l little
figure, gasps, breathes hard through his nose, and stares open-eyed
at the cards. He is moved neither by covetousness nor vanity. So
long as he is not driven out of the room, or sent to bed, he is
thankful. He looks phlegmatic, but at heart he is rather a little
beast. He is not there so much for the sake of the loto, as for the
sake of the misunderstandings which are inevitable in the game. He
is greatly delighted if one hits another, or calls him names. He
ought to have run off somewhere long ago, but he won't leave the
table for a minute, for fear they should steal his counters or his
kopecks. As he can only count the units and numbers which end in
nought, Anya covers his numbers for him. The fifth player, the
cook's son, Andrey, a dark-skinned and sickly looking boy in a
cotton shirt, with a copper cross on his breast, stands motionless,
looking dreamily at the numbers. He takes no interest in winning,
or in the success of the others, because he is entirely engrossed
by the arithmetic of the game, and its far from complex theory;
"How many numbers there are in the world," he is thinking, "and how
is it they don't get mixed up?"

They all shout out the numbers in turn, except Sonya and Alyosha.
To vary the monotony, they have invented in the course of time a
number of synonyms and comic nicknames. Seven, for instance, is
called the "ovenrake," eleven the "sticks," seventy-seven "Semyon
Semyonitch," ninety "grandfather," and so on. The game is going
merrily.

"Thirty-two," cries Grisha, drawing the little yellow cylinders out
of his father's cap. "Seventeen! Ovenrake! Twenty-eight! Lay them
straight. . . ."

Anya sees that Andrey has let twenty-eight slip. At any other time
she would have pointed it out to him, but now when her vanity lies
in the saucer with the kopecks, she is triumphant.

"Twenty-three!" Grisha goes on, "Semyon Semyonitch! Nine!"

"A beetle, a beetle," cries Sonya, pointing to a beetle running
across the table. "Aie!"

"Don't kill it," says Alyosha, in his deep bass, "perhaps it's got
children . . . ."

Sonya follows the black beetle with her eyes and wonders about its
children: what tiny little beetles they must be!

"Forty-three! One!" Grisha goes on, unhappy at the thought that
Anya has already made two fours. "Six!"

"Game! I have got the game!" cries Sonya, rolling her eyes coquettishly
and giggling.

The players' countenances lengthen.

"Must make sure!" says Grisha,