Indeed, the bailiff had not had time to mount two or three steps before the snake stretched out to its full length, and with the rapidity of lightning vanished into a crevice between two stones. When we entered the pavilion we saw another living creature. Lying on the torn and faded cloth of the old billiard table there was an elderly man of middle height in a blue jacket, striped trousers, and a jockey cap. He was sleeping sweetly and quietly. Around his toothless gaping mouth and on his pointed nose flies were making themselves at home. Thin as a skeleton, with an open mouth, lying there immovable, he looked like a corpse that had only just been brought in from the mortuary to be dissected.
“Franz!” said Urbenin, poking him. “Franz!”
After being poked five or six times, Franz shut his mouth, sat up, looked round at us, and lay down again. A minute later his mouth was again open and the flies that were walking about his nose were again disturbed by the slight vibration of his snores.
“He's asleep, the lewd swine!” Urbenin sighed.
“Is he not our gardener, Tricher?” the Count asked.
“No other.… That's how he is every day … He sleeps like a dead man all day and plays cards all night. I was told he gambled last night till six in the morning.”
“What do they play?”
“Games of hazard.… Chiefly stukolka.”
“Well, such gentlemen work badly. They draw their wages for nothing!”
“It was not to complain, your Excellency,” Urbenin hastened to say, “that I told you this, or to express my dissatisfaction; it was only.… I am only sorry that so capable a man is a slave to his passions. He really is a hard-working man, capable too.… He does not receive wages for nothing.”