The Gambler
“Merci, Madame,” replied Mlle. Blanche gratefully as she twisted her
face into the mocking smile which usually she kept only for the benefit
of De Griers and the General. The latter looked confused, and seemed
greatly relieved when we reached the Avenue.
“How surprised Theodosia too will be!” went on the Grandmother
(thinking of the General’s nursemaid). “She, like yourselves, shall
have the price of a new gown. Here, Alexis Ivanovitch! Give that beggar
something” (a crooked-backed ragamuffin had approached to stare at us).
“But perhaps he is _not_ a beggar—only a rascal,” I replied.
“Never mind, never mind. Give him a gülden.”
I approached the beggar in question, and handed him the coin. Looking
at me in great astonishment, he silently accepted the gülden, while
from his person there proceeded a strong smell of liquor.
“Have you never tried your luck, Alexis Ivanovitch?”
“No, Madame.”
“Yet just now I could see that you were burning to do so?”
“I _do_ mean to try my luck presently.”
“Then stake everything upon zero. You have seen how it ought to be
done? How much capital do you possess?”
“Two hundred gülden, Madame.”
“Not very much. See here; I will lend you five hundred if you wish.
Take this purse of mine.” With that she added sharply to the General:
“But _you_ need not expect to receive any.”
This seemed to upset him, but he said nothing, and De Griers contented
himself by scowling.
“Que diable!” he whispered to the General. “C’est une terrible
vieille.”
“Look! Another beggar, another beggar!” exclaimed the grandmother.
“Alexis Ivanovitch, go and give him a gülden.”
As she spoke I saw approaching us a grey-headed old man with a wooden
leg—a man who was dressed in a blue frockcoat and carrying a staff. He
looked like an old soldier. As soon as I tendered him the coin he fell
back a step or two, and eyed me threateningly.
“Was ist der Teufel!” he cried, and appended thereto a round dozen of
oaths.
“The man is a perfect fool!” exclaimed the Grandmother, waving her
hand. “Move on now, for I am simply famished. When we have lunched we
will return to that place.”
“What?” cried I. “You are going to play _again?_”
“What else do you suppose?” she retorted. “Are you going only to sit
here, and grow sour, and let me look at you?”
“Madame,” said De Griers confidentially, “les chances peuvent tourner.
Une seule mauvaise chance, et vous perdrez tout—surtout avec votre jeu.
C’était terrible!”
“Oui; vous perdrez absolument,” put in Mlle. Blanche.
“What has that got to do with _you?_” retorted the old lady. “It is not
_your_ money that I am going to lose; it is my own. And where is that
Mr. Astley of yours?” she added to myself.
“He stayed behind in the Casino.”
“What a pity! He is such a nice sort of man!”
Arriving home, and meeting the landlord on the staircase, the
Grandmother called him to her side, and boasted to him of her
winnings—thereafter doing the same to Theodosia, and conferring upon
her thirty gülden; after which she bid her serve luncheon. The meal
over, Theodosia and Martha broke into a joint flood of ecstasy.
“I was watching you all the time, Madame,” quavered Martha, “and I
asked Potapitch what mistress was trying to do. And, my word! the heaps
and _heaps_ of money that were lying upon the table! Never in my life
have I seen so much money. And there were gentlefolk around it, and
other gentlefolk sitting down. So, I asked Potapitch where all these
gentry had come from; for, thought I, maybe the Holy Mother of God will
help our mistress among them. Yes, I prayed for you, Madame, and my
heart died within me, so that I kept trembling and trembling. The Lord
be with her, I thought to myself; and in answer to my prayer He has now
sent you what He has done! Even yet I tremble—I tremble to think of it
all.”
“Alexis Ivanovitch,” said the old lady, “after luncheon,—that is to
say, about four o’clock—get ready to go out with me again. But in the
meanwhile, good-bye. Do not forget to call a doctor, for I must take
the waters. Now go and get rested a little.”
I left the Grandmother’s presence in a state of bewilderment.
Vainly I endeavoured to imagine what would become of our party, or what
turn the affair would next take. I could perceive that none of the
party had yet recovered their presence of mind—least of all the
General. The factor of the Grandmother’s appearance in place of the
hourly expected telegram to announce her death (with, of course,
resultant legacies) had so upset the whole scheme of intentions and
projects that it was with a decided feeling of apprehension and growing
paralysis that the conspirators viewed any future performances of the
old lady at roulette. Yet this second factor was not quite so important
as the first, since, though the Grandmother had twice declared that she
did not intend to give the General any money, that declaration was not
a complete ground for the abandonment of hope. Certainly De Griers,
who, with the General, was up to the neck in the affair, had not wholly
lost courage; and I felt sure that Mlle. Blanche also—Mlle. Blanche who
was not only as deeply involved as the other two, but also expectant of
becoming Madame General and an important legatee—would not lightly
surrender the position, but would use her every resource of coquetry
upon the old lady, in order to afford a contrast to the impetuous
Polina, who was difficult to understand, and lacked the art of
pleasing.
Yet now, when the Grandmother had just performed an astonishing feat at
roulette; now, when the old lady’s personality had been so clearly and
typically revealed as that of a rugged, arrogant woman who was “tombée
en enfance”; now, when everything appeared to be lost,—why, now the
Grandmother was as merry as a child which plays with thistle-down.
“Good Lord!” I thought with, may God forgive me, a most malicious
smile, “every ten-gülden piece which the Grandmother staked must have
raised a blister on the General’s heart, and maddened De Griers, and
driven Mlle. de Cominges almost to frenzy with the sight of this spoon
dangling before her lips.” Another factor is the circumstance that even
when, overjoyed at winning, the Grandmother was distributing alms right
and left, and taking every one to be a beggar, she again snapped out to
the General that he was not going to be allowed any of her money—which
meant that the old lady had quite made up her mind on the point, and
was sure of it. Yes, danger loomed ahead.
All these thoughts passed through my mind during the few moments that,
having left the old lady’s rooms, I was ascending to my own room on the
top storey. What most struck me was the fact that, though I had divined
the chief, the stoutest, threads which united the various actors in the
drama, I had, until now, been ignorant of the methods and secrets of
the game. For Polina had never been completely open with me. Although,
on occasions, it had happened that involuntarily, as it were, she had
revealed to me something of her heart, I had noticed that in most
cases—in fact, nearly always—she had either laughed away these
revelations, or grown confused, or purposely imparted to them a false
guise. Yes, she must have concealed a great deal from me. But, I had a
presentiment that now the end of this strained and mysterious situation
was approaching. Another stroke, and all would be finished and exposed.
Of my own fortunes, interested though I was in the affair, I took no
account. I was in the strange position of possessing but two hundred
gülden, of being at a loose end, of lacking both a post, the means of
subsistence, a shred of hope, and any plans for the future, yet of
caring nothing for these things. Had not my mind been so full of
Polina, I should have given myself up to the comical piquancy of the
impending denouement, and laughed my fill at it. But the thought of
Polina was torture to me. That her fate was settled I already had an
inkling; yet _that_ was not the thought which was giving me so much
uneasiness. What I really wished for was to penetrate her secrets. I
wanted her to come to me and say, “I love you,” and, if she would not
so come, or if to hope that she would ever do so was an unthinkable
absurdity—why, then there was nothing else for me to want. Even now I
do not know what I am wanting. I feel like a man who has lost his way.
I yearn but to be in her presence, and within the circle of her light
and splendour—to be there now, and forever, and for the whole of my
life. More I do not know. How can I ever bring myself to leave her?
On reaching the third storey of the hotel I experienced a shock. I was
just passing the General’s suite when something caused me to look
round. Out of a door about twenty paces away there was coming Polina!
She hesitated for a moment on seeing me, and then beckoned me to her.
“Polina Alexandrovna!”
“Hush! Not so loud.”
“Something startled me just now,” I whispered, “and I looked round, and
saw you. Some electrical influence seems to emanate from your form.”
“Take this letter,” she went on with a frown (probably she had not even
heard my words, she was so preoccupied), “and hand it personally to Mr.
Astley. Go as quickly as ever you can, please. No answer will be
required. He himself—” She did not finish her sentence.
“To Mr. Astley?” I asked, in some astonishment.
But she had vanished again.
Aha! So the two were carrying on a correspondence! However, I set off
to search for Astley—first at his hotel, and then at the Casino, where
I went the round of the salons in vain. At length, vexed, and almost in
despair, I was on my way home when I ran across him among a troop of
English ladies and gentlemen who had been out for a ride. Beckoning to
him to stop, I handed him the letter. We had barely time even to look
at one another, but I suspected that it was of set purpose that he
restarted his horse so quickly.
Was jealousy, then, gnawing at me? At all events, I felt exceedingly
depressed, despite the fact that I had no desire to ascertain what the
correspondence was about. To think that _he_ should be her confidant!
“My friend, mine own familiar friend!” passed through my mind. Yet
_was_ there any love in the matter? “Of course not,” reason whispered
to me. But reason goes for little on such occasions. I felt that the
matter must be cleared up, for it was becoming unpleasantly complex.
I had scarcely set foot in the hotel when the commissionaire and the
landlord (the latter issuing from his room for the purpose) alike
informed me that I was being searched for high and low—that three
separate messages to ascertain my whereabouts had come down from the
General. When I entered his study I was feeling anything but kindly
disposed. I found there the General himself, De Griers, and Mlle.
Blanche, but not Mlle.’s mother, who was a person whom her reputed
daughter used only for show purposes, since in all matters of business
the daughter fended for herself, and it is unlikely that the mother
knew anything about them.
Some very heated discussion was in progress, and meanwhile the door of
the study was open—an unprecedented circumstance. As I approached the
portals I could hear loud voices raised, for mingled with the pert,
venomous accents of De Griers were Mlle. Blanche’s excited, impudently
abusive tongue and the General’s plaintive wail as, apparently, he
sought to justify himself in something. But on my appearance every one
stopped speaking, and tried to put a better face upon matters. De
Griers smoothed his hair, and twisted his angry face into a smile—into
the mean, studiedly polite French smile which I so detested; while the
downcast, perplexed General assumed an air of dignity—though only in a
mechanical way. On the other hand, Mlle. Blanche did not trouble to