"Yes…But no, I think not," Sergius replied.
"Just one game?"
"Just one? Well, only one!"
They sat down and played chess. Constantine was dressed in a rumpled
Lyceum uniform; he wore rings on his fingers, like the general and
Sergius, and an antique gold chain hung round his neck.
Being in constant dread of requisitioners and robbers they had divided all the jewellery between them, and wore it for safety.
The brothers played one game, then a second, a fourth, a sixth— smoking and quarrelling, disagreeing over the moves and trying to re- arrange them. The general returned from the ration queue in the market and came along the passage. He peeped in at the two players through the open door, and after some hesitation decided to enter.
"Greenhorns, you don't know how to play!" he said.
"What do you mean? Don't know how to play?"
"Now, now, don't fly into a rage. If I am wrong—excuse an old man … I sent Kirka for the newspaper, I gave him a twenty copeck piece for a tip."
"I am not in a rage!"