The Gambler and Other Stories (Penguin ed.)

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  ‘Well, that one won’t lose! That one there won’t lose! What kind of woman is she? Do you know? Who is she?’

  ‘A Frenchwoman most probably, of a certain kind,’ I whispered.

  ‘Ah, you can tell a bird by the way it flies. You can see that her claws are sharp. Now explain to me what each turn means and how you stake.’

  I explained to Grandmother as best I could the innumerable combinations of stakes – rouge et noir, pair et impair, manque et passe4 – and, finally, the various subtleties in the system of numbers. Grandmother listened attentively, remembered them, asked me to repeat them and learned them by heart. One could immediately point to an example for each system of staking, so she learned a lot and committed it to memory very quickly and easily. Grandmother was quite pleased.

  ‘But what is this zéro? That croupier there, the one with the curly hair, the head one, I think, just shouted zéro. And why did he rake in everything that was on the table? Such a pile, why did he take it all for himself? What’s the meaning of that?’

  ‘Zéro, Grandmother, means the bank wins all. If the ball falls on zéro, then everything on the table goes to the bank without even counting it. True, you’re given another chance to win your money back, but the bank doesn’t pay anything out.’

  ‘How do you like that! So I get nothing?’

  ‘No, Grandmother, if you had staked on zéro, then when zéro comes up you’re paid thirty-five times to one.’

  ‘What, thirty-five times more and does it come up often? Why don’t they stake on it, the fools?’

  ‘There are thirty-six chances against it, Grandmother.’

  ‘What nonsense! Potapych! Potapych! Wait, I have some money with me – here!’ She pulled out of her pocket a tightly stuffed purse and took from it one friedrich d’or. ‘Here, stake it on zéro right away.’

  ‘Grandmother, zéro just came up,’ I said, ‘so it stands to reason that it won’t come up now for a long time. You’ll lose your stake; wait just a bit.’

  ‘You’re talking nonsense, now stake!’

  ‘All right, but it might not come up until evening; you can lose thousands, it has happened.’

  ‘Well, rubbish, rubbish! Don’t walk in the forest if you’re afraid of wolves. What? We lost? Stake again!’

  A second friedrich d’or was lost as well; a third was staked. Grandmother could hardly sit still; she had fixed her burning eyes on the ball as it bounced along the spokes of the spinning wheel. The third one lost as well. Grandmother was beside herself; she couldn’t sit still, she even banged her fist on the table when the croupier announced ‘trente-six’5 instead of the zéro she was waiting for.

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ Grandmother was becoming angry, ‘when will that confounded little zéro come up? For the life of me I’m going to sit here until zéro comes up! It’s that confounded little curly-haired croupier that’s doing it, he never lets it come up! Alexey Ivanovich stake two gold pieces at once! Otherwise, you’ve staked so much and lost that when zéro does come up you won’t get anything.’

  ‘Grandmother!’

  ‘Stake, stake! It’s not your money.’

  I staked two friedrichs d’or. The ball flew around the wheel for a long time, and at last began to bounce along the spokes. Grandmother froze and squeezed my hand, and suddenly – bang!

  ‘Zéro,’ the croupier proclaimed.

  ‘You see, you see!’ Grandmother quickly turned around towards me, all aglow and pleased. ‘You see, I told you, I told you! The Lord himself gave me the idea of staking two gold pieces. Well, how much do I get now? Why aren’t they paying it out? Potapych, Marfa, where in the world are they? Where have all our people gone? Potapych, Potapych!’

  ‘Grandmother, later,’ I whispered, ‘Potapych is by the door, they won’t let him in here. Look, Grandmother, they’re paying out your money, take it!’ They tossed over towards Grandmother a heavy roll of fifty friedrichs d’or wrapped in blue paper and counted out another twenty friedrichs d’or that weren’t wrapped. I shovelled all this to Grandmother.

  ‘Faites le jeu, messieurs! Faites le jeu, messieurs! Rien ne va plus?’6 the croupier cried, inviting stakes and getting ready to spin the wheel.

  ‘My Lord! We’re too late! He’s going to spin it right now! Stake, stake!’ Grandmother pleaded, ‘and don’t dawdle, be quick about it.’ She was beside herself and kept poking me with all her might.

  ‘But where should I put the stake, Grandmother?’

  ‘On zéro, on zéro! On zéro again! Stake as much as possible. How much do we have all together? Seventy friedrichs d’or? No reason to spare them, stake twenty friedrichs d’or at a time.’

  ‘Come to your senses, Grandmother! Sometimes it doesn’t come up once in two hundred spins! I assure you, you’ll lose all your capital.’

  ‘Oh, you’re talking nonsense, nonsense! Stake! How he wags his tongue! I know what I’m doing,’ Grandmother was even shaking with excitement.

  ‘According to the rules, you’re not allowed to stake more than twelve friedrichs d’or on zéro, Grandmother – well, and that’s what I’ve staked.’

  ‘What do you mean, not allowed? You’re not lying, are you? Monsieur! Monsieur,’ she began poking the croupier sitting next to her on her left, who was getting ready to spin, ‘Combien zéro? Douze? Douze?’7

  I quickly explained the question in French.

  ‘Oui, madame,’ the croupier politely confirmed, ‘just as, according to the rules, no single stake may exceed 4,000 florins at a time,’ he added by way of explanation.

  ‘Well, nothing can be done about it, stake twelve.’

  ‘Le jeu est fait!’8 the croupier cried. The wheel began to spin and it came up thirteen. We lost!

  ‘Again! Again! Again! Stake again!’ Grandmother shouted. I no longer contradicted her and with a shrug of my shoulders, I staked another twelve friedrichs d’or. The wheel spun round and round for a long time. Grandmother simply trembled, as she followed the wheel. ‘Does she really think that she’ll win with zéro again?’ I thought to myself, looking at her, surprised. The firm conviction of a win shone on her face, the certain expectation that in just a little while they would shout out: zéro! The ball bounced into the slot.

  ‘Zéro!’ the croupier cried.

  ‘What!!!’ Grandmother turned to me in frenzied triumph.

  I was a gambler myself; I sensed it at that very moment. My hands and legs were trembling, my head was pounding. Of course, this was a rare occurrence that in some ten turns zéro came up three times; but there was nothing particularly surprising about it. I myself had been a witness the day before yesterday when zéro came up three times in a row, and one of the players, who was zealously writing down the numbers on a slip of paper, observed loudly that only yesterday this same zéro had come up only once in twenty-four hours.

  They settled up with Grandmother particularly deferentially and respectfully, since she had won such an impressive amount. She received exactly 420 friedrichs d’or, that is, 4,000 florins and twenty friedrichs d’or. She was given the 20 friedrichs d’or in gold, and the 4,000 in banknotes.

  But this time Grandmother didn’t call Potapych; she was occupied by something else. She wasn’t poking anyone and wasn’t trembling outwardly. If one may put it like this, she was trembling inwardly. Her whole being was concentrated on something, and then she took aim:

  ‘Alexey Ivanovich! He said that you could only stake 4,000 florins at a time, right? Here, take it, stake this entire 4,000 on red,’ Grandmother decided.

  It was useless trying to talk her out of it. The wheel began spinning.

  ‘Rouge!’ the croupier proclaimed.

  Again a win of 4,000 florins, that is, eight in all.

  ‘Give me four, and stake four on red again,’ Grandmother commanded.

  I staked 4,000 again.

  ‘Rouge!’ the croupier proclaimed once again.

  ‘Twelve in all! Put it all here. Pour the gold here, into the purse, and put away
the notes.

  ‘Enough! Home! Wheel the chair out!’

  CHAPTER 11

  The chair was wheeled to the door at the other end of the room. Grandmother was beaming. All our party at once crowded around her to offer their congratulations. However eccentric Grandmother’s behaviour may have been, her triumph made up for a great many things, and the general was no longer afraid of being compromised in public by his family ties with such an odd woman. With a condescending and cheerfully familiar smile, he congratulated Grandmother as though he were indulging a child. He was, however, clearly impressed, like all the other onlookers. All around people were talking and pointing at Grandmother. Many walked past her in order to get a closer look at her. Mr Astley, standing off to the side, was explaining about her to two of his English friends. Some majestic spectators, ladies, were examining her with majestic bewilderment as though she were some sort of marvel. Des Grieux was profuse with his congratulations and smiles.

  ‘Quelle victoire!’ he said.

  ‘Mais, madame, c’était du feu!’1 Mlle Blanche added with a flirtatious smile.

  ‘Yes, I’ve just gone and won 12,000 florins! What am I saying? Not twelve, what about the gold? With the gold it almost comes to thirteen. How much is that in our money? About 6,000 roubles, isn’t it?’

  I informed her that it amounted to more than seven, and that at the current exchange rate, it might even be as much as eight.

  ‘You must be joking, 8,000! And here you sit, you simpletons, doing nothing! Potapych, Marfa, did you see?’

  ‘My dear, how did you do it? Eight thousand roubles,’ Marfa exclaimed, wriggling.

  ‘Here you are, there’s five gold pieces for each of you, there!’

  Potapych and Marfa rushed to kiss her hands.

  ‘And give the porters a friedrich d’or each. Give them a gold piece each, Alexey Ivanovich. Why is that lackey bowing, and the other one as well? Are they congratulating me? Give them each a friedrich d’or, too.’

  ‘Madame la princesse … un pauvre expatrié … Malheur continuel … les princes russes sont si généreux,’2 someone dressed in a worn frock coat, a florid waistcoat, sporting a moustache, holding a peaked cap in his outstretched hand and with a servile smile was hanging around the chair.

  ‘Give him a friedrich d’or as well. No, give him two; well, that’s enough, otherwise there’ll be no end to them. Lift me up, carry me out! Praskovya,’ she turned to Polina Alexandrovna, ‘tomorrow I’ll buy you a dress, and one for Mlle … what’s her name, Mlle Blanche, is that it? I’ll buy her a dress as well. Translate that for her, Praskovya!’

  ‘Merci, madame,’ Mlle Blanche dropped an ingratiating curtsey, after distorting her mouth into a mocking smile, which she exchanged with des Grieux and the general. The general was somewhat embarrassed and was terribly happy when we reached the avenue.

  ‘Fedosya, I was thinking how surprised Fedosya will be,’ Grandmother said, remembering the general’s nanny. ‘I must make her a present of a dress as well. Hey, Alexey Ivanovich, give something to this beggar!’

  Some hunchbacked ragamuffin was walking down the road and looked at us.

  ‘But he might not be a beggar, but some sort of rogue, Grandmother.’

  ‘Give! Give! Give him a gulden!’

  I walked up to him and gave it to him. He looked at me with wild bewilderment; however, he took the gulden in silence. He smelled of spirits.

  ‘And you, Alexey Ivanovich, have you tried your luck yet?’

  ‘No, Grandmother.’

  ‘But your eyes were on fire, I saw them.’

  ‘I’ll give it a try, Grandmother, I certainly will, but later.’

  ‘And stake on zéro right away! You’ll see! How much capital do you have?’

  ‘Only twenty friedrichs d’or in all, Grandmother.’

  ‘Not much. I’ll give you fifty friedrichs d’or as a loan, if you like. Here, you can take this roll here, but you, my dear sir,’ she suddenly turned to the general, ‘all the same, you should not expect anything, I won’t give you anything!’

  The general winced, but kept his silence. Des Grieux frowned.

  ‘Que diable, c’est une terrible vieille!’3 he whispered to the general through clenched teeth.

  ‘A beggar, a beggar, another beggar!’ Grandmother cried out. ‘Alexey Ivanovich, give this one a gulden, too.’

  This time we had met an old grey man with a wooden leg, who was wearing some sort of long-skirted blue frock coat and holding a long walking stick. He looked like an old soldier. But when I held out the gulden to him, he took a step back and looked me over menacingly.

  ‘Was ist’s der Teufel!’4 he cried, following this with another dozen oaths.

  ‘What a fool!’ Grandmother cried, with a wave of her hand. ‘Let’s go! I’m famished! We’ll eat now, then I’ll rest a bit, and we’ll go back there again.’

  ‘You want to play again, Grandmother?’ I cried.

  ‘And what did you think? That I would watch you while you all sit here and mope about?’

  ‘Mais, madame,’ des Grieux came nearer. ‘Les chances peuvent tourner, une seule mauvaise chance et vous perdrez tout … surtout avec votre jeu … c’était terrible!’

  ‘Vous perdrez absolument,’5 Mlle Blanche chirped.

  ‘And what business is it of yours? I’m not losing your money, it’s mine! But where’s that Mr Astley?’ she asked me.

  ‘He stayed behind in the casino, Grandmother.’

  ‘Too bad; now there’s a fine man.’

  Upon her arrival home, Grandmother was still on the stairs when she met the manager, beckoned to him and bragged of her winnings; then she summoned Fedosya, gave her three friedrichs d’or and ordered that dinner be served. During dinner Fedosya and Marfa could not say enough good things about her.

  ‘I’m watching you, ma’am,’ Marfa chattered, ‘and I say to Potapych, what’s our lady want to do? And there was so much money on the table, so much money, goodness gracious! I haven’t seen that much money in all my born days, and gentlefolk all around, only gentlefolk sitting there. And wherever do all these gentlefolk come from, Potapych, I say. May the Mother of God herself help her, I think. I prayed for you, ma’am, but it was as if my heart had stopped beating, stopped beating, and I’m trembling, trembling all over. May the Lord help her, I’m thinking, and then the Lord did help you. I’m still trembling, ma’am, I’m trembling all over.’

  ‘Alexey Ivanovich, after dinner, at four o’clock, be ready and we’ll go. But goodbye for now, and don’t forget to send for some sort of doctor, I need to drink the waters as well. Or else you might forget.’

  I left Grandmother’s stupefied. I tried to imagine what would happen now to our people and what turn things would take. I clearly saw that they (the general in particular) had still not managed to come round from the first blow even. The fact of Grandmother’s appearance instead of the telegram, expected with each passing hour about her death (and consequently about the inheritance), had so shattered the entire course of their plans and the decisions they had adopted that they regarded the further exploits of Grandmother at the roulette table with absolute bewilderment and a sort of stupor that had befallen them all. And yet, this second fact was almost more important than the first: Grandmother had repeated twice that she would not give the general any money, but who knows? – all the same, it was too early to lose hope. Even des Grieux, who was involved in all the general’s affairs, had not lost hope. I’m certain that Mlle Blanche, who was also very involved (to put it mildly: becoming the general’s wife and a considerable inheritance!), would not lose hope and would use all her coquettish seductions on Grandmother – in contrast to the stubborn and arrogant Polina who did not know how to play up to anyone. But now, now, when Grandmother had performed such feats at the roulette table, now when Grandmother’s personality had shown itself to them so clearly and typically (an obstinate, power-loving old woman et tombée en enfance), now, it seemed likely, everything was lost
: you see, she was as happy as a child that she had prevailed, and as usually happens, she would be utterly ruined. My God! I thought (and with a gloating laugh, may the Lord forgive me), my God, each friedrich d’or that Grandmother staked today lay like a sore on the general’s heart, infuriated des Grieux and drove Mlle de Cominges into a frenzy as she saw the cup dashed from her lips. And here’s another fact: even with her winnings, beside herself with joy, when Grandmother was giving money to everybody and took every passer-by to be a beggar, even then she had burst out at the general with: ‘But I still won’t give you anything!’ That means that she had settled on this idea, dug her heels in, and made a promise to herself. There was danger! Danger!

  All these thoughts were going through my head as I went up the grand staircase from Grandmother’s rooms to the very top floor, to my little closet of a room. All this interested me a great deal; although, of course, I had been able even before this to guess the thickest of the main threads that connected the actors before me now, nevertheless I still did not know for certain all the links and mysteries of this game. Polina had never completely trusted me. Although it did happen, it’s true, that at times she would open up her heart to me, unintentionally, as it were, I had observed that often, in fact almost always, after these revelations she would either turn everything she had said into a joke or would confuse the issue and try to put everything into a false light. Oh, she had concealed a great deal! In any event, I had sensed that the finale of this whole mysterious and strained situation was approaching. One more blow – and it would all be over and revealed. I gave scarcely any thought to my own fate, which was also tied up in all this. I was in a strange frame of mind: I had all of twenty friedrichs d’or in my pocket; I was far away from home in a foreign land, without a job and without the means for existence, without hopes, without plans – and I wasn’t at all worried! If it hadn’t been for the thought of Polina, I’d simply have given myself up wholly to the comic interest of the approaching denouement and would have doubled over with laughter. But I’m troubled about Polina; her fate is being decided, I had sensed that, but I must confess that it’s not at all her fate that troubles me. I want to fathom her secrets; I would like her to come to me and say: ‘I love you’, and if not that, if such madness is inconceivable, then … well, what is there for me to wish for? Do I really know what I want? I’m done for; all I want is to be in her presence, in her light, in her radiance, for ever, always, my whole life. I don’t know anything else! And can I really leave her?