“Gentlemen!” he said slowly, disengaging his arm. “Who would like to pay twenty ducats for me?”
Vulich went into the other room and sat by the table; we all followed him. With a sign he invited us to sit round him. We obeyed in silence--at that moment he had acquired a certain mysterious authority over us. I stared fixedly into his face; but he met my scrutinising gaze with a quiet and steady glance, and his pallid lips smiled. But, notwithstanding his composure, it seemed to me that I could read the stamp of death upon his pale countenance. I have noticed--and many old soldiers have corroborated my observation--that a man who is to die in a few hours frequently bears on his face a certain strange stamp of inevitable fate, so that it is difficult for practised eyes to be mistaken.
He turned towards me rapidly, but answered slowly and quietly:
Then, addressing himself to the major, he asked:
The major, in the confusion, could not quite remember.
“There, that will do, Vulich!” exclaimed somebody. “Of course it must be loaded, if it was one of those hanging on the wall there over our heads. What a man you are for joking!”
“I wager fifty rubles to five that the pistol is not loaded!” cried a third.
“Listen,” I said, “either shoot yourself, or hang up the pistol in its place and let us go to bed.”
“Yes, of course!” many exclaimed. “Let us go to bed.”
“Gentlemen, I beg of you not to move,” said Vulich, putting the muzzle of the pistol to his forehead.
“Mr. Pechorin,” he added, “take a card and throw it up in the air.”
I took, as I remember now, an ace of hearts off the table and threw it into the air. All held their breath. With eyes full of terror and a certain vague curiosity they glanced rapidly from the pistol to the fateful ace, which slowly descended, quivering in the air. At the moment it touched the table Vulich pulled the trigger... a flash in the pan!
“Thank God!” many exclaimed. “It wasn’t loaded!”
He cocked the pistol again, and took aim at a forage-cap which was hanging above the window. A shot rang out. Smoke filled the room; when it cleared away, the forage-cap was taken down. It had been shot right through the centre, and the bullet was deeply embedded in the wall.