"I don't know, I am sure," replied the count. "But I don't know how to reckon in bank-notes. What are they? what do you mean by bank-notes?"[84] [Footnote 84: _Assignatsii._] "Why, no one nowadays reckons in bank-notes," explained the cavalryman, who was playing like a hero and was on the winning side. The old lady ordered some sparkling wine, drank two glasses herself, grew quite flushed, and seemed to abandon all hope. One braid of her gray hair escaped from under her cap, and she did not even put it up. It was evident that she thought herself losing millions, and that she was entirely ruined. The cornet kept nudging the count's leg more and more emphatically. The count was noting down the old lady's losses. At last the game came to an end. In spite of Anna Fedorovna's efforts to bring her reckoning higher than it should be, and to pretend that she had been cheated in her account, and that it could not be correct, in spite of her dismay at the magnitude of her losses, at last the account was made out, and she was found to have lost nine hundred and twenty points. "Isn't that equal to nine paper rubles?" she asked again and again; and she did not begin to realize how great her forfeit was, until her brother, to her horror, explained that she was "out" thirty-two and a half paper rubles, and that it was absolutely necessary for her to pay it. The count did not even sum up his gains, but, as soon as the game was over, arose and went over to the window where Liza was arranging the lunch, and putting potted mushrooms on a plate. There he did with perfect calmness and naturalness what the cornet had been anxious and yet unable to effect all the evening,--he engaged her in conversation about the weather. The cornet at this time was brought into a thoroughly unpleasant predicament. Anna Fedorovna, in the absence of the count and Liza, who had managed to keep her in a jovial frame of mind, became really angry. "Indeed, it is too bad that we have caused you to lose so heavily," said Polózof, in order to say something. "It is simply shameful." "I should think these tablets and _miséries_ were something of your own invention. I don't know any thing about them. How many paper rubles does the whole amount to?" she demanded. "Thirty-two rubles, thirty-two and a half," insisted the cavalryman, who, from the effect of having been on the winning side, was in a very waggish frame of mind. "Give him the money, sister.... Give it to him." "I will give all I owe, only you must not ask for any more. No, I shall never win it back in my life."