| The conversation had been carried on in execrable French. | Говорим мы с ним на сквернейшем французском языке. |
| IV | Глава IV |
| Today has been a day of folly, stupidity, and ineptness. | Сегодня был день смешной, безобразный, нелепый. |
| The time is now eleven o'clock in the evening, and I am sitting in my room and thinking. | Теперь одиннадцать часов ночи. Я сижу в своей каморке и припоминаю. |
| It all began, this morning, with my being forced to go and play roulette for Polina Alexandrovna. | Началось с того, что утром принужден-таки был идти на рулетку, чтоб играть для Полины Александровны. |
| When she handed me over her store of six hundred gulden I exacted two conditions-namely, that I should not go halves with her in her winnings, if any (that is to say, I should not take anything for myself), and that she should explain to me, that same evening, why it was so necessary for her to win, and how much was the sum which she needed. | Я взял все ее сто шестьдесят фридрихсдоров, но под двумя условиями: первое - что я не хочу играть в половине, то есть если выиграю, то ничего не возьму себе, второе - что вечером Полина разъяснит мне, для чего именно ей так нужно выиграть и сколько именно денег. |
| For, I could not suppose that she was doing all this merely for the sake of money. | Я все-таки никак не могу предположить, чтобы это было просто для денег. |
| Yet clearly she did need some money, and that as soon as possible, and for a special purpose. | Тут, видимо, деньги необходимы, и как можно скорее, для какой-то особенной цели. |
| Well, she promised to explain matters, and I departed. | Она обещалась разъяснить, и я отправился. |
| There was a tremendous crowd in the gaming-rooms. | В игорных залах толпа была ужасная. |
| What an arrogant, greedy crowd it was! | Как нахальны они и как все они жадны! |
| I pressed forward towards the middle of the room until I had secured a seat at a croupier's elbow. Then I began to play in timid fashion, venturing only twenty or thirty gulden at a time. | Я протеснился к середине и стал возле самого крупера; затем стал робко пробовать игру, ставя по две и по три монеты. |
| Meanwhile, I observed and took notes. It seemed to me that calculation was superfluous, and by no means possessed of the importance which certain other players attached to it, even though they sat with ruled papers in their hands, whereon they set down the coups, calculated the chances, reckoned, staked, and-lost exactly as we more simple mortals did who played without any reckoning at all. |