The Gambler
come with me or will you not?”
“First of all, let me ask of _you_,” replied Polina, “whether you are
intending to depart at once?”
“What? You suppose me to be jesting? I have said that I am going, and I
_am_ going. Today I have squandered fifteen thousand roubles at that
accursed roulette of yours, and though, five years ago, I promised the
people of a certain suburb of Moscow to build them a stone church in
place of a wooden one, I have been fooling away my money here! However,
I am going back now to build my church.”
“But what about the waters, Grandmamma? Surely you came here to take
the waters?”
“You and your waters! Do not anger me, Prascovia. Surely you are trying
to? Say, then: will you, or will you not, come with me?”
“Grandmamma,” Polina replied with deep feeling, “I am very, very
grateful to you for the shelter which you have so kindly offered me.
Also, to a certain extent you have guessed my position aright, and I am
beholden to you to such an extent that it may be that I _will_ come and
live with you, and that very soon; yet there are important reasons
why—why I cannot make up my mind just yet. If you would let me have,
say, a couple of weeks to decide in—?”
“You mean that you are _not_ coming?”
“I mean only that I cannot come just yet. At all events, I could not
well leave my little brother and sister here, since, since—if I were to
leave them—they would be abandoned altogether. But if, Grandmamma, you
would take the little ones _and_ myself, then, of course, I could come
with you, and would do all I could to serve you” (this she said with
great earnestness). “Only, without the little ones I _cannot_ come.”
“Do not make a fuss” (as a matter of fact Polina never at any time
either fussed or wept). “The Great Foster-Father[3] can find for all
his chicks a place. You are not coming without the children? But see
here, Prascovia. I wish you well, and nothing but well: yet I have
divined the reason why you will not come. Yes, I know all, Prascovia.
That Frenchman will never bring you good of any sort.”
[3] Translated literally—The Great Poulterer.
Polina coloured hotly, and even I started. “For,” thought I to myself,
“every one seems to know about that affair. Or perhaps I am the only
one who does not know about it?”
“Now, now! Do not frown,” continued the Grandmother. “But I do not
intend to slur things over. You will take care that no harm befalls
you, will you not? For you are a girl of sense, and I am sorry for
you—I regard you in a different light to the rest of them. And now,
please, leave me. Good-bye.”
“But let me stay with you a little longer,” said Polina.
“No,” replied the other; “you need not. Do not bother me, for you and
all of them have tired me out.”
Yet when Polina tried to kiss the Grandmother’s hand, the old lady
withdrew it, and herself kissed the girl on the cheek. As she passed
me, Polina gave me a momentary glance, and then as swiftly averted her
eyes.
“And good-bye to you, also, Alexis Ivanovitch. The train starts in an
hour’s time, and I think that you must be weary of me. Take these five
hundred gülden for yourself.”
“I thank you humbly, Madame, but I am ashamed to—”
“Come, come!” cried the Grandmother so energetically, and with such an
air of menace, that I did not dare refuse the money further.
“If, when in Moscow, you have no place where you can lay your head,”
she added, “come and see me, and I will give you a recommendation. Now,
Potapitch, get things ready.”
I ascended to my room, and lay down upon the bed. A whole hour I must
have lain thus, with my head resting upon my hand. So the crisis had
come! I needed time for its consideration. To-morrow I would have a
talk with Polina. Ah! The Frenchman! So, it was true? But how could it
be so? Polina and De Griers! What a combination!
No, it was too improbable. Suddenly I leapt up with the idea of seeking
Astley and forcing him to speak. There could be no doubt that he knew
more than I did. Astley? Well, he was another problem for me to solve.
Suddenly there came a knock at the door, and I opened it to find
Potapitch awaiting me.
“Sir,” he said, “my mistress is asking for you.”
“Indeed? But she is just departing, is she not? The train leaves in ten
minutes’ time.”
“She is uneasy, sir; she cannot rest. Come quickly, sir; do not delay.”
I ran downstairs at once. The Grandmother was just being carried out of
her rooms into the corridor. In her hands she held a roll of
bank-notes.
“Alexis Ivanovitch,” she cried, “walk on ahead, and we will set out
again.”
“But whither, Madame?”
“I cannot rest until I have retrieved my losses. March on ahead, and
ask me no questions. Play continues until midnight, does it not?”
For a moment I stood stupefied—stood deep in thought; but it was not
long before I had made up my mind.
“With your leave, Madame,” I said, “I will not go with you.”
“And why not? What do you mean? Is every one here a stupid
good-for-nothing?”
“Pardon me, but I have nothing to reproach myself with. I merely will
not go. I merely intend neither to witness nor to join in your play. I
also beg to return you your five hundred gülden. Farewell.”
Laying the money upon a little table which the Grandmother’s chair
happened to be passing, I bowed and withdrew.
“What folly!” the Grandmother shouted after me. “Very well, then. Do
not come, and I will find my way alone. Potapitch, you must come with
me. Lift up the chair, and carry me along.”
I failed to find Mr. Astley, and returned home. It was now growing
late—it was past midnight, but I subsequently learnt from Potapitch how
the Grandmother’s day had ended. She had lost all the money which,
earlier in the day, I had got for her paper securities—a sum amounting
to about ten thousand roubles. This she did under the direction of the
Pole whom, that afternoon, she had dowered with two ten-gülden pieces.
But before his arrival on the scene, she had commanded Potapitch to
stake for her; until at length she had told him also to go about his
business. Upon that the Pole had leapt into the breach. Not only did it
happen that he knew the Russian language, but also he could speak a
mixture of three different dialects, so that the pair were able to
understand one another. Yet the old lady never ceased to abuse him,
despite his deferential manner, and to compare him unfavourably with
myself (so, at all events, Potapitch declared). “_You_,” the old
chamberlain said to me, “treated her as a gentleman should, but he—he
robbed her right and left, as I could see with my own eyes. Twice she
caught him at it, and rated him soundly. On one occasion she even
pulled his hair, so that the bystanders burst out laughing. Yet she
lost everything, sir—that is to say, she lost all that you had changed
for her. Then we brought her home, and, after asking for some water and
saying her prayers, she went to bed. So worn out was she that she fell
asleep at once. May God send her dreams of angels! And _this_ is all
that foreign travel has done for us! Oh, my own Moscow! For what have
we not at home there, in Moscow? Such a garden and flowers as you could
never see here, and fresh air and apple-trees coming into blossom,—and
a beautiful view to look upon. Ah, but what must she do but go
travelling abroad? Alack, alack!”
XIII
Almost a month has passed since I last touched these notes—notes which
I began under the influence of impressions at once poignant and
disordered. The crisis which I then felt to be approaching has now
arrived, but in a form a hundred times more extensive and unexpected
than I had looked for. To me it all seems strange, uncouth, and tragic.
Certain occurrences have befallen me which border upon the marvellous.
At all events, that is how I view them. I view them so in one regard at
least. I refer to the whirlpool of events in which, at the time, I was
revolving. But the most curious feature of all is my relation to those
events, for hitherto I had never clearly understood myself. Yet now the
actual crisis has passed away like a dream. Even my passion for Polina
is dead. _Was_ it ever so strong and genuine as I thought? If so, what
has become of it now? At times I fancy that I must be mad; that
somewhere I am sitting in a madhouse; that these events have merely
_seemed_ to happen; that still they merely _seem_ to be happening.
I have been arranging and re-perusing my notes (perhaps for the purpose
of convincing myself that I am not in a madhouse). At present I am
lonely and alone. Autumn is coming—already it is mellowing the leaves;
and, as I sit brooding in this melancholy little town (and how
melancholy the little towns of Germany can be!), I find myself taking
no thought for the future, but living under the influence of passing
moods, and of my recollections of the tempest which recently drew me
into its vortex, and then cast me out again. At times I seem still to
be caught within that vortex. At times, the tempest seems once more to
be gathering, and, as it passes overhead, to be wrapping me in its
folds, until I have lost my sense of order and reality, and continue
whirling and whirling and whirling around.
Yet, it may be that I shall be able to stop myself from revolving if
once I can succeed in rendering myself an exact account of what has
happened within the month just past. Somehow I feel drawn towards the
pen; on many and many an evening I have had nothing else in the world
to do. But, curiously enough, of late I have taken to amusing myself
with the works of M. Paul de Kock, which I read in German translations
obtained from a wretched local library. These works I cannot abide, yet
I read them, and find myself marvelling that I should be doing so.
Somehow I seem to be afraid of any _serious_ book—afraid of permitting
any _serious_ preoccupation to break the spell of the passing moment.
So dear to me is the formless dream of which I have spoken, so dear to
me are the impressions which it has left behind it, that I fear to
touch the vision with anything new, lest it should dissolve in smoke.
But is it so dear to me? Yes, it _is_ dear to me, and will ever be
fresh in my recollections—even forty years hence....
So let me write of it, but only partially, and in a more abridged form
than my full impressions might warrant.
First of all, let me conclude the history of the Grandmother. Next day
she lost every gülden that she possessed. Things were bound to happen
so, for persons of her type who have once entered upon that road
descend it with ever-increasing rapidity, even as a sledge descends a
toboggan-slide. All day until eight o’clock that evening did she play;
and, though I personally did not witness her exploits, I learnt of them
later through report.
All that day Potapitch remained in attendance upon her; but the Poles
who directed her play she changed more than once. As a beginning she
dismissed her Pole of the previous day—the Pole whose hair she had
pulled—and took to herself another one; but the latter proved worse
even than the former, and incurred dismissal in favour of the first
Pole, who, during the time of his unemployment, had nevertheless
hovered around the Grandmother’s chair, and from time to time obtruded
his head over her shoulder. At length the old lady became desperate,
for the second Pole, when dismissed, imitated his predecessor by
declining to go away; with the result that one Pole remained standing
on the right of the victim, and the other on her left; from which
vantage points the pair quarrelled, abused each other concerning the
stakes and rounds, and exchanged the epithet “laidak”[4] and other
Polish terms of endearment. Finally, they effected a mutual
reconciliation, and, tossing the money about anyhow, played simply at