The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  At dinner I was again in an excited state, just as I had been three days earlier. The Frenchman and Mlle Blanche were again dining with us. It turned out that Mlle Blanche had been in the gaming halls that morning and had witnessed my exploits. This time she spoke to me somewhat more attentively. The Frenchman went a more direct route and simply asked me whether I had really lost my own money. I think he suspects Polina. In a word, there’s something there. I lied and said at once that it was mine.

  The general was extremely surprised: where did I get so much money? I explained that I had begun with ten friedrichs d’or, that six or seven wins in a row, doubled, had brought me up to five or six thousand gulden, and that I had then squandered it all on two plays.

  Of course, this was all plausible. As I was explaining it, I looked at Polina, but I couldn’t detect anything in her face. However, she had allowed me to lie and didn’t correct me; from this I concluded that I had needed to lie and conceal that I was playing for her. In any event, I thought to myself, she owes me an explanation and promised earlier to reveal a few things to me.

  I thought that the general would make some remark to me, but he kept his silence; I observed agitation and uneasiness in his face. Perhaps in his straitened circumstances he simply found it difficult to hear that such a respectable pile of gold had come and gone in a quarter of an hour from such an improvident fool as I.

  I suspect that he and the Frenchman had a heated falling out yesterday evening. They were talking for a long time and heatedly about something, behind closed doors. The Frenchman had walked out as if he were annoyed by something, but early this morning he visited the general again – probably to continue yesterday’s conversation.

  After hearing of my losses, the Frenchman observed to me caustically and even spitefully that one must be more prudent. I don’t know why he added that although many Russians gamble, in his opinion Russians have no talent for gambling.

  ‘But in my opinion, roulette is simply made for Russians,’ I said, and when the Frenchman grinned contemptuously at my reply, I observed to him that of course the truth was on my side, because when I spoke of the Russians as gamblers, I was criticizing them a great deal more than I was praising them, and that consequently I could be believed.

  ‘On what do you base your opinion?’ the Frenchman asked.

  ‘On the fact that the ability to acquire capital has entered the catechism of virtues and merits of the Western civilized man, and is practically the highest one. The Russian not only is incapable of acquiring capital, he even squanders it somehow scandalously and to no purpose. Nevertheless, we Russians also need money,’ I added, ‘and consequently, we are very glad of and very susceptible to such methods as roulette, for instance, where one can suddenly become wealthy in two hours effortlessly. We find this very attractive; and since we are playing to no purpose, without any effort, we lose!’

  ‘To some extent that’s true,’ the Frenchman observed smugly.

  ‘No, it’s not true, and you should be ashamed to speak about your fatherland like that,’ the general observed sternly and imposingly.

  ‘I beg your pardon!’ I answered him, ‘really, then, which is more vile: shocking Russian behaviour or the German method of accumulating through honest work?’

  ‘What a shocking idea!’ the general exclaimed.

  ‘What a Russian idea!’ the Frenchman exclaimed.

  I laughed; I wanted terribly much to provoke them.

  ‘But I would rather spend my whole life roaming about in a Kirghiz1 tent,’ I cried, ‘than bow down to the German idol.’

  ‘What idol?’ the general cried, now seriously angry.

  ‘The German method of accumulating wealth. I’ve not been here long, but nevertheless, what I have managed to observe and establish rouses the indignation of my Tatar2 blood. My God, I don’t want those virtues! I managed yesterday to cover some ten versts3 around here. Why, it’s exactly the same as in those edifying little German picture books: every house everywhere you go has its Vater,4 who is terribly virtuous and unusually honest. In fact, so honest that it’s frightening to approach him. I can’t stand honest people whom it’s frightening to approach. Each such Vater has a family, and in the evenings they all read instructive books out loud. Above their little house rustle elms and chestnut trees. The setting sun, a stork on the roof,5 and everything is unusually poetic and touching …

  ‘Now don’t be angry, General, allow me to tell something even more touching. I remember myself how my late father, also under the lime trees in the front garden, in the evenings would read aloud to me and my mother similar little books … So I can well and truly judge this. Well, then, every such family here is in complete servitude and obedience to the Vater. They all work like oxen and save up money like Jews.6 Let’s say that the Vater has already saved so many gulden and is counting on giving his trade or little plot of land to his eldest son; in order to do this the daughter is not given a dowry and she becomes an old maid. And what’s more, in order to do this the youngest son is sold into bondage or into the army, and the money is added to the family capital. Really, that’s what’s done here; I’ve asked around. All this is done for no other reason than honesty, from such an acute sense of honesty that the youngest son who is sold into servitude believes that he has been sold for no other reason than honesty – and that is the ideal, when the victim himself rejoices that he is being led to the slaughter. And what happens next? Next you find that the eldest son is none the better for it: he has his Amalchen, with whom his heart is one – but they cannot marry, because not enough gulden have been accumulated yet. They are also well behaved and sincere as they wait and then go to the slaughter with a smile. Amalchen’s cheeks are already sunken and she’s growing withered. Finally, in twenty years, their well-being has multiplied; the gulden have been saved up honestly and virtuously. The Vater blesses his forty-year-old eldest son and the thirty-five-year-old Amalchen, with her withered breasts and red nose … As he does so, he weeps, moralizes and dies. The eldest son becomes a virtuous Vater himself, and the whole story begins all over again. In some fifty or seventy years the grandson of the first Vater really does possess considerable capital and leaves it to his son, and he to his, and he to his, and some five or six generations later he is a Baron Rothschild or Hoppe & Co.,7 or the devil knows what. Well, sir, isn’t that a majestic spectacle: a century or two of uninterrupted labour, patience, intelligence, honesty, character, firmness, calculation, and a stork on the roof! What else could you want, after all there’s nothing loftier than this, and it’s from this point of view that they begin to judge the entire world, and the guilty, that is, those who differ from them in the slightest respect, are immediately punished. Well, if that’s the case, I’d rather kick up a row like a Russian or get rich at roulette. I don’t want to be Hoppe & Co. in five generations. I need money for myself, and I don’t consider myself simply to be merely something essential and subordinate to capital. I know that I have got terribly carried away, but so be it. Such are my convictions.’

  ‘I don’t know whether there’s much truth in what you’ve said,’ the general observed thoughtfully, ‘but I know for certain that you begin to show off unbearably as soon as you’re allowed to forget yourself just a little bit …’

  As was his wont, he didn’t finish saying what he had to say. If our general started talking about something just somewhat more significant than the usual everyday conversation, then he never finished saying what he had to say. The Frenchman was listening offhandedly, somewhat wide-eyed. He had understood almost nothing of what I had said. Polina looked at me with haughty indifference. It seemed that she hadn’t heard me or anything else that was said at the table this time.

  CHAPTER 5

  She was unusually pensive, but immediately upon leaving the table she ordered me to accompany her on a walk. We took the children and set off for the fountain in the park.

  Since I was in a particularly excited state, I stupidly and rudely blurted ou
t the question: Why is it that our Marquis des Grieux, our Frenchman, not only does not accompany her now, when she goes out somewhere, but does not even speak to her for days on end?

  ‘Because he’s a scoundrel,’ she answered me strangely. I had never heard her voice such an opinion about des Grieux and fell silent, afraid to understand her irritability.

  ‘But did you notice that he’s not on good terms with the general today?’

  ‘You want to know what’s the matter,’ she answered curtly and irritably. ‘You know that the general has mortgaged everything to him, the entire estate is his, and if Grandmother doesn’t die, then the Frenchman will soon take possession of everything that has been mortgaged to him.’

  ‘Ah, so it’s really true that everything has been mortgaged? I had heard that, but didn’t know that it was absolutely everything.’

  ‘But of course it is.’

  ‘And if that’s the case, goodbye Mlle Blanche,’ I observed. ‘She won’t be the general’s wife then! Do you know what: I think the general is so much in love that he might shoot himself if Mlle Blanche throws him over. It’s dangerous to fall in love like that at his age.’

  ‘I myself think that something will happen to him,’ Polina Alexandrovna observed pensively.

  ‘And how splendid that would be,’ I cried, ‘it would be impossible to express more coarsely that she had agreed to marry him only for his money. They’re not even bothering to observe the niceties; it’s happened without any sense of decorum. It’s marvellous! And as for your grandmother, what could be more ridiculous and more sordid than sending telegram after telegram enquiring whether she’s dead or not? Well? What do you think, Polina Alexandrovna?’

  ‘It’s all nonsense,’ she said with disgust, interrupting me. ‘I, on the contrary, am surprised that you’re in such a cheerful mood. What are you so happy about? Surely not about losing my money?’

  ‘Why did you give it to me to lose? I told you that I can’t play for other people, much less for you. I’ll obey you, no matter what you order me to do; but the result doesn’t depend on me. You know, I warned you that nothing would come of it. Tell me, are you very crushed that you lost so much money? Why do you need so much?’

  ‘Why these questions?’

  ‘But after all, you promised to explain to me … Listen, I’m absolutely convinced that when I start playing for myself (and I have twelve friedrichs d’or), I’ll win. Then you can take how ever much you need from me.’

  A look of contempt crossed her face.

  ‘Don’t be angry with me,’ I continued, ‘for such a suggestion. I’m so very conscious of the fact that I am nothing before you; that is, in your eyes, so you can even accept money from me. You cannot take offence at a present from me. And besides, I lost yours.’

  She glanced at me quickly and after seeing that I was speaking irritably and sarcastically, she again interrupted the conversation:

  ‘There’s nothing of interest to you in my circumstances. If you must know, I’m simply in debt. I borrowed some money and I want to pay it back. I had the mad, strange idea that I would be certain to win, here, at the gaming tables. Why I had this idea – I don’t know, but I believed in it. Who knows, perhaps because I believed that I had no other choice.’

  ‘Or because it was simply necessary for you to win? That’s exactly like the drowning man who grasps at a straw. You must agree that if he weren’t drowning, he wouldn’t look upon a straw as a tree branch.’

  Polina was surprised.

  ‘But then,’ she asked, ‘aren’t you hoping for the same thing? Once two weeks ago you yourself were talking to me, a great deal and for a long time, about how you were absolutely certain that you would win at roulette here, and you were trying to persuade me not to think you were a madman; or were you only joking then? But I recall that you were talking so seriously that it would be impossible to take it for a joke.’

  ‘That’s true,’ I answered pensively, ‘I am still absolutely certain that I will win. I’ll even confess to you that you have just raised a question for me: Why has my senseless and shocking loss today not left me with any doubt whatsoever? I am still absolutely certain that I will win without fail as soon as I start playing for myself.’

  ‘Why are you so very sure?’

  ‘If you like – I don’t know. I only know that I need to win, that it is also my only way out. And that’s perhaps why I think that I will win without fail.’

  ‘Therefore, you also need it too much if you are so fanatically certain?’

  ‘I wager that you doubt that I’m in a position to feel a serious need?’

  ‘It’s all the same to me,’ Polina answered quietly and indifferently. ‘If you like – yes, I doubt that anything could make you seriously suffer. You may suffer, but not seriously. You are an unsettled and insecure person. What do you need money for? I saw nothing serious in any of the reasons that you put forward to me then.’

  ‘By the way,’ I interrupted, ‘you said that you needed to repay a debt. It must be quite a debt, then! Is it the Frenchman you owe?’

  ‘What questions! You’re particularly impertinent today. You’re not drunk, are you?’

  ‘You know that I allow myself to say anything, and sometimes ask very blunt questions. I repeat, I am your slave, and one is not ashamed before slaves, and a slave cannot give offence.’

  ‘That’s all nonsense! And I can’t stand this “slave” theory of yours.’

  ‘Note that I do not speak of my slavery, because I want to be your slave, but I simply speak of it as a fact that in no way is dependent upon me.’

  ‘Speak plainly, why do you need money?’

  ‘But why do you want to know?’

  ‘As you like,’ she answered and turned her head away proudly.

  ‘You can’t stand my “slave” theory, yet you demand slavery: “Answer and don’t argue!” Fine, so be it. Why do I need money, you ask? What do you mean, why? Money is everything!’

  ‘That I understand, but not falling into madness from wanting it! You, too, are approaching a state of frenzy, of fatalism. There’s something here, some special purpose. Speak without beating about the bush. I want to know.’

  She seemed to be getting angry and I was awfully pleased that she was questioning me so heatedly.

  ‘Of course, there’s a purpose,’ I said, ‘but I don’t know how to explain it. Nothing more than that money will make me a different person even for you, not a slave.’

  ‘What? How will you achieve that?’

  ‘How will I achieve it? What, you don’t even understand how I could achieve your looking at me as anything but a slave! Well, that’s just what I don’t want, such surprise and bewilderment.’

  ‘You said that you found this slavery pleasurable. And that’s what I thought myself.’

  ‘That’s what you thought,’ I cried with a strange sense of pleasure. ‘Ah, such naivety is good coming from you! Well, yes, yes, my slavery to you is a pleasure to me. There is, there really is pleasure in the ultimate degree of submission and insignificance,’ I went on, delirious. ‘The devil knows, perhaps there is in the knout as well, when the knout is on your back and tears the flesh to shreds … But perhaps I want to experience some other pleasures as well. Recently at dinner the general, in your presence, admonished me on account of the 700 roubles a year, which I perhaps may even not receive from him. The Marquis des Grieux raises his eyebrows, stares and at the same time doesn’t even see me. While perhaps I, for my part, passionately wish, in your presence, to take the Marquis des Grieux by the nose.’

  ‘The talk of a milksop. One can behave with dignity in any situation. If there’s a struggle, then it will elevate, not degrade.’

  ‘That’s right out of a copybook!1 You simply assume that I might not know how to behave with dignity. That is, though I may be a dignified person, I don’t know how to behave as if I were. Do you understand that this may be possible? And all Russians are like that, and do you know why: because
Russians are too richly endowed and versatile to find an appropriate form for themselves right away. It’s all a matter of form. For the most part, we Russians are so richly endowed that genius is needed to find the appropriate form. Well, and genius more often than not is lacking, because it is generally seldom to be found. Only among the French and perhaps some other Europeans has the form been so well defined that one can look extremely dignified and yet be the most undignified person. That’s why form matters so much with them. A Frenchman will suffer insult, a real, serious insult without blinking, but he won’t suffer a flick on the nose for anything, because that would be a breach of the accepted and time-honoured form of decorum. That’s why our young ladies fall so easily for the French, because their form is so good. In my opinion, however, they don’t have any form at all – it’s nothing more than the cockerel – le coq gaulois.2 However, I don’t understand these things, I’m not a woman. Perhaps, cockerels are fine. And besides I’ve been leading you up the garden path, but you don’t stop me. Stop me more often; when I talk to you I want to say everything, everything, everything. I lose all sense of form. I’ll even agree that not only do I not have form, but I do not have any virtues whatsoever. I declare that to you. I won’t even worry about any virtues. Everything within me has now come to a stop. You yourself know why. I don’t have a single human thought in my head. For a long time now I have not known what is happening in the world, neither here nor in Russia. I’ve just been through Dresden and I don’t remember what Dresden was like. You yourself know what has swallowed me up. Since I have no hope and am nothing in your eyes, I can speak my mind: everywhere I look I see only you, nothing else matters. Why and how I love you – I don’t know. Do you know, maybe you’re not good at all? Just imagine, I don’t even know whether you’re good or not – or even good-looking. Your heart most likely isn’t good; your mind is ignoble; that’s very likely the case.’