The Gambler
ticklish—even an embarrassing—business to accompany the Grandmother to
the Casino, where, very likely, she would perpetrate further
eccentricities, and in public too! Yet on their own initiative they had
offered to escort her!
“Why should I rest?” she retorted. “I am not tired, for I have been
sitting still these past five days. Let us see what your medicinal
springs and waters are like, and where they are situated. What, too,
about that, that—what did you call it, Prascovia?—oh, about that
mountain top?”
“Yes, we are going to see it, Grandmamma.”
“Very well. Is there anything else for me to see here?”
“Yes! Quite a number of things,” Polina forced herself to say.
“Martha, _you_ must come with me as well,” went on the old lady to her
maid.
“No, no, mother!” ejaculated the General. “Really she cannot come. They
would not admit even Potapitch to the Casino.”
“Rubbish! Because she is my servant, is that a reason for turning her
out? Why, she is only a human being like the rest of us; and as she has
been travelling for a week she might like to look about her. With whom
else could she go out but myself? She would never dare to show her nose
in the street alone.”
“But, mother—”
“Are you ashamed to be seen with me? Stop at home, then, and you will
be asked no questions. A pretty General _you_ are, to be sure! I am a
general’s widow myself. But, after all, why should I drag the whole
party with me? I will go and see the sights with only Alexis Ivanovitch
as my escort.”
De Griers strongly insisted that _every one_ ought to accompany her.
Indeed, he launched out into a perfect shower of charming phrases
concerning the pleasure of acting as her cicerone, and so forth. Every
one was touched with his words.
“Mais elle est tombée en enfance,” he added aside to the General.
“Seule, elle fera des bêtises.” More than this I could not overhear,
but he seemed to have got some plan in his mind, or even to be feeling
a slight return of his hopes.
The distance to the Casino was about half a verst, and our route led us
through the Chestnut Avenue until we reached the square directly
fronting the building. The General, I could see, was a trifle reassured
by the fact that, though our progress was distinctly eccentric in its
nature, it was, at least, correct and orderly. As a matter of fact, the
spectacle of a person who is unable to walk is not anything to excite
surprise at a spa. Yet it was clear that the General had a great fear
of the Casino itself: for why should a person who had lost the use of
her limbs—more especially an old woman—be going to rooms which were set
apart only for roulette? On either side of the wheeled chair walked
Polina and Mlle. Blanche—the latter smiling, modestly jesting, and, in
short, making herself so agreeable to the Grandmother that in the end
the old lady relented towards her. On the other side of the chair
Polina had to answer an endless flow of petty questions—such as “Who
was it passed just now?” “Who is that coming along?” “Is the town a
large one?” “Are the public gardens extensive?” “What sort of trees are
those?” “What is the name of those hills?” “Do I see eagles flying
yonder?” “What is that absurd-looking building?” and so forth.
Meanwhile Astley whispered to me, as he walked by my side, that he
looked for much to happen that morning. Behind the old lady’s chair
marched Potapitch and Martha—Potapitch in his frockcoat and white
waistcoat, with a cloak over all, and the forty-year-old and rosy, but
slightly grey-headed, Martha in a mobcap, cotton dress, and squeaking
shoes. Frequently the old lady would twist herself round to converse
with these servants. As for De Griers, he spoke as though he had made
up his mind to do something (though it is also possible that he spoke
in this manner merely in order to hearten the General, with whom he
appeared to have held a conference). But, alas, the Grandmother had
uttered the fatal words, “I am not going to give you any of my money;”
and though De Griers might regard these words lightly, the General knew
his mother better. Also, I noticed that De Griers and Mlle. Blanche
were still exchanging looks; while of the Prince and the German savant
I lost sight at the end of the Avenue, where they had turned back and
left us.
Into the Casino we marched in triumph. At once, both in the person of
the commissionaire and in the persons of the footmen, there sprang to
life the same reverence as had arisen in the lacqueys of the hotel. Yet
it was not without some curiosity that they eyed us.
Without loss of time, the Grandmother gave orders that she should be
wheeled through every room in the establishment; of which apartments
she praised a few, while to others she remained indifferent. Concerning
everything, however, she asked questions. Finally we reached the
gaming-salons, where a lacquey who was, acting as guard over the doors,
flung them open as though he were a man possessed.
The Grandmother’s entry into the roulette-salon produced a profound
impression upon the public. Around the tables, and at the further end
of the room where the trente-et-quarante table was set out, there may
have been gathered from 150 to 200 gamblers, ranged in several rows.
Those who had succeeded in pushing their way to the tables were
standing with their feet firmly planted, in order to avoid having to
give up their places until they should have finished their game (since
merely to stand looking on—thus occupying a gambler’s place for
nothing—was not permitted). True, chairs were provided around the
tables, but few players made use of them—more especially if there was a
large attendance of the general public; since to stand allowed of a
closer approach; and, therefore, of greater facilities for calculation
and staking. Behind the foremost row were herded a second and a third
row of people awaiting their turn; but sometimes their impatience led
these people to stretch a hand through the first row, in order to
deposit their stakes. Even third-row individuals would dart forward to
stake; whence seldom did more than five or ten minutes pass without a
scene over disputed money arising at one or another end of the table.
On the other hand, the police of the Casino were an able body of men;
and though to escape the crush was an impossibility, however much one
might wish it, the eight croupiers apportioned to each table kept an
eye upon the stakes, performed the necessary reckoning, and decided
disputes as they arose.
In the last resort they always called in the Casino police, and the
disputes would immediately come to an end. Policemen were stationed
about the Casino in ordinary costume, and mingled with the spectators
so as to make it impossible to recognise them. In particular they kept
a lookout for pickpockets and swindlers, who simply swanned in the
roulette salons, and reaped a rich harvest. Indeed, in every direction
money was being filched from pockets or purses—though, of course, if
the attempt miscarried, a great uproar ensued. One had only to approach
a roulette table, begin to play, and then openly grab some one else’s
winnings, for a din to be raised, and the thief to start vociferating
that the stake was _his;_ and, if the coup had been carried out with
sufficient skill, and the witnesses wavered at all in their testimony,
the thief would as likely as not succeed in getting away with the
money, provided that the sum was not a large one—not large enough to
have attracted the attention of the croupiers or some fellow-player.
Moreover, if it were a stake of insignificant size, its true owner
would sometimes decline to continue the dispute, rather than become
involved in a scandal. Conversely, if the thief was detected, he was
ignominiously expelled the building.
Upon all this the Grandmother gazed with open-eyed curiosity; and, on
some thieves happening to be turned out of the place, she was
delighted. Trente-et-quarante interested her but little; she preferred
roulette, with its ever-revolving wheel. At length she expressed a wish
to view the game closer; whereupon in some mysterious manner, the
lacqueys and other officious agents (especially one or two ruined Poles
of the kind who keep offering their services to successful gamblers and
foreigners in general) at once found and cleared a space for the old
lady among the crush, at the very centre of one of the tables, and next
to the chief croupier; after which they wheeled her chair thither. Upon
this a number of visitors who were not playing, but only looking on
(particularly some Englishmen with their families), pressed closer
forward towards the table, in order to watch the old lady from among
the ranks of the gamblers. Many a lorgnette I saw turned in her
direction, and the croupiers’ hopes rose high that such an eccentric
player was about to provide them with something out of the common. An
old lady of seventy-five years who, though unable to walk, desired to
play was not an everyday phenomenon. I too pressed forward towards the
table, and ranged myself by the Grandmother’s side; while Martha and
Potapitch remained somewhere in the background among the crowd, and the
General, Polina, and De Griers, with Mlle. Blanche, also remained
hidden among the spectators.
At first the old lady did no more than watch the gamblers, and ply me,
in a half-whisper, with sharp-broken questions as to who was so-and-so.
Especially did her favour light upon a very young man who was plunging
heavily, and had won (so it was whispered) as much as 40,000 francs,
which were lying before him on the table in a heap of gold and
bank-notes. His eyes kept flashing, and his hands shaking; yet all the
while he staked without any sort of calculation—just what came to his
hand, as he kept winning and winning, and raking and raking in his
gains. Around him lacqueys fussed—placing chairs just behind where he
was standing—and clearing the spectators from his vicinity, so that he
should have more room, and not be crowded—the whole done, of course, in
expectation of a generous largesse. From time to time other gamblers
would hand him part of their winnings—being glad to let him stake for
them as much as his hand could grasp; while beside him stood a Pole in
a state of violent, but respectful, agitation, who, also in expectation
of a generous largesse, kept whispering to him at intervals (probably
telling him what to stake, and advising and directing his play). Yet
never once did the player throw him a glance as he staked and staked,
and raked in his winnings. Evidently, the player in question was dead
to all besides.
For a few minutes the Grandmother watched him.
“Go and tell him,” suddenly she exclaimed with a nudge at my elbow,
“—go and tell him to stop, and to take his money with him, and go home.
Presently he will be losing—yes, losing everything that he has now
won.” She seemed almost breathless with excitement.
“Where is Potapitch?” she continued. “Send Potapitch to speak to him.
No, _you_ must tell him, _you_ must tell him,”—here she nudged me
again—“for I have not the least notion where Potapitch is. Sortez,
sortez,” she shouted to the young man, until I leant over in her
direction and whispered in her ear that no shouting was allowed, nor
even loud speaking, since to do so disturbed the calculations of the
players, and might lead to our being ejected.
“How provoking!” she retorted. “Then the young man is done for! I
suppose he _wishes_ to be ruined. Yet I could not bear to see him have
to return it all. What a fool the fellow is!” and the old lady turned
sharply away.
On the left, among the players at the other half of the table, a young
lady was playing, with, beside her, a dwarf. Who the dwarf may have
been—whether a relative or a person whom she took with her to act as a