Here Mashko laughed with bitterness.
“I did not know of that myself,” continued he; “but now new horizons open themselves before me. One is learning till death. We bankrupts have a certain point of honor too. As to me, I care less for those who would have plucked me in a given case than those who are near me, and to whom I owe gratitude. This may be the morality of Rinaldini, but morality of its own kind.”
The servant brought in tea now. Mashko, needing to strengthen himself evidently, added to his cup an overflowing glass of cognac, and, cooling the hot tea in that way; drank it at a gulp.
“My dear friend,” said Pan Stanislav, “thou knowest the position better than I. All that I could say against flight, and in favor of remaining and coming to terms with creditors, thou hast said to thyself of course, therefore I prefer to ask of something else: Hast thou something to grasp with thy hand? Hast thou even money for the road?”
“I have. Whether a man fails for a hundred thousand, or a hundred and ten thousand, is all one; but I thank thee for the question.”
Here Mashko added cognac to a second cup of tea, and said,—
“Do not think that I am beginning to drink from despair; I have not sat down since morning, and I am terribly tired. Ah, how much good this has done me! I will say now to thee openly that I have not thrown up the game. Thou seest that I have not fired into my forehead. That is a melodrama! that is played out. I know, indeed, that everything is ended for me here; but in this place I could not sail out anyhow. Here the interests are too small simply, and there is no field. Take the west, Paris! There men make fortunes; there they take a somersault, and rise again. What is to be said in the case if it is so? Dost thou know that Hirsh had not, perhaps, three hundred francs on leaving this country? I know, I know! from the standpoint of local mustiness and stupidity here, this will seem a dream,—the fever of a bankrupt. But still, men inferior to me have made millions there,—inferior to me! Lose or win. But if I come back at any time—”
And evidently the tea and cognac had begun to rouse him, for, clinching his fist, he added,—
“Thou wilt see!”
“If that is not dreaming,” answered Pan Stanislav, with still greater impatience than before, “it is the future. But now what?”