"Well, now, aren't you ashamed?" exclaimed Polózof, when the two officers had reached the privacy of their chamber. "I tried to lose, and I kept nudging you under the table. Now aren't you really ashamed? The poor old lady was quite beside herself." The count burst into a terrible fit of laughter. "A most amusing dame! How abused she felt!" And again he began to laugh so heartily that even Johann, who was standing in front of him, cast down his eyes to conceal a smile. "And here is the son of an old family friend! Ha, ha, ha!" continued the count in a gale of laughter. "No, indeed, it is not right. I felt really sorry for her," said the cornet. "What rubbish! How young you are! What! did you think that I was going to lose? Why should I lose? I only lose when I don't know any better. Ten rubles, brother, will come in handy. You must look on life in a practical way, or else you will always be a fool." Polózof made no answer: in the first place, he wanted to think by himself about Liza, who seemed to him to be an extraordinarily pure and beautiful creature. He undressed, and lay down on the clean soft bed which had been made ready for him. "How absurd all these honors and the glory of war!" he thought to himself, gazing at the window shaded by the shawl, through the interstices of which crept the pale rays of the moon. "Here is happiness--to live in a quiet nook, with a gentle, bright, simple-hearted wife; that is enduring, true happiness." But somehow he did not communicate these imaginations to his friend; and he did not even speak of the rustic maiden, though he felt sure that the count was also thinking about her. "Why don't you undress?" he demanded of the count, who was walking up and down the room. "Oh, I don't feel like sleeping! Put out the candle if you like," said he. "I can undress in the dark." And he continued to walk up and down. "He does not feel sleepy," repeated Polózof, who after the evening's experiences felt more than ever dissatisfied with the count's influence upon him, and disposed to revolt against it. "I imagine," he reasoned, mentally addressing Turbin, "what thoughts are now trooping through that well-combed head of yours. And I saw how she pleased you. But you are not the kind to appreciate that simple-hearted, pure-minded creature. Mina is the one for you, you want the epaulets of a colonel.--Indeed, I have a mind to ask him how he liked her." And Polózof was about to address him, but he deliberated: he felt that not only he was not in the right frame of mind to discuss with him if the count's glance at Liza was what he interpreted it to be, but that he should not have the force of mind necessary for him to disagree with him, so accustomed was he to submit to an influence which for him grew each day more burdensome and unrighteous. "Where are you going?" he asked, as the count took his cap and went to the door. "I am going to the stable; I wish to see if every thing is all right."