‘Good-night, comte, I’ll leave you to your well-earned rest. I’ll put the lights out, and give one candle to your servant, I hope you’ll have a good sleep, so that you may be ready to-morrow at twelve.’ With this I left him. Next morning at twelve the horses were put to the cabriolet, and I went upstairs to fetch Z----; but when I got to his door, his servant told me he was asleep. ‘What! asleep at twelve, when he went to bed before midnight. I think I’ll wake him,’ I said, and made my way into the room, where the curtains were drawn to exclude the daylight. ‘Up, up!’ I shouted, ‘the horses are waiting for us. Or are you ill?’ He woke up, sat upright in bed, and began to rub his eyes, as if to suppress his tears. ‘My dear father; why have I lost my father?’ he exclaimed. ‘Have you had a nightmare, dear comte? What has the memory of your father to do with the horses we are going to try?’ ‘Alas, my friend, it’s not a dream, but a horrible reality. I lost two millions of roubles last night.’ ‘Are you mad or joking? You are in bed as I left you when I put out the lights. Do you walk in your sleep, or are you not awake?’ ‘No, friend, but I’m awaking from a sleep which I wish had been my last one. S---- and the Comte B---- entered the room immediately after you left it. They relighted the candles which you extinguished: we played all night, and I have lost two millions of roubles, for which I gave them my bills. Here, look for yourself.’ I stepped to the window and drew the curtains aside: the floor was littered with cards, which they must have got in the hotel, and the ruin of the young fellow had been accomplished before daylight. ‘This can only be a joke on their part, dear comte; make your mind easy. They could not possibly harbour the thought of despoiling a friend in that manner. They are also my friends, although I should certainly cease to consider them as such if they hesitated for a moment to destroy every trace of such a disgraceful night.’ Having said this, I immediately left him, to go to S----, to whom I submitted the same argument in order to persuade him to waive his claim. I said much more; I pointed out the consequences to himself if such a story came to the ears of the Emperor Alexander. Referring to the sovereign’s well-known dislike of any kind of gaming, I did not disguise from him the possibility of the emperor taking up the matter personally, with a view of preventing such deplorable transactions in the future, and that he, S----, might be selected, not without some justification, as an example for the sake of enforcing the lesson. All my efforts to bring him to reason and to arouse a feeling of equity were in vain. He positively derided what he was pleased to call my sentimental pathos, and ended up by proposing a game for my cabriolet and horses, so that I might be enabled to preach from experience. I felt disgusted, and left him.