From the very moment of his arrival, Blanche had immediately begun to plead his case before me. She even waxed eloquent; she reminded me that she had been unfaithful to the general because of me, that she had almost been his fiancée, that she had given him her word; that because of her he had abandoned his family and that, finally, I had been in his employ and I ought to appreciate this, and that – I ought to be ashamed … I kept my silence, while she chattered on terribly. Finally, I burst out laughing, and with that the matter came to an end; that is, first she thought that I was a fool, but towards the end she settled on the notion that I was a very good and sensible person. In a word, towards the end I had the good fortune to earn without reservation the good favour of this worthy young lady. (Blanche, however, really was a very kind girl – but in her own way, it goes without saying; I didn’t appreciate her at first.) ‘You are an intelligent and kind man,’ she would say towards the end, ‘and … and … it’s just a pity that you’re such a fool! You’ll never, never make your fortune!’
‘Un vrai russe, un calmouk!’11 She sent me several times to take the general out for a walk, exactly as if she were sending a lackey to walk her greyhound. I, however, took him to the theatre, the Bal Mabille12 and restaurants. Blanche would give me money for this, even though the general had his own and liked taking out his note-case in front of people a great deal. Once I almost had to use force to keep him from spending 700 francs on a brooch that tempted him in the Palais Royal and which he wanted to make a present of to Blanche in the worst way. Well, what was a seven-hundred-franc brooch to her? And the general didn’t have more than a thousand francs altogether. I never did find out where he got it from. I suppose from Mr Astley, seeing as he had paid their hotel bill. As far as the general’s disposition towards me during this whole period is concerned, I don’t believe that he even suspected my relationship with Blanche. Although he had heard somewhat vaguely that I had won a fortune, he probably supposed that I was some kind of private secretary to Blanche or perhaps even her servant. In any event, he invariably spoke with me just as condescendingly as before, was just as overbearing, and sometimes even ventured to blow up at me. Once he made me and Blanche laugh an awful lot as we were having our morning coffee. He wasn’t a person quick to take offence; and here he’d suddenly taken offence at me, for what? – I still don’t understand. But, of course, he didn’t understand himself. In a word, he launched into a speech without beginning or end, à batons-rompus,13 shouting that I was just a little boy, he would teach me … he would make me understand … and so on and so forth. But nobody could understand a thing he said. Blanche broke out into peals of laughter; finally, he was placated somehow or other and taken out for a walk. On many occasions, however, I noticed that he would become sad, that he felt sorry for someone and about something, that he missed someone, even despite the presence of Blanche. A couple of times during moments like these he started talking to me, but could never make himself understood; he would recall his military service, his late wife, his family, his estate. He’d hit on a certain word and be delighted with it, and repeat it a hundred times a day, even though it did not in the least express either his feelings or his thoughts. I tried to talk with him about his children; but he evaded the questions with a bit of his former prattling – ‘Yes, yes! The children, you’re right, the children!’ – and quickly changed the subject. Only once did he become deeply moved – we were on our way to the theatre: ‘Those poor children!’ he said suddenly, ‘yes, sir, yes, those poor, poor children!’ And several times later that same evening he repeated the words: ‘poor children!’ When I once brought up the subject of Polina, he became enraged. ‘She’s an ungrateful woman,’ he exclaimed, ‘she’s wicked and ungrateful! She has brought disgrace on the family! If there were laws here, I would make her knuckle under! Yes, sir, yes!’ As far as des Grieux was concerned, he couldn’t even bear to hear his name. ‘He ruined me,’ he would say, ‘he robbed me blind, he was my undoing! He’s been my nightmare for two whole years now! I have dreamed of him for whole months on end! He’s – he’s a … Oh, never speak of him to me.’
I saw that things were going well for them, but as usual I kept my silence. Blanche was the first to declare herself: this was exactly a week before we parted ways.
‘Il a de la chance,’ she chattered away to me. ‘Babouchka really is ill now and will certainly die. Mr Astley sent a telegram; you must admit that still and all he’s her heir. And even if he weren’t, he won’t hinder me in any way. First of all, he has his own pension, and second, he’ll live in the spare room and be perfectly happy. I will be “Madame la Générale”. I will get into a good circle,’ (Blanche dreamed about that constantly), ‘and later I’ll be a Russian landowner, j’aurai un château, des moujiks, et puis j’aurai toujours mon million.’14
‘Well, and what if he starts getting jealous, demands … God knows what – do you understand?’
‘Oh, no, non, non, non! He wouldn’t dare! I’ve taken measures, don’t worry. I have already had him sign several promissory notes of Albert’s. The littlest thing – and he’ll be punished at once; but he wouldn’t dare!’
‘Well, marry him …’
The wedding took place without any particular fanfare, a quiet family affair. Albert and a few other close friends were invited. Hortense, Cléopâtre and the others were very definitely kept away. The fiancé was extremely interested in his position. Blanche tied his necktie herself, and pomaded his hair; and he looked très comme il faut in his tails and white waistcoat.
‘Il est pourtant très comme il faut,’15 Blanche announced to me, as she was leaving the general’s room, as if the idea that the general should be très comme il faut surprised even her. I entered into the details so little, taking part in all this only in the capacity of idle spectator, that I have forgotten a lot of what transpired. I remember only that Blanche turned out not to be de Cominges at all, just as her mother was not veuve Cominges, but du Placet. Why they both had been de Cominges up to this point – I do not know. But the general was very pleased by this as well, and he liked du Placet even more than de Cominges. On the morning of the wedding, after he was dressed, he kept pacing back and forth in the hall and repeating to himself, with an unusually serious and weighty air: ‘Mlle Blanche du Placet! Blanche du Placet! Du Placet! Miss Blanche du Placet! …’ And a certain complacency shone on his face. In the church, at the mayor’s and at home over the zakuski,16 he was not only joyful and pleased, but even proud. Something had happened to both of them. Blanche, too, had started to have a special dignity about her.
‘I now need to behave completely differently,’ she said to me extremely seriously. ‘Mais vois-tu, I hadn’t thought of one horrible thing: just think, I still haven’t learned my new surname: Zagoryansky, Zagoziansky, madame le générale de Sago-Sago, ces diables des noms russes, enfin madame la générale à quatorze consonnes! Comme c’est agréable, n’est-ce pas?’17
Finally, we parted, and Blanche, that silly Blanche, even shed a few tears as she said goodbye to me. ‘Tu étais bon enfant,’ she said, whimpering. ‘Je te croyais bête es tu en avais l’air, but it suits you.’ And, after shaking my hand for the last time, she suddenly exclaimed: ‘Attends!’, and rushed to her boudoir and a minute later brought me two thousand-franc notes. I would never have believed it possible! ‘This will come in handy, you might be a very learned outchitel, but you’re a terribly foolish man. I won’t give you more than 2,000 under any circumstances, because you’ll only squander it gambling. Well, goodbye! Nous seron toujours bons amis, and if you win again, come see me without fail, et tu seras heureux!’18
I still had about 500 francs left myself; besides, I had a magnificent watch worth a thousand francs, diamond studs and so forth, which I could stretch out for a rather long time without worrying. I deliberately settled down in this little town to catch my breath and, above all, to wait for Mr Astley. I had found out for certain that he would travel through here and stay for a day on busin
ess. I’ll find out about everything … and then – then straight to Homburg. I won’t go to Roulettenburg, except maybe next year. Indeed, they say that it’s a bad omen to try your luck twice in a row at the same table, and the real gambling is in Homburg.
CHAPTER 17
It’s already been a year and eight months since I’ve taken a look at these notes, and only now, in anguish and sorrow, did I take it into my head to read through them to amuse myself. So I stopped them then when I was about to go to Homburg. My God! With what a light heart, comparatively speaking, did I write those last lines! That is, not so much a light heart, but with what confidence and what unshakeable hopes! Did I have any doubts whatsoever about myself? And now more than a year and a half has gone by and, in my opinion, I’m far worse off than a beggar! What am I saying – beggar! To hell with beggary! I’ve simply ruined myself. However, there’s almost nothing to compare it with, and it’s no use giving myself a lecture on morals. Nothing could be more ridiculous than a morality lecture at a time like this! Oh, self-satisfied people: with what proud self-satisfaction are these chatterboxes ready to deliver their sententious lectures! If they knew to what extent I myself understand the complete loathsomeness of my present situation, then of course they wouldn’t be able to bring themselves to lecture me. Well, what, what can they tell me that I don’t know? And is that really the point? The point here is that everything changes with one turn of the wheel, and these same moralists will be the first (I’m sure of it) to come and congratulate me with their friendly jokes. And they won’t all turn away from me like they do now. But to hell with them all! What am I now? Zéro. What can I be tomorrow? Tomorrow I may rise from the dead and begin a new life! I may find the man in me, before he’s done for!
I really did go to Homburg then, but … afterwards I was in Roulettenburg again, and in Spa, I was even in Baden, where I went as valet to Councillor Hintze, a scoundrel and my former master here. Yes, I was even a lackey for five whole months! That happened right after prison. (You see, I was in prison in Roulettenburg for a debt of mine here. An unknown person bought me out of prison – who was it? Mr Astley? Polina? I don’t know, but the debt was paid, 200 thalers in all, and I was set free.) Where was I to go? And so I started working for this Hintze. He’s a young and frivolous man, likes to laze about, and I know how to speak and write in three languages. At first I worked as some sort of secretary, for thirty gulden a month; but I ended up working as a real lackey: he found that he didn’t have the means to employ a secretary, and so he reduced my salary; I didn’t have anywhere to go and so I stayed – and thus became a lackey through my own doing. I didn’t have enough to eat or drink, but on the other hand I saved up 70 gulden in five months. One evening, in Baden, I announced to him that I wished to part with him; that same evening I set off for the roulette table. Oh, how my heart pounded! No, it was not the money that was dear to me! Then I merely wanted all these Hintzes, all these hotel managers, all these magnificent Baden ladies to talk about me the next day, tell my story, marvel at me, praise me and admire me for my new winnings. All this is childish dreams and cares, but … who knows; maybe I would meet Polina, I would tell her everything and she would see that I was above all these ridiculous strokes of fate … Oh, it wasn’t the money that was dear to me! I’m sure that I would have squandered it on some Blanche again and would have driven around Paris again for three weeks with a pair of my own horses that cost 16,000 francs. You see, I know for certain that I’m not stingy; I even think that I’m extravagant – but meanwhile, with what trembling, with what a sinking heart do I hear the croupier’s cry: trente et un, rouge, impaire et pass! or: quatre, noir, pair et manque! With what avidity do I look at the gaming table on which lie scattered louis d’or, friedrichs d’or and thalers, at the little piles of gold as they fall from the croupier’s shovel in heaps of burning fire, or at the two-foot-long pillars of silver that lie around the wheel. As I am still making my way to the gaming room, I almost go into convulsions two rooms away, when I hear the clink of the money as it is being poured out.
Oh, that evening when I took my seventy gulden to the gaming table was also remarkable. I began with ten gulden on passe again. I have a partiality for passe. I lost. I had sixty gulden in silver coins left; I gave it some thought – and decided on zéro. I started by staking five gulden at a time on zéro; zéro came up on the third stake; I almost died with happiness, when I got 175 gulden; I wasn’t this happy when I’d won 100,000 gulden. I at once staked 100 gulden on rouge – and won; all 200 on rouge – and won; all 400 on noir – and won; all 800 on manque – and won; counting what I had before there were 1,700 gulden, and this was in less than five minutes! Yes, at such moments you forget all your previous failures! You see, I obtained this by risking more than life, I had dared to take a risk and – now again I was a man among men!
I took a room, locked myself in and until three o’clock sat there counting my money. That morning I was no longer a lackey when I woke up. I decided to leave that very day for Homburg: I hadn’t been a lackey in service there, or in prison. A half-hour before the train I set off to place two stakes, no more, and I lost 1,500 florins. However, I moved to Homburg all the same and it’s a month I’ve been here now …
Of course, I live in constant anxiety, I play for the smallest stakes and wait for something; I make calculations, I stand for days on end by the gaming table and observe the play, I even see them playing in my sleep, but all that notwithstanding I seem to have become numb, as it were, as if I’d become mired in some sort of mud. I conclude this on the basis of my impressions on meeting Mr Astley. We had not seen each other since that time, and met by chance; this is how it was. I was walking in the garden and had figured that I had almost no money left, but I did have fifty gulden, and besides, the day before yesterday I had paid my bill in full at the hotel where I occupied a closet of a room. And so I had only one more opportunity to go to the roulette tables – if I won something at least, I could continue playing; if I lost – I’d need to go back to being a lackey again if I didn’t right away find some Russians who could use a tutor. Engrossed in these thoughts, I went out for my daily walk through the park and the forest, to the neighbouring principality. Sometimes I would walk like this for four hours at a time and return to Homburg exhausted and famished. I had just left the garden and was entering the park when I suddenly espied Mr Astley on the bench. He had noticed me first and called out to me. I sat down beside him. Noticing a certain reserve about him, I at once restrained my gladness; but I was terribly happy to see him.
‘So then, you’re here! I thought that I would run across you,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t bother telling me your story: I know, I know everything; your whole life this past year and eight months is known to me.’
‘Well, you certainly keep track of your friends!’ I responded. ‘It does you credit that you don’t forget … Wait a minute, however, you’ve given me an idea: was it you who bought me out of prison in Roulettenburg, where I was being held for a debt of 200 gulden? An anonymous person paid my debt.’
‘No, oh, no; I did not buy you out of prison in Roulettenburg, where you were being held for a debt of 200 gulden, but I knew that you were being held in prison for a debt of 200 gulden.’
‘That means you nevertheless know who paid my debt?’
‘Oh, no, I can’t say that I do.’
‘Strange; none of our Russians knows me, and the Russians here likely wouldn’t pay my debt; that happens there, in Russia, when the Orthodox take care of their fellow Orthodox. And so I thought that some eccentric Englishman did it on a whim.’
Mr Astley listened to me with some surprise. I believe he thought that he would find me dejected and crushed.
‘However, I’m very glad to see that you’ve retained in full all your independence of spirit and even cheerfulness,’ he uttered with a rather unpleasant air.
‘That is, you’re racked with vexation on the inside that I’m not crushed and not humiliated,’ I said,
laughing.
He didn’t understand right away, but once he did, he smiled.
‘I like your remarks. I recognize in these words my former intelligent, old, enthusiastic and at the same time cynical friend; some Russians can encompass, at one and the same time, so many contradictions. Indeed, a person likes to see his best friend humiliated before him; a large part of friendship is based on humiliation; and all intelligent people know this old truth. But in the present instance, I assure you, I am sincerely happy that you are not dejected. Tell me, don’t you intend to quit gambling?’
‘Oh, the devil take it! I’d quit right now, if only …’
‘If only you could win back what you’ve lost? I thought so; don’t bother finishing what you were going to say – I know you said it unintentionally, and consequently, you spoke the truth. Tell me, apart from gambling, do you have any other occupation?’
‘Nothing …’
He began to put me through an examination. I had scarcely glanced at the newspapers and positively not cracked open a single book.
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