At
last he walked perpetually on a monotonous beat from the window to the
mirror, from the mirror to the door, and from the door to the mirror
again.
Suddenly he stopped and tapped his forehead with his hand. The sun was
setting and the last of his level rays shot over the sea of roofs and the
forest of chimneys and entered the little room in a broad red stream,
illuminating the lean, nervous figure as it stood still in the ruddy
light.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed the Count, in a tone of great anxiety, "I have
forgotten Fischelowitz and his money."
There was a considerable break in the continuity of the imaginary
time-table, for he stood still a long time, in deep thought. He was
arguing the case in his mind. What he had promised was, to consider the
fifty marks as a debt of honour. Now a debt of honour must be paid within
twenty-four hours. No doubt, thought the Count, it would not be altogether
impossible to consider the twenty-four hours as extending from midnight to
midnight. The Russians have an expression which means a day and a night
together--they call that space of time the sutki, and it is a more or less
elastic term, as we say "from day to day," "from one evening to another."
Rooms in Russian hotels are let by the sutki, railway tickets are valid
for one or more sutki, and the Count might have chosen to consider that
his sutki extended from the time when he had spoken to Fischelowitz until
twelve o'clock on the following night. But he had no means of knowing
exactly what the time had been when he had been in the shop, and his
punctilious ideas of honour drove him to under-estimate the number of
hours still at his disposal.
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