The Gambler
foil—I do not know; but I had noticed her there on previous occasions,
since, everyday, she entered the Casino at one o’clock precisely, and
departed at two—thus playing for exactly one hour. Being well-known to
the attendants, she always had a seat provided for her; and, taking
some gold and a few thousand-franc notes out of her pocket—would begin
quietly, coldly, and after much calculation, to stake, and mark down
the figures in pencil on a paper, as though striving to work out a
system according to which, at given moments, the odds might group
themselves. Always she staked large coins, and either lost or won one,
two, or three thousand francs a day, but not more; after which she
would depart. The Grandmother took a long look at her.
“_That_ woman is not losing,” she said. “To whom does she belong? Do
you know her? Who is she?”
“She is, I believe, a Frenchwoman,” I replied.
“Ah! A bird of passage, evidently. Besides, I can see that she has her
shoes polished. Now, explain to me the meaning of each round in the
game, and the way in which one ought to stake.”
Upon this I set myself to explain the meaning of all the
combinations—of “rouge et noir,” of “pair et impair,” of “manque et
passe,” with, lastly, the different values in the system of numbers.
The Grandmother listened attentively, took notes, put questions in
various forms, and laid the whole thing to heart. Indeed, since an
example of each system of stakes kept constantly occurring, a great
deal of information could be assimilated with ease and celerity. The
Grandmother was vastly pleased.
“But what is zero?” she inquired. “Just now I heard the flaxen-haired
croupier call out ‘zero!’ And why does he keep raking in all the money
that is on the table? To think that he should grab the whole pile for
himself! What does zero mean?”
“Zero is what the bank takes for itself. If the wheel stops at that
figure, everything lying on the table becomes the absolute property of
the bank. Also, whenever the wheel has begun to turn, the bank ceases
to pay out anything.”
“Then I should receive nothing if I were staking?”
“No; unless by any chance you had _purposely_ staked on zero; in which
case you would receive thirty-five times the value of your stake.”
“Why thirty-five times, when zero so often turns up? And if so, why do
not more of these fools stake upon it?”
“Because the number of chances against its occurrence is thirty-six.”
“Rubbish! Potapitch, Potapitch! Come here, and I will give you some
money.” The old lady took out of her pocket a tightly-clasped purse,
and extracted from its depths a ten-gülden piece. “Go at once, and
stake that upon zero.”
“But, Madame, zero has only this moment turned up,” I remonstrated;
“wherefore, it may not do so again for ever so long. Wait a little, and
you may then have a better chance.”
“Rubbish! Stake, please.”
“Pardon me, but zero might not turn up again until, say, tonight, even
though you had staked thousands upon it. It often happens so.”
“Rubbish, rubbish! Who fears the wolf should never enter the forest.
What? We have lost? Then stake again.”
A second ten-gülden piece did we lose, and then I put down a third. The
Grandmother could scarcely remain seated in her chair, so intent was
she upon the little ball as it leapt through the notches of the
ever-revolving wheel. However, the third ten-gülden piece followed the
first two. Upon this the Grandmother went perfectly crazy. She could no
longer sit still, and actually struck the table with her fist when the
croupier cried out, “Trente-six,” instead of the desiderated zero.
“To listen to him!” fumed the old lady. “When will that accursed zero
ever turn up? I cannot breathe until I see it. I believe that that
infernal croupier is _purposely_ keeping it from turning up. Alexis
Ivanovitch, stake TWO golden pieces this time. The moment we cease to
stake, that cursed zero will come turning up, and we shall get
nothing.”
“My good Madame—”
“Stake, stake! It is not _your_ money.”
Accordingly I staked two ten-gülden pieces. The ball went hopping round
the wheel until it began to settle through the notches. Meanwhile the
Grandmother sat as though petrified, with my hand convulsively clutched
in hers.
“Zero!” called the croupier.
“There! You see, you see!” cried the old lady, as she turned and faced
me, wreathed in smiles. “I told you so! It was the Lord God himself who
suggested to me to stake those two coins. Now, how much ought I to
receive? Why do they not pay it out to me? Potapitch! Martha! Where are
they? What has become of our party? Potapitch, Potapitch!”
“Presently, Madame,” I whispered. “Potapitch is outside, and they would
decline to admit him to these rooms. See! You are being paid out your
money. Pray take it.” The croupiers were making up a heavy packet of
coins, sealed in blue paper, and containing fifty ten gülden pieces,
together with an unsealed packet containing another twenty. I handed
the whole to the old lady in a money-shovel.
“Faites le jeu, messieurs! Faites le jeu, messieurs! Rien ne va plus,”
proclaimed the croupier as once more he invited the company to stake,
and prepared to turn the wheel.
“We shall be too late! He is going to spin again! Stake, stake!” The
Grandmother was in a perfect fever. “Do not hang back! Be quick!” She
seemed almost beside herself, and nudged me as hard as she could.
“Upon what shall I stake, Madame?”
“Upon zero, upon zero! Again upon zero! Stake as much as ever you can.
How much have we got? Seventy ten-gülden pieces? We shall not miss
them, so stake twenty pieces at a time.”
“Think a moment, Madame. Sometimes zero does not turn up for two
hundred rounds in succession. I assure you that you may lose all your
capital.”
“You are wrong—utterly wrong. Stake, I tell you! What a chattering
tongue you have! I know perfectly well what I am doing.” The old lady
was shaking with excitement.
“But the rules do not allow of more than 120 gülden being staked upon
zero at a time.”
“How ‘do not allow’? Surely you are wrong? Monsieur, monsieur—” here
she nudged the croupier who was sitting on her left, and preparing to
spin—“combien zero? Douze? Douze?”
I hastened to translate.
“Oui, Madame,” was the croupier’s polite reply. “No single stake must
exceed four thousand florins. That is the regulation.”
“Then there is nothing else for it. We must risk in gülden.”
“Le jeu est fait!” the croupier called. The wheel revolved, and stopped
at thirty. We had lost!
“Again, again, again! Stake again!” shouted the old lady. Without
attempting to oppose her further, but merely shrugging my shoulders, I
placed twelve more ten-gülden pieces upon the table. The wheel whirled
around and around, with the Grandmother simply quaking as she watched
its revolutions.
“Does she again think that zero is going to be the winning coup?”
thought I, as I stared at her in astonishment. Yet an absolute
assurance of winning was shining on her face; she looked perfectly
convinced that zero was about to be called again. At length the ball
dropped off into one of the notches.
“Zero!” cried the croupier.
“Ah!!!” screamed the old lady as she turned to me in a whirl of
triumph.
I myself was at heart a gambler. At that moment I became acutely
conscious both of that fact and of the fact that my hands and knees
were shaking, and that the blood was beating in my brain. Of course
this was a rare occasion—an occasion on which zero had turned up no
less than three times within a dozen rounds; yet in such an event there
was nothing so very surprising, seeing that, only three days ago, I
myself had been a witness to zero turning up _three times in
succession_, so that one of the players who was recording the coups on
paper was moved to remark that for several days past zero had never
turned up at all!
With the Grandmother, as with any one who has won a very large sum, the
management settled up with great attention and respect, since she was
fortunate to have to receive no less than 4200 gülden. Of these gülden
the odd 200 were paid her in gold, and the remainder in bank notes.
This time the old lady did not call for Potapitch; for that she was too
preoccupied. Though not outwardly shaken by the event (indeed, she
seemed perfectly calm), she was trembling inwardly from head to foot.
At length, completely absorbed in the game, she burst out:
“Alexis Ivanovitch, did not the croupier just say that 4000 florins
were the most that could be staked at any one time? Well, take these
4000, and stake them upon the red.”
To oppose her was useless. Once more the wheel revolved.
“Rouge!” proclaimed the croupier.
Again 4000 florins—in all 8000!
“Give me them,” commanded the Grandmother, “and stake the other 4000
upon the red again.”
I did so.
“Rouge!” proclaimed the croupier.
“Twelve thousand!” cried the old lady. “Hand me the whole lot. Put the
gold into this purse here, and count the bank notes. Enough! Let us go
home. Wheel my chair away.”
XI
The chair, with the old lady beaming in it, was wheeled away towards
the doors at the further end of the salon, while our party hastened to
crowd around her, and to offer her their congratulations. In fact,
eccentric as was her conduct, it was also overshadowed by her triumph;
with the result that the General no longer feared to be publicly
compromised by being seen with such a strange woman, but, smiling in a
condescending, cheerfully familiar way, as though he were soothing a
child, he offered his greetings to the old lady. At the same time, both
he and the rest of the spectators were visibly impressed. Everywhere
people kept pointing to the Grandmother, and talking about her. Many
people even walked beside her chair, in order to view her the better
while, at a little distance, Astley was carrying on a conversation on
the subject with two English acquaintances of his. De Griers was simply
overflowing with smiles and compliments, and a number of fine ladies
were staring at the Grandmother as though she had been something
curious.
“Quelle victoire!” exclaimed De Griers.
“Mais, Madame, c’était du feu!” added Mlle. Blanche with an elusive
smile.
“Yes, I have won twelve thousand florins,” replied the old lady. “And
then there is all this gold. With it the total ought to come to nearly
thirteen thousand. How much is that in Russian money? Six thousand
roubles, I think?”
However, I calculated that the sum would exceed seven thousand
roubles—or, at the present rate of exchange, even eight thousand.
“Eight thousand roubles! What a splendid thing! And to think of you
simpletons sitting there and doing nothing! Potapitch! Martha! See what
I have won!”
“How _did_ you do it, Madame?” Martha exclaimed ecstatically. “Eight
thousand roubles!”
“And I am going to give you fifty gülden apiece. There they are.”
Potapitch and Martha rushed towards her to kiss her hand.
“And to each bearer also I will give a ten-gülden piece. Let them have
it out of the gold, Alexis Ivanovitch. But why is this footman bowing
to me, and that other man as well? Are they congratulating me? Well,
let them have ten gülden apiece.”
“Madame la princesse—Un pauvre expatrié—Malheur continuel—Les princes
russes sont si généreux!” said a man who for some time past had been
hanging around the old lady’s chair—a personage who, dressed in a
shabby frockcoat and coloured waistcoat, kept taking off his cap, and
smiling pathetically.
“Give him ten gülden,” said the Grandmother. “No, give him twenty. Now,
enough of that, or I shall never get done with you all. Take a moment’s
rest, and then carry me away. Prascovia, I mean to buy a new dress for
you tomorrow. Yes, and for you too, Mlle. Blanche. Please translate,
Prascovia.”