Polina burst out laughing:
“Last time, on the Schlangenberg, you told me you were ready at my first word to throw yourself down headfirst, and I believe it’s a thousand-foot drop. One day I’ll speak that word, solely to see how you’re going to pay, and you may be sure I’ll stand firm. You are hateful to me—precisely because I’ve allowed you so much, and more hateful still, because I need you so much. But for the time being I do need you—I must take good care of you.”
She went to get up. She had spoken with irritation. Lately she has always finished a conversation with me with spite and irritation, with real spite.
“Allow me to ask you, what is this Mlle Blanche?” I asked, not wanting to let her go without an explanation.
“You know yourself what Mlle Blanche is. Nothing more has been added. Mlle Blanche will probably become Madame la Générale—naturally, if the rumor of grandmother’s death is confirmed, because Mlle Blanche, and her mother, and her second cousin, the marquis, all know very well that we are ruined.”
“And the general is definitively in love?”
“That’s not the point now. Listen and remember: take these seven hundred florins and go gambling, win me as much as you can at roulette; I need money now at all costs.”
Having said this, she called Nadenka and went to the vauxhall, where she joined our whole company. I, however, turned into the first path to the left, pondering and astonished. It was as if I’d been hit on the head, after the order to go and play roulette. Strange thing: I had enough to ponder, and yet I immersed myself wholly in an analysis of my feelings for Polina. Really, it had been easier for me during those two weeks of absence than now, on the day of my return, though on the way I had longed for her like a madman, had thrashed about like a man in a frenzy, and even in sleep had seen her before me every moment. Once (this was in Switzerland), I had fallen asleep on the train, and it seems I began talking aloud with Polina, which made all my fellow travelers laugh. And now once more I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I was unable to answer it, that is, better to say, I answered myself again, for the hundredth time, that I hated her. Yes, she was hateful to me. There were moments (and precisely each time at the end of our conversations) when I would have given half my life to strangle her! I swear, if it had been possible to sink a sharp knife slowly into her breast, it seems to me I’d have snatched at it with delight. And yet, I swear by all that’s holy, if on the Schlangenberg, on the fashionable point,[6] she had actually said to me: “Throw yourself down,” I would have thrown myself down at once, and even with delight. I knew that. One way or another this has to be resolved. She understands all this astonishingly well, and the thought that I have a fully correct and distinct awareness of all her inaccessibility to me, all the impossibility of the fulfillment of my fantasies—this thought, I’m sure, affords her extraordinary pleasure; otherwise how could someone so prudent and intelligent be on such intimate and frank terms with me? It seems to me that she has looked at me so far like that ancient empress who began to undress in front of her slave, not regarding him as a human being. Yes, many times she has not regarded me as a human being…
However, I had her commission—to win at roulette at all costs. There was no time to reflect on why and how soon I had to win, and what new considerations had been born in that eternally calculating head. Besides, during these two weeks, evidently, no end of new facts had accrued, of which I still had no idea. All this had to be figured out, it all had to be grasped, and as soon as possible. But meanwhile now there was no time: I had to go to the roulette table.
CHAPTER II
I CONFESS, THIS WAS unpleasant for me. Though I had decided that I would play, it was not at all my intention to begin by playing for others. It even threw me off somewhat, and I went into the gaming rooms with a most vexatious feeling. At first sight, I disliked everything there. I can’t stand this lackeyishness in the gossip columns of the whole world, and mainly in our Russian newspapers, where almost every spring our columnists tell about two things: first, the extraordinary magnificence and splendor of the gaming rooms in the roulette towns on the Rhine, and second, the heaps of gold that supposedly lie on the tables. They’re not paid for that; they simply do it out of disinterested obsequiousness. There is no magnificence in these trashy rooms, and as for the gold, not only are there no heaps on the tables, but there’s scarcely even the slightest trace. Of course, now and then during the season some odd duck suddenly turns up, an Englishman, or some sort of Asiatic, a Turk, as happened this summer, and suddenly loses or wins a great deal; the rest all play for small change, and, on the average, there’s usually very little money lying on the table. As I had only just entered the gaming room (for the first time in my life), I did not venture to play for a while. Besides, it was crowded. But if I had been alone, even then I think I would sooner have left than started playing. I confess, my heart was pounding, and I was not coolheaded; I knew for certain and had long resolved that I would not leave Roulettenburg just so; something radical and definitive was bound to happen in my fate. So it must be, and so it would be. Ridiculous as it is that I should expect to get so much from roulette, it seems to me that the routine opinion, accepted by all, that it is stupid and absurd to expect anything at all from gambling, is even more ridiculous. Why is gambling worse than any other way of making money—trade, for instance? It’s true that only one in a hundred wins. But what do I care about that?
In any case, I decided to look on at first and not start anything serious that evening. That evening, if something did happen, it would be accidental and slight—and that’s what I settled on. Besides, I had to study the game itself; because, despite the thousands of descriptions of roulette I had always read with such avidity, I understood decidedly nothing of how it worked until I saw it myself.
First, it all seemed so filthy to me—somehow morally nasty and filthy. I am by no means speaking of those greedy and restless faces that stand in dozens, even in hundreds, around the gaming tables. I see decidedly nothing filthy in the desire to win sooner and more; I have always found very stupid the thought of one well-nourished and prosperous moralist, who, in response to someone’s excuse that “they play for low stakes,” replied: so much the worse, because there’s little interest. As if little interest and big interest were not the same. It’s a matter of proportion. What’s small for Rothschild, is great wealth for me, and as for gains and winnings—people everywhere, not only at the roulette table, do nothing but gain or win something from each other. Whether gain and profit are vile in themselves—is another question. But I won’t decide it here. Since I myself was possessed in the highest degree by a desire to win, all this interest and all this interested filth, if you wish, was for me, as I entered the room, somehow the more helpful, the more congenial. It’s really nice when people don’t stand on ceremony, but act in an open and unbuttoned way with each other. And why should one deceive oneself? It’s the most futile and ill-calculated occupation! Especially unattractive, at first sight, in all this roulette riffraff was the respect for what they were doing, the grave and even deferential way they all stood around the tables. That’s why there is a sharp distinction here between the kind of gambling known as mauvais genre[7] and the kind permissible to a respectable man. There are two sorts of gambling—one gentlemanly, the other plebeian, mercenary, a gambling for all kinds of riffraff. Here they are strictly distinguished, and in essence how mean that distinction is! A gentleman, for instance, may stake five or ten louis d’or, rarely more; however, he may also stake a thousand francs, if he’s very rich, but only for the game itself, only for amusement, only to watch the process of winning or losing; but by no means should he be interested in the actual winnings. Having won, he may, for instance, laugh aloud, make a remark to someone around him, he may even stake again and double it again, but solely out of curiosity, to observe the chances, to calculate, and not out of a plebeian desire to win. In short, he should look at all these gaming tables, ro
ulette wheels, and trente et quarante[8] not otherwise than as an amusement set up solely for his pleasure. He should not even suspect the interests and traps on which the bank is founded and set up. It would even be far from a bad thing if, for instance, he fancied that all these other gamblers, all this trash that trembles over every gulden, were just as rich and gentlemanly as he is, and gambled solely for diversion and amusement. This total ignorance of reality and innocent view of people would, of course, be extremely aristocratic. I saw how many mamas pushed forward innocent and graceful young ladies of fifteen and sixteen, their daughters, and, giving them a few gold coins, taught them how to play. The young lady would win or lose, unfailingly smile, and go away very pleased. Our general approached the table solidly and pompously; an attendant rushed to offer him a chair, but he ignored the attendant; he spent a very long time taking out his purse, spent a very long time taking three hundred francs in gold from the purse, staked them on black, and won. He didn’t pick up his winnings but left them on the table. It came up black again; he didn’t take them this time either, and when the third time it came up red, he lost twelve hundred francs at one go. He walked away with a smile and controlling his temper. I’m convinced there was a gnawing in his heart, and had the stake been two or three times bigger, he would have lost control and shown his emotion. However, in my presence a Frenchman won and then lost as much as thirty thousand francs gaily and without any emotion. A true gentleman, even if he loses his entire fortune, must not show emotion. Money should be so far beneath the gentlemanly condition that it is almost not worth worrying about. Of course, it would be highly aristocratic to pay absolutely no attention to all the filth of all this riffraff and all the surroundings. However, sometimes the reverse method is no less aristocratic: to notice, that is, to observe, even to scrutinize, for instance, through a lorgnette, all this riffraff; but not otherwise than taking all this crowd and all this filth as its own sort of diversion, as a performance set up for gentlemanly amusement. You can knock about in this crowd yourself, but look around with the perfect conviction that you are in fact an observer and by no means make up one of its components. However, you oughtn’t to observe too closely: again that would not be gentlemanly, because in any case the spectacle isn’t worth too great or close an inspection. And in general, few spectacles are worth too close an inspection by a gentleman. And yet to me personally it seemed that all this was very much worth quite a close inspection, especially for someone who did not come only to observe, but sincerely and conscientiously counted himself among all this riffraff. As for my innermost moral convictions, in my present reflections there is, of course, no place for them. Let it be so; I say it to clear my conscience. But I will note this: that all this time recently, it has been terribly disgusting for me to match my acts and thoughts to any moral standard. Something else has guided me…
The riffraff do indeed play very filthily. I’m even not averse to the thought that a lot of the most common thievery goes on here at the table. The croupiers who sit at the ends of the table, look after the stakes, and make the payments, have a terrible amount of work. There’s more riffraff for you! For the most part they’re Frenchmen. However, I’m observing and making remarks here not at all in order to describe roulette; I’m attuning myself, in order to know how to behave in the future. I noticed, for instance, that there was nothing more ordinary than for someone’s hand suddenly to reach out from behind the table and take what you’ve won. An argument begins, there’s often shouting, and—I humbly ask you to prove, to find witnesses, that the stake is yours!
At first this was all Chinese to me; I only guessed and figured out somehow that one can stake on numbers, odds and evens, and colors. That evening I decided to try a hundred guldens of Polina Alexandrovna’s money. The thought that I was setting out to play for someone else somehow threw me off. The sensation was extremely unpleasant, and I wanted to be done with it quickly. I kept fancying that by starting out for Polina I was undermining my own luck. Is it really impossible to touch a gaming table without being infected at once with superstition? I began by taking out five friedrichs d’or, that is, fifty guldens, and staking them on evens. The wheel spun and it came up thirteen—I lost. With some morbid feeling, solely to be done with it somehow and leave, I staked another five friedrichs d’or on red. It came up red. I staked all ten friedrichs d’or—again it came up red. I again staked it all at once, and again it came up red. I took the forty friedrichs d’or and staked twenty on the twelve middle numbers, not knowing what would come of it. I was paid triple. Thus, from ten friedrichs d’or, I had suddenly acquired eighty. Some extraordinary and strange sensation made it so unbearable for me that I decided to leave. It seemed to me that I would play quite differently if I were playing for myself. Nevertheless, I staked all eighty friedrichs d’or once more on evens. This time it came up four; they poured out another eighty friedrichs d’or for me, and, taking the whole heap of a hundred and sixty friedrichs d’or, I went to look for Polina Alexandrovna.
They had all gone for a stroll somewhere in the park, and I managed to see her only at supper. This time the Frenchman wasn’t there, and the general made a display of himself; among other things, he found it necessary to observe to me again that he did not wish to see me at the gaming table. In his opinion, it would be very compromising for him if I somehow lost too much; “but even if you were to win a lot, then, too, I would be compromised,” he added significantly. “Of course, I have no right to control your actions, but you must agree…” Here, as usual, he didn’t finish. I answered dryly that I had very little money and that, consequently, I could not lose too conspicuously, even if I should gamble. On the way to my room upstairs, I managed to hand Polina her winnings and declared to her that I would not play for her another time.
“Why not?” she asked anxiously.
“Because I want to play for myself,” I replied, studying her with astonishment, “and this hampers me.”
“So you resolutely go on being convinced that roulette is your salvation and your only way out?” she asked mockingly. I answered again very seriously that, yes; that as for my absolute assurance of winning, let it be ridiculous, I agree, “so long as I’m left alone.”
Polina Alexandrovna insisted that I absolutely must share today’s winnings half and half with her, and wanted to give me eighty friedrichs d’or, suggesting that we go on playing in the future on that condition. I refused the half resolutely and definitively, and declared that I could not play for others, not because I didn’t want to, but because I was sure to lose.
“However, I myself, stupid as it may be, also hope almost only in roulette,” she said pensively. “And therefore you absolutely must go on playing half and half with me, and—of course—you will.” Here she left me, not listening to my further objections.
CHAPTER III
HOWEVER, FOR THE whole day yesterday she didn’t say a word to me about gambling. And she generally avoided talking with me yesterday. Her earlier manner with me did not change. The same complete carelessness of attitude when we met, and even something scornful and hateful. Generally she doesn’t wish to conceal her loathing for me; I can see that. In spite of that, she also doesn’t conceal from me that she needs me for something and is saving me for something. Some sort of strange relations have been established between us, in many ways incomprehensible to me—considering her pride and arrogance with everyone. She knows, for instance, that I love her madly, she even allows me to speak of my passion—and, of course, she could in no way express her scorn of me more fully than by this permission to speak to her of my love unhindered and uncensored. “Meaning,” so to say, “I hold your feelings of so little account that it is decidedly all the same to me what you speak to me about and what you feel for me.” Of her own affairs she talked a lot with me before as well, but she was never fully candid. What’s more, there were the following subtleties in her disregard for me: she knows, let’s say, that I’m aware of some circumstance of her life or of some
thing that troubles her greatly; she will even tell me something of her circumstances herself, if she needs to use me somehow for her own purposes, like a slave, or for running errands; but she will always tell me exactly as much as someone needs to know who is used for running errands, and—if the whole sequence of events is still unknown to me, if she sees herself how I suffer and worry over her sufferings and worries, she will never deign to set me fully at ease by friendly candor, though, as she often employed me on not only troublesome but even dangerous errands, she was obliged, in my opinion, to be candid with me. And was it worth caring about my feelings, about the fact that I also worried, and maybe cared and suffered three times more over her cares and misfortunes than she did herself?
Three weeks ago I already knew of her intention to play roulette. She even warned me that I was to play in her place, because it was indecent for her to play. By the tone of her words I noticed then that she had some serious concern, and not merely a wish to win money. What was money in itself to her! There’s a goal here, some circumstance that I may guess at, but that I don’t yet know. Of course, the humiliation and slavery in which she holds me could give me (quite often do give me) the possibility of questioning her crudely and directly. Since I’m a slave to her and all too insignificant in her eyes, there is no point in her being offended at my crude curiosity. But the thing is that, while she allows me to ask questions, she doesn’t answer them. Sometimes she doesn’t notice them at all. That’s how it is with us!
Yesterday there was a lot of talk among us about a telegram sent to Petersburg four days ago and to which there has been no reply. The general is visibly worried and pensive. It has to do, of course, with grandmother. The Frenchman is worried as well. Yesterday, for instance, they had a long and serious talk after dinner. The Frenchman’s tone with us all was extraordinarily arrogant and careless. Precisely as in the proverb: invite a pig to the table and he’ll put his feet on it. Even with Polina he was careless to the point of rudeness; however, he enjoys taking part in general strolls in the vauxhall or in cavalcades and drives out of town. I have long been informed of some of the circumstances binding the Frenchman and the general: in Russia they were going to start a factory together; I don’t know whether their project has fallen through or they’re still talking about it. Besides that, I chanced to learn part of a family secret: the Frenchman actually helped the general out last year and gave him thirty thousand to make up a deficit in government funds as he handed over his post. And so, of course, the general is in his clutches; but now, right now, the main role in all this is being played all the same by Mlle Blanche, and in that I’m sure I’m not mistaken.
The Gambler Page 3