The Gambler
“Stop her, stop her,” whispered the General in consternation.
“You had better try and stop her yourself,” I returned—also in a
whisper.
“My good mother,” he said as he approached her, “—my good mother, pray
let, let—” (his voice was beginning to tremble and sink) “—let us hire
a carriage, and go for a drive. Near here there is an enchanting view
to be obtained. We-we-we were just coming to invite you to go and see
it.”
“Begone with you and your views!” said the Grandmother angrily as she
waved him away.
“And there are trees there, and we could have tea under them,”
continued the General—now in utter despair.
“Nous boirons du lait, sur l’herbe fraiche,” added De Griers with the
snarl almost of a wild beast.
“Du lait, de l’herbe fraiche”—the idyll, the ideal of the Parisian
bourgeois—his whole outlook upon “la nature et la verité”!
“Have done with you and your milk!” cried the old lady. “Go and stuff
_yourself_ as much as you like, but my stomach simply recoils from the
idea. What are you stopping for? I have nothing to say to you.”
“Here we are, Madame,” I announced. “Here is the moneychanger’s
office.”
I entered to get the securities changed, while the Grandmother remained
outside in the porch, and the rest waited at a little distance, in
doubt as to their best course of action. At length the old lady turned
such an angry stare upon them that they departed along the road towards
the Casino.
The process of changing involved complicated calculations which soon
necessitated my return to the Grandmother for instructions.
“The thieves!” she exclaimed as she clapped her hands together. “Never
mind, though. Get the documents cashed—No; send the banker out to me,”
she added as an afterthought.
“Would one of the clerks do, Madame?”
“Yes, one of the clerks. The thieves!”
The clerk consented to come out when he perceived that he was being
asked for by an old lady who was too infirm to walk; after which the
Grandmother began to upbraid him at length, and with great vehemence,
for his alleged usuriousness, and to bargain with him in a mixture of
Russian, French, and German—I acting as interpreter. Meanwhile, the
grave-faced official eyed us both, and silently nodded his head. At the
Grandmother, in particular, he gazed with a curiosity which almost
bordered upon rudeness. At length, too, he smiled.
“Pray recollect yourself!” cried the old lady. “And may my money choke
you! Alexis Ivanovitch, tell him that we can easily repair to someone
else.”
“The clerk says that others will give you even less than he.”
Of what the ultimate calculations consisted I do not exactly remember,
but at all events they were alarming. Receiving twelve thousand florins
in gold, I took also the statement of accounts, and carried it out to
the Grandmother.
“Well, well,” she said, “I am no accountant. Let us hurry away, hurry
away.” And she waved the paper aside.
“Neither upon that accursed zero, however, nor upon that equally
accursed red do I mean to stake a cent,” I muttered to myself as I
entered the Casino.
This time I did all I could to persuade the old lady to stake as little
as possible—saying that a turn would come in the chances when she would
be at liberty to stake more. But she was so impatient that, though at
first she agreed to do as I suggested, nothing could stop her when once
she had begun. By way of prelude she won stakes of a hundred and two
hundred gülden.
“There you are!” she said as she nudged me. “See what we have won!
Surely it would be worth our while to stake four thousand instead of a
hundred, for we might win another four thousand, and then—! Oh, it was
YOUR fault before—all your fault!”
I felt greatly put out as I watched her play, but I decided to hold my
tongue, and to give her no more advice.
Suddenly De Griers appeared on the scene. It seemed that all this while
he and his companions had been standing beside us—though I noticed that
Mlle. Blanche had withdrawn a little from the rest, and was engaged in
flirting with the Prince. Clearly the General was greatly put out at
this. Indeed, he was in a perfect agony of vexation. But Mlle. was
careful never to look his way, though he did his best to attract her
notice. Poor General! By turns his face blanched and reddened, and he
was trembling to such an extent that he could scarcely follow the old
lady’s play. At length Mlle. and the Prince took their departure, and
the General followed them.
“Madame, Madame,” sounded the honeyed accents of De Griers as he leant
over to whisper in the Grandmother’s ear. “That stake will never win.
No, no, it is impossible,” he added in Russian with a writhe. “No, no!”
“But why not?” asked the Grandmother, turning round. “Show me what I
ought to do.”
Instantly De Griers burst into a babble of French as he advised, jumped
about, declared that such and such chances ought to be waited for, and
started to make calculations of figures. All this he addressed to me in
my capacity as translator—tapping the table the while with his finger,
and pointing hither and thither. At length he seized a pencil, and
began to reckon sums on paper until he had exhausted the Grandmother’s
patience.
“Away with you!” she interrupted. “You talk sheer nonsense, for, though
you keep on saying ‘Madame, Madame,’ you haven’t the least notion what
ought to be done. Away with you, I say!”
“Mais, Madame,” cooed De Griers—and straightway started afresh with his
fussy instructions.
“Stake just _once_, as he advises,” the Grandmother said to me, “and
then we shall see what we _shall_ see. Of course, his stake _might_
win.”
As a matter of fact, De Grier’s one object was to distract the old lady
from staking large sums; wherefore, he now suggested to her that she
should stake upon certain numbers, singly and in groups. Consequently,
in accordance with his instructions, I staked a ten-gülden piece upon
several odd numbers in the first twenty, and five ten-gülden pieces
upon certain groups of numbers-groups of from twelve to eighteen, and
from eighteen to twenty-four. The total staked amounted to 160 gülden.
The wheel revolved. “Zero!” cried the croupier.
We had lost it all!
“The fool!” cried the old lady as she turned upon De Griers. “You
infernal Frenchman, to think that _you_ should advise! Away with you!
Though you fuss and fuss, you don’t even know what you’re talking
about.”
Deeply offended, De Griers shrugged his shoulders, favoured the
Grandmother with a look of contempt, and departed. For some time past
he had been feeling ashamed of being seen in such company, and this had
proved the last straw.
An hour later we had lost everything in hand.
“Home!” cried the Grandmother.
Not until we had turned into the Avenue did she utter a word; but from
that point onwards, until we arrived at the hotel, she kept venting
exclamations of “What a fool I am! What a silly old fool I am, to be
sure!”
Arrived at the hotel, she called for tea, and then gave orders for her
luggage to be packed.
“We are off again,” she announced.
“But whither, Madame?” inquired Martha.
“What business is that of _yours?_ Let the cricket stick to its
hearth.[2] Potapitch, have everything packed, for we are returning to
Moscow at once. I have fooled away fifteen thousand roubles.”
[2] The Russian form of “Mind your own business.”
“Fifteen thousand roubles, good mistress? My God!” And Potapitch spat
upon his hands—probably to show that he was ready to serve her in any
way he could.
“Now then, you fool! At once you begin with your weeping and wailing!
Be quiet, and pack. Also, run downstairs, and get my hotel bill.”
“The next train leaves at 9:30, Madame,” I interposed, with a view to
checking her agitation.
“And what is the time now?”
“Half-past eight.”
“How vexing! But, never mind. Alexis Ivanovitch, I have not a kopeck
left; I have but these two bank notes. Please run to the office and get
them changed. Otherwise I shall have nothing to travel with.”
Departing on her errand, I returned half an hour later to find the
whole party gathered in her rooms. It appeared that the news of her
impending departure for Moscow had thrown the conspirators into
consternation even greater than her losses had done. For, said they,
even if her departure should save her fortune, what will become of the
General later? And who is to repay De Griers? Clearly Mlle. Blanche
would never consent to wait until the Grandmother was dead, but would
at once elope with the Prince or someone else. So they had all gathered
together—endeavouring to calm and dissuade the Grandmother. Only Polina
was absent. For her part the Grandmother had nothing for the party but
abuse.
“Away with you, you rascals!” she was shouting. “What have my affairs
to do with you? Why, in particular, do _you_”—here she indicated De
Griers—“come sneaking here with your goat’s beard? And what do
_you_”—here she turned to Mlle. Blanche “want of me? What are _you_
finicking for?”
“Diantre!” muttered Mlle. under her breath, but her eyes were flashing.
Then all at once she burst into a laugh and left the room—crying to the
General as she did so: “Elle vivra cent ans!”
“So you have been counting upon my death, have you?” fumed the old
lady. “Away with you! Clear them out of the room, Alexis Ivanovitch.
What business is it of _theirs?_ It is not _their_ money that I have
been squandering, but my own.”
The General shrugged his shoulders, bowed, and withdrew, with De Griers
behind him.
“Call Prascovia,” commanded the Grandmother, and in five minutes Martha
reappeared with Polina, who had been sitting with the children in her
own room (having purposely determined not to leave it that day). Her
face looked grave and careworn.
“Prascovia,” began the Grandmother, “is what I have just heard through
a side wind true—namely, that this fool of a stepfather of yours is
going to marry that silly whirligig of a Frenchwoman—that actress, or
something worse? Tell me, is it true?”
“I do not know _for certain_, Grandmamma,” replied Polina; “but from
Mlle. Blanche’s account (for she does not appear to think it necessary
to conceal anything) I conclude that—”
“You need not say any more,” interrupted the Grandmother energetically.
“I understand the situation. I always thought we should get something
like this from him, for I always looked upon him as a futile, frivolous
fellow who gave himself unconscionable airs on the fact of his being a
general (though he only became one because he retired as a colonel).
Yes, I know _all_ about the sending of the telegrams to inquire whether
‘the old woman is likely to turn up her toes soon.’ Ah, they were
looking for the legacies! Without money that wretched woman (what is
her name?—Oh, De Cominges) would never dream of accepting the General
and his false teeth—no, not even for him to be her lacquey—since she
herself, they say, possesses a pile of money, and lends it on interest,
and makes a good thing out of it. However, it is not _you_, Prascovia,
that I am blaming; it was not _you_ who sent those telegrams. Nor, for
that matter, do I wish to recall old scores. True, I know that you are
a vixen by nature—that you are a wasp which will sting one if one
touches it—yet, my heart is sore for you, for I loved your mother,
Katerina. Now, will you leave everything here, and come away with me?
Otherwise, I do not know what is to become of you, and it is not right
that you should continue living with these people. Nay,” she
interposed, the moment that Polina attempted to speak, “I have not yet
finished. I ask of you nothing in return. My house in Moscow is, as you
know, large enough for a palace, and you could occupy a whole floor of
it if you liked, and keep away from me for weeks together. Will you