Four ---- I was assigned a small room on the fourth floor of the hotel (for you must know that I belonged to the General's suite). The same afternoon, at four o'clock, I went to have my customary talk with Polina Alexandrovna; and, the talk soon extended to a stroll. The wheel stopped at 4. Next day there was a good deal of talk about a telegram which, four days ago, had been sent to St. Petersburg, but to which there had come no answer. Suppose the ball stopped twice at a dozen outer figures; it would then pass to a dozen of the first ones, and then, again, to a dozen of the middle ciphers, and fall upon them three or four times, and then revert to a dozen outers; whence, after another couple of rounds, the ball would again pass to the first figures, strike upon them once, and then return thrice to the middle series — continuing thus for an hour and a half, or two hours. On the evening of my first arrival, four months ago, I remember that she was sitting and holding an animated conversation with De Griers in the salon. To the Grandmother, however, our landlord, for some reason or another, allotted such a sumptuous suite that he fairly overreached himself; for he assigned her a suite consisting of four magnificently appointed rooms, with bathroom, servants' quarters, a separate room for her maid, and so on. “No single stake must exceed four thousand florins. “Alexis Ivanovitch,” said the old lady, “after luncheon, — that is to say, about four o'clock — get ready to go out with me again. True enough, I found Madame in the hotel verandah — much put about at my delay, for she had been unable to contain herself until four o'clock. “Stake four thousand gulden upon the red.” Consequently, there was nothing for it but to stake the whole four thousand gulden as she had directed. At first the old lady failed to understand the situation; but, as soon as she saw the croupier raking in her four thousand gulden, together with everything else that happened to be lying on the table, and recognised that the zero which had been so long turning up, and on which we had lost nearly two hundred ten-gulden pieces, had at length, as though of set purpose, made a sudden reappearance — why, the poor old lady fell to cursing it, and to throwing herself about, and wailing and gesticulating at the company at large. Stake.

Numbers in The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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