Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Gambler

5. CHAPTER V (continued)

Suddenly, she burst out laughing. We were seated on a bench near the spot where the children were playing--just opposite the point in the alley-way before the Casino where the carriages drew up in order to set down their occupants.

"Do you see that fat Baroness?" she cried. "It is the Baroness Burmergelm. She arrived three days ago. Just look at her husband--that tall, wizened Prussian there, with the stick in his hand. Do you remember how he stared at us the other day? Well, go to the Baroness, take off your hat to her, and say something in French."

"Why?"

"Because you have sworn that you would leap from the Shlangenberg for my sake, and that you would kill any one whom I might bid you kill. Well, instead of such murders and tragedies, I wish only for a good laugh. Go without answering me, and let me see the Baron give you a sound thrashing with his stick."

"Then you throw me out a challenge?--you think that I will not do it?"

"Yes, I do challenge you. Go, for such is my will."

"Then I WILL go, however mad be your fancy. Only, look here: shall you not be doing the General a great disservice, as well as, through him, a great disservice to yourself? It is not about myself I am worrying-- it is about you and the General. Why, for a mere fancy, should I go and insult a woman?"

"Ah! Then I can see that you are only a trifler," she said contemptuously. "Your eyes are swimming with blood--but only because you have drunk a little too much at luncheon. Do I not know that what I have asked you to do is foolish and wrong, and that the General will be angry about it? But I want to have a good laugh, all the same. I want that, and nothing else. Why should you insult a woman, indeed? Well, you will be given a sound thrashing for so doing."