some curious way; the thought that I was fully conscious of her
inaccessibility, and of the impossibility of my ever realising
my dreams, afforded her, I am certain, the keenest possible
pleasure. Otherwise, is it likely that she, the cautious and
clever woman that she was, would have indulged in this
familiarity and openness with me? Hitherto (I concluded) she had
looked upon me in the same light that the old Empress did upon
her servant--the Empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself
before her slave, since she did not account a slave a man. Yes,
often Polina must have taken me for something less than a man!"

Still, she had charged me with a commission--to win what I could
at roulette. Yet all the time I could not help wondering WHY it
was so necessary for her to win something, and what new schemes
could have sprung to birth in her ever-fertile brain. A host of
new and unknown factors seemed to have arisen during the last
two weeks. Well, it behoved me to divine them, and to probe
them, and that as soon as possible. Yet not now: at the present
moment I must repair to the roulette-table.

II

I confess I did not like it. Although I had made up my mind to
play, I felt averse to doing so on behalf of some one else. In
fact, it almost upset my balance, and I entered the gaming rooms
with an angry feeling at my heart. At first glance the scene
irritated me. Never at any time have I been able to bear the
flunkeyishness which one meets in the Press of the world at
large, but more especially in that of Russia, where, almost
every evening, journalists write on two subjects in particular