The bridegroom himself answered.
‘Certainly,’ he exclaimed, and there was a curious look on his wine-flushed face. ‘I want to know my future; let the woman go on.’
Briazga appeared to be very greatly irritated, but as there arose a murmured assent from the assembly he yielded to the evident desire of his guests, who now crowded round the table and urged the fortune-teller to rearrange the cards. This she did, and having laid them out again in five rows, she uttered an ejaculatory ‘Ah!’ and after a pause added:
‘It is better; but still there is a block somewhere. Can you, sir’—this to the bridegroom—‘place on the table five thousand rouble notes? That will perhaps break the spell.’
It was a common thing for these fortune-tellers to request that small sums of money might be produced; but five thousand roubles was a large sum, and there was a general murmur of surprise, while Briazga appeared to be particularly uneasy and troubled. He was trying to push his way through the crowd to get at his brother-in-law, for there was such a hubbub and din of voices that he could not make himself heard; but before he succeeded in accomplishing his purpose, Peter Golovnin, with a boastful air and a drunken leer on his red face, pulled from his pocket a leather wallet, which, on opening, was found to be stuffed full of notes. With an unsteady hand he proceeded to count out five notes of the value of one thousand roubles each. Having done so, he laid the notes upon the table, and once more there was breathless silence as the company craned their necks in their eagerness to see what the old woman would now do. The bridegroom himself seemed the least concerned of anyone, and, with a coarse, drunken laugh, remarked:
‘I suppose the old fool thought I did not possess so much money. It shows what an impostor she is, otherwise she would have been able to tell you exactly how much I have in my wallet. However, let her go on, and if she fails this time I will kick her out.’
The fortune-teller seemed in no ways affected by the threat, but busied herself in rearranging the cards. She spread out the five bank-notes. On each of four she placed a knave from the pack, and on the fifth she put a queen. Suspicious eyes watched her every movement, as more than one person present was of opinion that she wanted to purloin the money by some hanky-panky business.
‘There is a lot of knavery here,’ she remarked thoughtfully. ‘The queen, as you will see, is the victim of knaves, and I am afraid will come to grief.’
‘Who does the queen represent?’ asked someone.
‘The bride,’ answered the fortune-teller.