Children

Papa, Mama, and Aunt Nadya are not at home. They have gone to a christening at the house of that old officer who rides the little gray horse. Waiting for them to come back, Grisha, Anya, Alyosha, Sonya, and the cook’s son Andrei are sitting in the dining room at the dinner table, playing lotto. To tell the truth, it is long past their bedtime; but how can one possibly fall asleep without first hearing from Mama what the baby at the christening looked like, and what was served for supper? The table, lit by a hanging lamp, is speckled with numbers, walnut shells, scraps of paper, and little glass counters. Before each of the players lie two cards and a small pile of glass counters for covering the numbers. In the middle of the table gleams a saucer with five kopeck coins in it. Beside the saucer lies a half-eaten apple, a pair of scissors, and a plate into which they have been ordered to put the walnut shells. The children are playing for money. The stake is a kopeck. The rule is: whoever cheats is thrown out at once. Besides the players, there is no one else in the dining room. Nanny Agafya Ivanovna is sitting downstairs in the kitchen teaching the cook how to cut a pattern, and the eldest brother, Vasya, a fifth-form pupil, is lying on the sofa in the drawing room, bored.

They are playing with great excitement. The greatest excitement of all is written on Grisha’s face. He is a small nine-year-old boy with a close-cropped head, chubby cheeks, and thick lips like a negro’s. He is already a pupil in the preparatory class, and is therefore considered grown up and the cleverest of them all. He plays only for the money. Were there no kopecks on the saucer, he would long ago have been asleep. His brown eyes dart restlessly and enviously over his partners’ cards. The fear that he might not win, envy, and financial calculations filling his cropped head, will not let him sit still and concentrate. He fidgets as if on pins. When he wins, he snatches up the money greedily and at once hides it in his pocket. His sister Anya, a girl of about eight, with a sharp little chin and clever, shining eyes, is likewise afraid that someone else might win. She flushes, turns pale, and watches the players sharply. The kopecks do not interest her. For her, winning at the game is a matter of pride. Another sister, Sonya, a girl of six, with a curly little head and a complexion such as is found only in very healthy children, in expensive dolls, and on candy boxes, plays lotto purely for the pleasure of playing. Her face is suffused with tenderness. Whoever wins, she laughs just the same and claps her hands. Alyosha, a chubby, round little fellow, puffs, sniffs, and bulges his eyes at the cards. He has neither greed nor pride. He is not driven from the table, not put to bed — and for that alone he is grateful. To look at him he seems phlegmatic, but in his soul he is a proper little rascal. He sat down not so much for the sake of the lotto as for the sake of the squabbles that are bound to happen during the game. He is tremendously pleased if someone hits or scolds someone else. He has long needed to run off somewhere, but he does not leave the table for a single minute, afraid that in his absence his counters and kopecks might be stolen. Since he knows only the single digits and those numbers that end in noughts, Anya covers his numbers for him. The fifth player, the cook’s son Andrei, a swarthy, sickly boy in a cotton print shirt with a copper cross on his chest, stands motionless, gazing dreamily at the numbers. He is indifferent to winning and to other people’s successes, because he is wholly absorbed in the arithmetic of the game, in its simple philosophy: how many different numbers there are in this world, and how is it they never get muddled up!

They call out the numbers in turn, all except Sonya and Alyosha. Because the numbers repeat so often, practice has produced a great many terms and comic nicknames for them. Thus, among the players, seven is called the poker, eleven — the little sticks, seventy-seven — Semyon Semyonych, ninety — the grandfather, and so on. The game goes briskly.

"Thirty-two!" cries Grisha, pulling the yellow little cylinders out of his father’s hat. "Seventeen! The poker! Twenty-eight — mowing the hay!"

Anya sees that Andrei has missed twenty-eight. At another time she would have pointed it out to him, but now, when her pride lies on the saucer together with her kopeck, she gloats instead.

"Twenty-three!" Grisha goes on. "Semyon Semyonych! Nine!"

"A cockroach, a cockroach!" shrieks Sonya, pointing at a cockroach running across the table. "Ah!"

"Don’t hit it," says Alyosha in a bass voice. "It might have children..."

Sonya follows the cockroach with her eyes and thinks about its children: what tiny little cockroach-children they must be!

"Forty-three! One!" Grisha goes on, suffering at the thought that Anya already has two rows covered. "Six!"

"A win! I’ve got a win!" cries Sonya, rolling her eyes coquettishly and bursting into laughter.

Her partners’ faces fall.

"Check it!" says Grisha, looking at Sonya with hatred.

By right of being the eldest and cleverest, Grisha has taken it upon himself to have the deciding voice. Whatever he wants, is done. They check Sonya’s card long and carefully, and to her partners’ great regret it turns out she has not cheated. The next round begins.

"And you know what I saw yesterday!" says Anya, as if to herself. "Filipp Filippych turned his eyelids inside out somehow, and his eyes went red and frightening, like an unclean spirit’s."

"I saw it too," says Grisha. "Eight! And in our school there’s a boy who can wiggle his ears. Twenty-seven!"

Andrei raises his eyes to Grisha, thinks a moment, and says:

"I can wiggle my ears too..."

"Go on, then, wiggle them!"

Andrei wiggles his eyes, lips, and fingers, and it seems to him that his ears are moving too. General laughter.

"That Filipp Filippych is not a good man," sighs Sonya. "Yesterday he came into the nursery, and I was in nothing but my shift... And I felt so improper!"

"A win!" Grisha suddenly cries out, snatching the money from the saucer. "I’ve got a win! Check it if you like!"

The cook’s son raises his eyes and turns pale.

"I suppose I can’t play anymore, then," he whispers.

"Why not?"

"Because... because I have no more money."

"You can’t play without money!" says Grisha.

Just in case, Andrei rummages through his pockets once more. Finding nothing in them but crumbs and a chewed-up little pencil, he twists his mouth and begins blinking miserably. He is about to cry...

"I’ll stake it for you!" says Sonya, unable to bear his martyred look. "Only mind, you’ll pay me back afterward."

The money is put in, and the game goes on.

"I think someone’s ringing a bell somewhere," says Anya, opening her eyes wide.

Everyone stops playing and, mouths open, stares at the dark window. Beyond the darkness the reflection of the lamp flickers.

"It only seemed like it."

"Bells only ring at night at the cemetery..." says Andrei.

"And why do they ring there?"

"So robbers don’t break into the church. They’re afraid of the ringing."

"But why would robbers want to break into a church?" asks Sonya.

"Everyone knows why: to kill the watchmen!"

A minute passes in silence. Everyone exchanges glances, gives a shudder, and goes on with the game. This time Andrei wins.

"He cheated," says Alyosha in his bass voice, apropos of nothing.

"You’re lying, I didn’t cheat!"

Andrei turns pale, twists his mouth, and — smack — hits Alyosha on the head! Alyosha’s eyes bulge furiously, he jumps up, plants one knee on the table, and in his turn — smack — slaps Andrei across the cheek! Each gives the other one more slap, and they burst into howls. Sonya, who cannot bear such horrors, also begins to cry, and the dining room rings with a chorus of wailing. But do not think the game has ended because of this. Not five minutes pass before the children are laughing again and chatting peaceably. Their faces are tear-stained, but that does not stop them from smiling. Alyosha is even happy: there has been a squabble!

Vasya, the fifth-form pupil, comes into the dining room. He looks sleepy and disappointed.

"This is outrageous!" he thinks, watching Grisha feel his pocket, where the kopecks are jingling. "How can one possibly give children money? And how can one possibly allow them to play games of chance? Fine upbringing, I must say. Outrageous!"

But the children are playing so appetizingly that he himself feels a temptation to join them and try his luck.

"Wait, I’ll sit down and play too," he says.

"Put in a kopeck!"

"In a moment," he says, rummaging in his pockets. "I haven’t a kopeck, but here’s a ruble. I’ll stake the ruble."

"No, no, no... put in a kopeck!"

"You’re fools. A ruble is worth more than a kopeck in any case," the schoolboy explains. "Whoever wins will give me the change."

"No, please! Go away!"

The fifth-form pupil shrugs his shoulders and goes to the kitchen to get small change from the servants. There is not a single kopeck to be found in the kitchen.

"In that case, change it for me," he pesters Grisha, coming back from the kitchen. "I’ll pay you a fee for the exchange. Don’t want to? Well then, sell me ten kopecks for a ruble."

Grisha eyes Vasya suspiciously: isn’t this some kind of trick, some sort of swindle?

"I don’t want to," he says, keeping his hand on his pocket.

Vasya begins to lose his temper, scolds them, calling the players blockheads and cast-iron brains.

"Vasya, I’ll stake for you!" says Sonya. "Sit down!"

The schoolboy sits down and lays two cards in front of him. Anya begins calling out the numbers.

"I dropped a kopeck!" Grisha suddenly announces in an agitated voice. "Wait!"

They take down the lamp and crawl under the table to look for the kopeck. They grab handfuls of spat-out shells, walnut shells, bump their heads together, but cannot find the kopeck. They begin searching again and keep searching until Vasya snatches the lamp out of Grisha’s hands and puts it back in its place. Grisha goes on searching in the darkness.

But at last the kopeck is found. The players sit down at the table and want to go on with the game.

"Sonya’s asleep!" Alyosha announces.

Sonya, her curly head resting on her arms, is sleeping sweetly, peacefully, and soundly, as though she had fallen asleep an hour ago. She fell asleep by accident, while the others were looking for the kopeck.

"Come on, go lie down on Mama’s bed!" says Anya, leading her out of the dining room. "Go on!"

They lead her off, the whole crowd of them, and within some five minutes Mama’s bed presents a curious spectacle. Sonya is asleep. Beside her, Alyosha is snoring. Their heads laid on the children’s legs, Grisha and Anya are asleep. And there too, having settled in alongside them, is the cook’s son Andrei. Around them lie the kopecks, which have lost their power until the next game. Good night!