The Gambler

78

Because I thought you were just an outchitel (something like a lackey, isn’t it?)…because I’m a good girl.

79

Youth must pass.

80

Why, you’re a real philosopher, you know? A real philosopher…Well, then, I’m going to love you, I’m going to love you—you’ll see, you’ll be pleased.

81

A true Russian, a Kalmuck.

82

At sixes and sevens.

83

He’s in luck.

84

I’ll have a mansion, muzhiks [peasants], and besides I’ll still have my million.

85

All the same, he’s very proper.

86

These devilish Russian names, well, then…with fourteen consonants! Pleasant, isn’t it?

87

You’ve been a good boy…I thought you were stupid, and you look it…

88

We’ll always be good friends…and you’ll be happy!

,

Notes

1

The original Vauxhall was a seventeenth-century pleasure garden in London. The word entered Russian as a common noun meaning an outdoor space for concerts and entertainment, with tearoom, tables, casino, and so on. The first railway line in Russia was the Petersburg–Pavlovsk line, and the first vauxhall was near the Pavlovsk railway station, so near, in fact, that vokzal also became the Russian word for “railway station.”

2

Until 1870, the Papal States in central Italy were under the sovereignty of the pope of Rome and maintained their own embassies in other capitals.

3

L’Opinion nationale was a liberal French newspaper which condemned the policies of tsarist Russia in Poland.

4

The year of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia.