The Gambler
“Tout autre—” I began, paraphrasing Corneille.
“See here,” she prattled on. “Please search for my stockings, and help
me to dress. Aussi, si tu n’es pas trop bête je te prends à Paris. I am
just off, let me tell you.”
“This moment?”
“In half an hour.”
True enough, everything stood ready-packed—trunks, portmanteaux, and
all. Coffee had long been served.
“Eh bien, tu verras Paris. Dis donc, qu’est-ce que c’est qu’un
‘utchitel’? Tu étais bien bête quand tu étais ‘utchitel.’ Where are my
stockings? Please help me to dress.”
And she lifted up a really ravishing foot—small, swarthy, and not
misshapen like the majority of feet which look dainty only in bottines.
I laughed, and started to draw on to the foot a silk stocking, while
Mlle. Blanche sat on the edge of the bed and chattered.
“Eh bien, que feras-tu si je te prends avec moi? First of all I must
have fifty thousand francs, and you shall give them to me at Frankfurt.
Then we will go on to Paris, where we will live together, et je te
ferai voir des étoiles en plein jour. Yes, you shall see such women as
your eyes have never lit upon.”
“Stop a moment. If I were to give you those fifty thousand francs, what
should I have left for myself?”
“Another hundred thousand francs, please to remember. Besides, I could
live with you in your rooms for a month, or even for two; or even for
longer. But it would not take us more than two months to get through
fifty thousand francs; for, look you, je suis bonne enfante, et tu
verras des étoiles, you may be sure.”
“What? You mean to say that we should spend the whole in two months?”
“Certainly. Does that surprise you very much? Ah, vil esclave! Why, one
month of that life would be better than all your previous existence.
One month—et après, le déluge! Mais tu ne peux comprendre. Va! Away,
away! You are not worth it.—Ah, que fais-tu?”
For, while drawing on the other stocking, I had felt constrained to
kiss her. Immediately she shrunk back, kicked me in the face with her
toes, and turned me neck and crop out of the room.
“Eh bien, mon ‘utchitel’,” she called after me, “je t’attends, si tu
veux. I start in a quarter of an hour’s time.”
I returned to my own room with my head in a whirl. It was not my fault
that Polina had thrown a packet in my face, and preferred Mr. Astley to
myself. A few bank-notes were still fluttering about the floor, and I
picked them up. At that moment the door opened, and the landlord
appeared—a person who, until now, had never bestowed upon me so much as
a glance. He had come to know if I would prefer to move to a lower
floor—to a suite which had just been tenanted by Count V.
For a moment I reflected.
“No!” I shouted. “My account, please, for in ten minutes I shall be
gone.”
“To Paris, to Paris!” I added to myself. “Every man of birth must make
her acquaintance.”
Within a quarter of an hour all three of us were seated in a family
compartment—Mlle. Blanche, the Widow de Cominges, and myself. Mlle.
kept laughing hysterically as she looked at me, and Madame re-echoed
her; but _I_ did not feel so cheerful. My life had broken in two, and
yesterday had infected me with a habit of staking my all upon a card.
Although it might be that I had failed to win my stake, that I had lost
my senses, that I desired nothing better, I felt that the scene was to
be changed only _for a time_. “Within a month from now,” I kept
thinking to myself, “I shall be back again in Roulettenberg; and _then_
I mean to have it out with you, Mr. Astley!” Yes, as now I look back at
things, I remember that I felt greatly depressed, despite the absurd
gigglings of the egregious Blanche.
“What is the matter with you? How dull you are!” she cried at length as
she interrupted her laughter to take me seriously to task.
“Come, come! We are going to spend your two hundred thousand francs for
you, et tu seras heureux comme un petit roi. I myself will tie your tie
for you, and introduce you to Hortense. And when we have spent your
money you shall return here, and break the bank again. What did those
two Jews tell you?—that the thing most needed is daring, and that you
possess it? Consequently, this is not the first time that you will be
hurrying to Paris with money in your pocket. Quant à moi, je veux
cinquante mille francs de rente, et alors——”
“But what about the General?” I interrupted.
“The General? You know well enough that at about this hour every day he
goes to buy me a bouquet. On this occasion, I took care to tell him
that he must hunt for the choicest of flowers; and when he returns
home, the poor fellow will find the bird flown. Possibly he may take
wing in pursuit—ha, ha, ha! And if so, I shall not be sorry, for he
could be useful to me in Paris, and Mr. Astley will pay his debts
here.”
In this manner did I depart for the Gay City.
XVI
Of Paris what am I to say? The whole proceeding was a delirium, a
madness. I spent a little over three weeks there, and, during that
time, saw my hundred thousand francs come to an end. I speak only of
the _one_ hundred thousand francs, for the other hundred thousand I
gave to Mlle. Blanche in pure cash. That is to say, I handed her fifty
thousand francs at Frankfurt, and, three days later (in Paris),
advanced her another fifty thousand on note of hand. Nevertheless, a
week had not elapsed ere she came to me for more money. “Et les cent
mille francs qui nous restent,” she added, “tu les mangeras avec moi,
mon utchitel.” Yes, she always called me her “utchitel.” A person more
economical, grasping, and mean than Mlle. Blanche one could not
imagine. But this was only as regards _her own_ money. _My_ hundred
thousand francs (as she explained to me later) she needed to set up her
establishment in Paris, “so that once and for all I may be on a decent
footing, and proof against any stones which may be thrown at me—at all
events for a long time to come.” Nevertheless, I saw nothing of those
hundred thousand francs, for my own purse (which she inspected daily)
never managed to amass in it more than a hundred francs at a time; and,
generally the sum did not reach even that figure.
“What do _you_ want with money?” she would say to me with air of
absolute simplicity; and I never disputed the point. Nevertheless,
though she fitted out her flat very badly with the money, the fact did
not prevent her from saying when, later, she was showing me over the
rooms of her new abode: “See what care and taste can do with the most
wretched of means!” However, her “wretchedness” had cost fifty thousand
francs, while with the remaining fifty thousand she purchased a
carriage and horses.
Also, we gave a couple of balls—evening parties attended by Hortense
and Lisette and Cléopatre, who were women remarkable both for the
number of their liaisons and (though only in some cases) for their good
looks. At these reunions I had to play the part of host—to meet and
entertain fat mercantile parvenus who were impossible by reason of
their rudeness and braggadocio, colonels of various kinds, hungry
authors, and journalistic hacks—all of whom disported themselves in
fashionable tailcoats and pale yellow gloves, and displayed such an
aggregate of conceit and gasconade as would be unthinkable even in St.
Petersburg—which is saying a great deal! They used to try to make fun
of me, but I would console myself by drinking champagne and then
lolling in a retiring-room. Nevertheless, I found it deadly work.
“C’est un utchitel,” Blanche would say of me, “qui a gagné deux cent
mille francs, and but for me, would have had not a notion how to spend
them. Presently he will have to return to his tutoring. Does any one
know of a vacant post? You know, one must do something for him.”
I had the more frequent recourse to champagne in that I constantly felt
depressed and bored, owing to the fact that I was living in the most
bourgeois commercial milieu imaginable—a milieu wherein every sou was
counted and grudged. Indeed, two weeks had not elapsed before I
perceived that Blanche had no real affection for me, even though she
dressed me in elegant clothes, and herself tied my tie each day. In
short, she utterly despised me. But that caused me no concern. Blasé
and inert, I spent my evenings generally at the Château des Fleurs,
where I would get fuddled and then dance the cancan (which, in that
establishment, was a very indecent performance) with éclat. At length,
the time came when Blanche had drained my purse dry. She had conceived
an idea that, during the term of our residence together, it would be
well if I were always to walk behind her with a paper and pencil, in
order to jot down exactly what she spent, what she had saved, what she
was paying out, and what she was laying by. Well, of course I could not
fail to be aware that this would entail a battle over every ten francs;
so, although for every possible objection that I might make she had
prepared a suitable answer, she soon saw that I made no objections, and
therefore, had to start disputes herself. That is to say, she would
burst out into tirades which were met only with silence as I lolled on
a sofa and stared fixedly at the ceiling. This greatly surprised her.
At first she imagined that it was due merely to the fact that I was a
fool, “un utchitel”; wherefore she would break off her harangue in the
belief that, being too stupid to understand, I was a hopeless case.
Then she would leave the room, but return ten minutes later to resume
the contest. This continued throughout her squandering of my money—a
squandering altogether out of proportion to our means. An example is
the way in which she changed her first pair of horses for a pair which
cost sixteen thousand francs.
“Bibi,” she said on the latter occasion as she approached me, “surely
you are not angry?”
“No-o-o: I am merely tired,” was my reply as I pushed her from me. This
seemed to her so curious that straightway she seated herself by my
side.
“You see,” she went on, “I decided to spend so much upon these horses
only because I can easily sell them again. They would go at any time
for _twenty_ thousand francs.”
“Yes, yes. They are splendid horses, and you have got a splendid
turn-out. I am quite content. Let me hear no more of the matter.”
“Then you are not angry?”
“No. Why should I be? You are wise to provide yourself with what you
need, for it will all come in handy in the future. Yes, I quite see the
necessity of your establishing yourself on a good basis, for without it
you will never earn your million. My hundred thousand francs I look
upon merely as a beginning—as a mere drop in the bucket.”
Blanche, who had by no means expected such declarations from me, but,
rather, an uproar and protests, was rather taken aback.
“Well, well, what a man you are!” she exclaimed. “Mais tu as l’esprit
pour comprendre. Sais-tu, mon garçon, although you are a tutor, you
ought to have been born a prince. Are you not sorry that your money
should be going so quickly?”
“No. The quicker it goes the better.”
“Mais—sais-tu—mais dis donc, are you _really_ rich? Mais sais-tu, you
have too much contempt for money. Qu’est-ce que tu feras après, dis
donc?”
“Après I shall go to Homburg, and win another hundred thousand francs.”
“Oui, oui, c’est ça, c’est magnifique! Ah, I know you will win them,
and bring them to me when you have done so. Dis donc—you will end by
making me love you. Since you are what you are, I mean to love you all
the time, and never to be unfaithful to you. You see, I have not loved
you before parce que je croyais que tu n’es qu’un utchitel (quelque
chose comme un lacquais, n’est-ce pas?) Yet all the time I have been
true to you, parce que je suis bonne fille.”
“You lie!” I interrupted. “Did I not see you, the other day, with