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.