about the bullets or the sabres of the Chechenes, but sought for the lucky gambler.
At the moment it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger... a flash in the pan! "Thank God!" many exclaimed. "It wasn't loaded!" "Let us see, though," said Vulich. He cocked the pistol again, and took aim at a forage-cap which was hanging above the window. A shot rang out. Smoke filled the room; when it cleared away, the forage-cap was taken down.
The two Cossacks who had met me and followed the murderer had arrived on the scene and raised the wounded man from the ground. But he was already as his last gasp and said these three words only "he was right!" I alone understood the dark significance of those words: they referred to me. I had involuntarily foretold his fate to poor Vulich.
Then, addressing himself to the major, he asked: "Is the pistol loaded?" The major, in the confusion, could not quite remember. "There, that will do, Vulich!" exclaimed somebody. "Of course it must be loaded, if it was one of those hanging on the wall there over our heads. What a man you are for joking!" "A silly joke, too!" struck in another.
"There's a queer fellow for you! He does get strange ideas into his head!" "I propose a wager," I said in jest. "What sort of wager?" "I maintain that there is no such thing as predestination," I said, scattering on the table a score or so of ducats all I had in my pocket. "Done," answered Vulich in a hollow voice. "Major, you will be judge.
Vulich had been walking alone along a dark street, and the drunken Cossack who had cut up the pig had sprung out upon him, and perhaps would have passed him by without noticing him, had not Vulich stopped suddenly and said: "Whom are you looking for, my man?" "You!" answered the Cossack, striking him with his sabre; and he cleft him from the shoulder almost to the heart...
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