The game occupied some time. On the table lay more than thirty cards.
Chekalinsky paused after each throw, in order to give the players time
to arrange their cards and note down their losses, listened politely
to their requests, and more politely still, put straight the corners
of cards that some player's hand had chanced to bend. At last the game
was finished. Chekalinsky shuffled the cards and prepared to deal
again.
"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.
Narumov 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.
"Stake!" said Hermann, writing some figures with chalk on the back of
his card.
"How much?" asked the banker, contracting the muscles of his eyes;
"excuse me, I cannot see quite clearly."
"Forty-seven thousand rubles," replied Hermann.
At these words every head in the room turned suddenly round, and all
eyes were fixed upon Hermann.
"He has taken leave of his senses!" thought Narumov.
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