The Gambler
“If I said to you, ‘Kill that man,’ would you kill him?”
“Whom?”
“Whomsoever I wish?”
“The Frenchman?”
“Do not ask me questions; return me answers. I repeat, whomsoever I
wish? I desire to see if you were speaking seriously just now.”
She awaited my reply with such gravity and impatience that I found the
situation unpleasant.
“Do _you_, rather, tell me,” I said, “what is going on here? Why do you
seem half-afraid of me? I can see for myself what is wrong. You are the
step-daughter of a ruined and insensate man who is smitten with love
for this devil of a Blanche. And there is this Frenchman, too, with his
mysterious influence over you. Yet, you actually ask me such a
question! If you do not tell me how things stand, I shall have to put
in my oar and do something. Are you ashamed to be frank with me? Are
you shy of me?”
“I am not going to talk to you on that subject. I have asked you a
question, and am waiting for an answer.”
“Well, then—I will kill whomsoever you wish,” I said. “But are you
_really_ going to bid me do such deeds?”
“Why should you think that I am going to let you off? I shall bid you
do it, or else renounce me. Could you ever do the latter? No, you know
that you couldn’t. You would first kill whom I had bidden you, and then
kill _me_ for having dared to send you away!”
Something seemed to strike upon my brain as I heard these words. Of
course, at the time I took them half in jest and half as a challenge;
yet, she had spoken them with great seriousness. I felt thunderstruck
that she should so express herself, that she should assert such a right
over me, that she should assume such authority and say outright:
“Either you kill whom I bid you, or I will have nothing more to do with
you.” Indeed, in what she had said there was something so cynical and
unveiled as to pass all bounds. For how could she ever regard me as the
same after the killing was done? This was more than slavery and
abasement; it was sufficient to bring a man back to his right senses.
Yet, despite the outrageous improbability of our conversation, my heart
shook within me.
Suddenly, she burst out laughing. We were seated on a bench near the
spot where the children were playing—just opposite the point in the
alley-way before the Casino where the carriages drew up in order to set
down their occupants.
“Do you see that fat Baroness?” she cried. “It is the Baroness
Burmergelm. She arrived three days ago. Just look at her husband—that
tall, wizened Prussian there, with the stick in his hand. Do you
remember how he stared at us the other day? Well, go to the Baroness,
take off your hat to her, and say something in French.”
“Why?”
“Because you have sworn that you would leap from the Shlangenberg for
my sake, and that you would kill any one whom I might bid you kill.
Well, instead of such murders and tragedies, I wish only for a good
laugh. Go without answering me, and let me see the Baron give you a
sound thrashing with his stick.”
“Then you throw me out a challenge?—you think that I will not do it?”
“Yes, I do challenge you. Go, for such is my will.”
“Then I _will_ go, however mad be your fancy. Only, look here: shall
you not be doing the General a great disservice, as well as, through
him, a great disservice to yourself? It is not about myself I am
worrying—it is about you and the General. Why, for a mere fancy, should
I go and insult a woman?”
“Ah! Then I can see that you are only a trifler,” she said
contemptuously. “Your eyes are swimming with blood—but only because you
have drunk a little too much at luncheon. Do I not know that what I
have asked you to do is foolish and wrong, and that the General will be
angry about it? But I want to have a good laugh, all the same. I want
that, and nothing else. Why should you insult a woman, indeed? Well,
you will be given a sound thrashing for so doing.”
I turned away, and went silently to do her bidding. Of course the thing
was folly, but I could not get out of it. I remember that, as I
approached the Baroness, I felt as excited as a schoolboy. I was in a
frenzy, as though I were drunk.
VI
Two days have passed since that day of lunacy. What a noise and a fuss
and a chattering and an uproar there was! And what a welter of
unseemliness and disorder and stupidity and bad manners! And _I_ the
cause of it all! Yet part of the scene was also ridiculous—at all
events to myself it was so. I am not quite sure what was the matter
with me—whether I was merely stupefied or whether I purposely broke
loose and ran amok. At times my mind seems all confused; while at other
times I seem almost to be back in my childhood, at the school desk, and
to have done the deed simply out of mischief.
It all came of Polina—yes, of Polina. But for her, there might never
have been a fracas. Or perhaps I did the deed in a fit of despair
(though it may be foolish of me to think so)? What there is so
attractive about her I cannot think. Yet there _is_ something
attractive about her—something passing fair, it would seem. Others
besides myself she has driven to distraction. She is tall and straight,
and very slim. Her body looks as though it could be tied into a knot,
or bent double, like a cord. The imprint of her foot is long and
narrow. It is, a maddening imprint—yes, simply a maddening one! And her
hair has a reddish tint about it, and her eyes are like cat’s
eyes—though able also to glance with proud, disdainful mien. On the
evening of my first arrival, four months ago, I remember that she was
sitting and holding an animated conversation with De Griers in the
salon. And the way in which she looked at him was such that later, when
I retired to my own room upstairs, I kept fancying that she had smitten
him in the face—that she had smitten him right on the cheek, so
peculiar had been her look as she stood confronting him. Ever since
that evening I have loved her.
But to my tale.
I stepped from the path into the carriage-way, and took my stand in the
middle of it. There I awaited the Baron and the Baroness. When they
were but a few paces distant from me I took off my hat, and bowed.
I remember that the Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale
grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and train.
Also, she was short and inordinately stout, while her gross, flabby
chin completely concealed her neck. Her face was purple, and the little
eyes in it had an impudent, malicious expression. Yet she walked as
though she were conferring a favour upon everybody by so doing. As for
the Baron, he was tall, wizened, bony-faced after the German fashion,
spectacled, and, apparently, about forty-five years of age. Also, he
had legs which seemed to begin almost at his chest—or, rather, at his
chin! Yet, for all his air of peacock-like conceit, his clothes sagged
a little, and his face wore a sheepish air which might have passed for
profundity.
These details I noted within a space of a few seconds.
At first my bow and the fact that I had my hat in my hand barely caught
their attention. The Baron only scowled a little, and the Baroness
swept straight on.
“Madame la Baronne,” said I, loudly and distinctly—embroidering each
word, as it were—“j’ai l’honneur d’être votre esclave.”
Then I bowed again, put on my hat, and walked past the Baron with a
rude smile on my face.
Polina had ordered me merely to take off my hat: the bow and the
general effrontery were of my own invention. God knows what instigated
me to perpetrate the outrage! In my frenzy I felt as though I were
walking on air.
“Hein!” ejaculated—or, rather, growled—the Baron as he turned towards
me in angry surprise.
I too turned round, and stood waiting in pseudo-courteous expectation.
Yet still I wore on my face an impudent smile as I gazed at him. He
seemed to hesitate, and his brows contracted to their utmost limits.
Every moment his visage was growing darker. The Baroness also turned in
my direction, and gazed at me in wrathful perplexity, while some of the
passers-by also began to stare at us, and others of them halted
outright.
“Hein!” the Baron vociferated again, with a redoubled growl and a note
of growing wrath in his voice.
“Ja wohl!” I replied, still looking him in the eyes.
“Sind Sie rasend?” he exclaimed, brandishing his stick, and,
apparently, beginning to feel nervous. Perhaps it was my costume which
intimidated him, for I was well and fashionably dressed, after the
manner of a man who belongs to indisputably good society.
“Ja wo-o-ohl!” cried I again with all my might with a longdrawn rolling
of the “ohl” sound after the fashion of the Berliners (who constantly
use the phrase “Ja wohl!” in conversation, and more or less prolong the
syllable “ohl” according as they desire to express different shades of
meaning or of mood).
At this the Baron and the Baroness faced sharply about, and almost fled
in their alarm. Some of the bystanders gave vent to excited
exclamations, and others remained staring at me in astonishment. But I
do not remember the details very well.
Wheeling quietly about, I returned in the direction of Polina
Alexandrovna. But, when I had got within a hundred paces of her seat, I
saw her rise and set out with the children towards the hotel.
At the portico I caught up to her.
“I have perpetrated the—the piece of idiocy,” I said as I came level
with her.
“Have you? Then you can take the consequences,” she replied without so
much as looking at me. Then she moved towards the staircase.
I spent the rest of the evening walking in the park. Thence I passed
into the forest, and walked on until I found myself in a neighbouring
principality. At a wayside restaurant I partook of an omelette and some
wine, and was charged for the idyllic repast a thaler and a half.
Not until eleven o’clock did I return home—to find a summons awaiting
me from the General.
Our party occupied two suites in the hotel; each of which contained two
rooms. The first (the larger suite) comprised a salon and a
smoking-room, with, adjoining the latter, the General’s study. It was
here that he was awaiting me as he stood posed in a majestic attitude
beside his writing-table. Lolling on a divan close by was De Griers.
“My good sir,” the General began, “may I ask you what this is that you
have gone and done?”
“I should be glad,” I replied, “if we could come straight to the point.
Probably you are referring to my encounter of today with a German?”
“With a German? Why, the German was the Baron Burmergelm—a most
important personage! I hear that you have been rude both to him and to
the Baroness?”
“No, I have not.”
“But I understand that you simply terrified them, my good sir?” shouted
the General.
“Not in the least,” I replied. “You must know that when I was in Berlin
I frequently used to hear the Berliners repeat, and repellently
prolong, a certain phrase—namely, ‘Ja wohl!’; and, happening to meet
this couple in the carriage-drive, I found, for some reason or another,
that this phrase suddenly recurred to my memory, and exercised a
rousing effect upon my spirits. Moreover, on the three previous
occasions that I have met the Baroness she has walked towards me as
though I were a worm which could easily be crushed with the foot. Not
unnaturally, I too possess a measure of self-respect; wherefore, on
_this_ occasion I took off my hat, and said politely (yes, I assure you
it was said politely): ‘Madame, j’ai l’honneur d’être votre esclave.’
Then the Baron turned round, and said ‘Hein!’; whereupon I felt moved
to ejaculate in answer ‘Ja wohl!’ Twice I shouted it at him—the first
time in an ordinary tone, and the second time with the greatest
prolonging of the words of which I was capable. That is all.”