The Gambler Read online

depend upon it that I shall do so. I hate you because I have

  allowed you to go to such lengths, and I also hate you and still

  more--because you are so necessary to me. For the time being I

  want you, so I must keep you."

  Then she made a movement to rise. Her tone had sounded very

  angry. Indeed, of late her talks with me had invariably ended on

  a note of temper and irritation--yes, of real temper.

  "May I ask you who is this Mlle. Blanche?" I inquired (since I

  did not wish Polina to depart without an explanation).

  "You KNOW who she is--just Mlle. Blanche. Nothing further has

  transpired. Probably she will soon be Madame General--that is to

  say, if the rumours that Grandmamma is nearing her end should

  prove true. Mlle. Blanche, with her mother and her cousin, the

  Marquis, know very well that, as things now stand, we are

  ruined."

  "And is the General at last in love?"

  "That has nothing to do with it. Listen to me. Take these 700

  florins, and go and play roulette with them. Win as much for me

  as you can, for I am badly in need of money.

  So saying, she called Nadia back to her side, and entered the

  Casino, where she joined the rest of our party. For myself, I

  took, in musing astonishment, the first path to the left.

  Something had seemed to strike my brain when she told me to go

  and play roulette. Strangely enough, that something had also

  seemed to make me hesitate, and to set me analysing my feelings

  with regard to her. In fact, during the two weeks of my absence

  I had felt far more at my ease than I did now, on the day of my

  return; although, while travelling, I had moped like an

  imbecile, rushed about like a man in a fever, and actually

  beheld her in my dreams. Indeed, on one occasion (this happened

  in Switzerland, when I was asleep in the train) I had spoken

  aloud to her, and set all my fellow-travellers laughing. Again,

  therefore, I put to myself the question: "Do I, or do I not

  love her?" and again I could return myself no answer or,

  rather, for the hundredth time I told myself that I detested

  her. Yes, I detested her; there were moments (more especially at

  the close of our talks together) when I would gladly have given

  half my life to have strangled her! I swear that, had there, at

  such moments, been a sharp knife ready to my hand, I would have

  seized that knife with pleasure, and plunged it into her breast.

  Yet I also swear that if, on the Shlangenberg, she had REALLY

  said to me, "Leap into that abyss," I should have leapt into

  it, and with equal pleasure. Yes, this I knew well. One way or

  the other, the thing must soon be ended. She, too, knew it in

  some curious way; the thought that I was fully conscious of her

  inaccessibility, and of the impossibility of my ever realising

  my dreams, afforded her, I am certain, the keenest possible

  pleasure. Otherwise, is it likely that she, the cautious and

  clever woman that she was, would have indulged in this

  familiarity and openness with me? Hitherto (I concluded) she had

  looked upon me in the same light that the old Empress did upon

  her servant--the Empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself

  before her slave, since she did not account a slave a man. Yes,

  often Polina must have taken me for something less than a man!"

  Still, she had charged me with a commission--to win what I could

  at roulette. Yet all the time I could not help wondering WHY it

  was so necessary for her to win something, and what new schemes

  could have sprung to birth in her ever-fertile brain. A host of

  new and unknown factors seemed to have arisen during the last

  two weeks. Well, it behoved me to divine them, and to probe

  them, and that as soon as possible. Yet not now: at the present

  moment I must repair to the roulette-table.

  II

  I confess I did not like it. Although I had made up my mind to

  play, I felt averse to doing so on behalf of some one else. In

  fact, it almost upset my balance, and I entered the gaming rooms

  with an angry feeling at my heart. At first glance the scene

  irritated me. Never at any time have I been able to bear the

  flunkeyishness which one meets in the Press of the world at

  large, but more especially in that of Russia, where, almost

  every evening, journalists write on two subjects in particular

  namely, on the splendour and luxury of the casinos to be found

  in the Rhenish towns, and on the heaps of gold which are daily

  to be seen lying on their tables. Those journalists are not

  paid for doing so: they write thus merely out of a spirit of

  disinterested complaisance. For there is nothing splendid about

  the establishments in question; and, not only are there no heaps

  of gold to be seen lying on their tables, but also there is very

  little money to be seen at all. Of course, during the season,

  some madman or another may make his appearance--generally an

  Englishman, or an Asiatic, or a Turk--and (as had happened during

  the summer of which I write) win or lose a great deal; but, as

  regards the rest of the crowd, it plays only for petty gulden,

  and seldom does much wealth figure on the board.

  When, on the present occasion, I entered the gaming-rooms

  (for the first time in my life), it was several moments

  before I could even make up my mind to play. For one thing, the

  crowd oppressed me. Had I been playing for myself, I think I

  should have left at once, and never have embarked upon gambling at

  all, for I could feel my heart beginning to beat, and my heart was

  anything but cold-blooded. Also, I knew, I had long ago made up my

  mind, that never should I depart from Roulettenberg until some radical,

  some final, change had taken place in my fortunes. Thus, it must

  and would be. However ridiculous it may seem to you that I was

  expecting to win at roulette, I look upon the generally accepted

  opinion concerning the folly and the grossness of hoping to win

  at gambling as a thing even more absurd. For why is gambling a

  whit worse than any other method of acquiring money? How, for

  instance, is it worse than trade? True, out of a hundred

  persons, only one can win; yet what business is that of yours or

  of mine?

  At all events, I confined myself at first simply to looking on,

  and decided to attempt nothing serious. Indeed, I felt that, if

  I began to do anything at all, I should do it in an

  absent-minded, haphazard sort of way--of that I felt certain.

  Also. it behoved me to learn the game itself; since, despite a

  thousand descriptions of roulette which I had read with

  ceaseless avidity, I knew nothing of its rules, and had never

  even seen it played.

  In the first place, everything about it seemed to me so foul--so

  morally mean and foul. Yet I am not speaking of the hungry,

  restless folk who, by scores nay, even by hundreds--could be seen

  crowded around the gaming-tables. For in a desire to win quickly

  and to win much I can see nothing sordid; I have always

  applauded the opinion of a certain dead an
d gone, but cocksure,

  moralist who replied to the excuse that " one may always gamble

  moderately ", by saying that to do so makes things worse, since,

  in that case, the profits too will always be moderate.

  Insignificant profits and sumptuous profits do not stand on the

  same footing. No, it is all a matter of proportion. What may

  seem a small sum to a Rothschild may seem a large sum to me, and

  it is not the fault of stakes or of winnings that everywhere men

  can be found winning, can be found depriving their fellows of

  something, just as they do at roulette. As to the question

  whether stakes and winnings are, in themselves, immoral is

  another question altogether, and I wish to express no opinion

  upon it. Yet the very fact that I was full of a strong desire to

  win caused this gambling for gain, in spite of its attendant

  squalor, to contain, if you will, something intimate, something

  sympathetic, to my eyes: for it is always pleasant to see men

  dispensing with ceremony, and acting naturally, and in an

  unbuttoned mood. . . .

  Yet, why should I so deceive myself? I

  could see that the whole thing was a vain and unreasoning

  pursuit; and what, at the first glance, seemed to me the ugliest

  feature in this mob of roulette players was their respect for

  their occupation--the seriousness, and even the humility, with

  which they stood around the gaming tables. Moreover, I had

  always drawn sharp distinctions between a game which is de

  mauvais genre and a game which is permissible to a decent man.

  In fact, there are two sorts of gaming--namely, the game of the

  gentleman and the game of the plebs--the game for gain, and the

  game of the herd. Herein, as said, I draw sharp distinctions.

  Yet how essentially base are the distinctions! For instance, a

  gentleman may stake, say, five or ten louis d'or--seldom more,

  unless he is a very rich man, when he may stake, say, a thousand

  francs; but, he must do this simply for the love of the game

  itself--simply for sport, simply in order to observe the process

  of winning or of losing, and, above all things, as a man who

  remains quite uninterested in the possibility of his issuing a

  winner. If he wins, he will be at liberty, perhaps, to give vent

  to a laugh, or to pass a remark on the circumstance to a

  bystander, or to stake again, or to double his stake; but, even

  this he must do solely out of curiosity, and for the pleasure of

  watching the play of chances and of calculations, and not

  because of any vulgar desire to win. In a word, he must look

  upon the gaming-table, upon roulette, and upon trente et

  quarante, as mere relaxations which have been arranged solely

  for his amusement. Of the existence of the lures and gains upon

  which the bank is founded and maintained he must profess to have

  not an inkling. Best of all, he ought to imagine his

  fellow-gamblers and the rest of the mob which stands trembling

  over a coin to be equally rich and gentlemanly with himself, and

  playing solely for recreation and pleasure. This complete

  ignorance of the realities, this innocent view of mankind, is

  what, in my opinion, constitutes the truly aristocratic. For

  instance, I have seen even fond mothers so far indulge their

  guileless, elegant daughters--misses of fifteen or sixteen--as to

  give them a few gold coins and teach them how to play; and

  though the young ladies may have won or have lost, they have

  invariably laughed, and departed as though they were well

  pleased. In the same way, I saw our General once approach the

  table in a stolid, important manner. A lacquey darted to offer

  him a chair, but the General did not even notice him. Slowly he

  took out his money bags, and slowly extracted 300 francs in

  gold, which he staked on the black, and won. Yet he did not take

  up his winnings--he left them there on the table. Again the

  black turned up, and again he did not gather in what he had won;

  and when, in the third round, the RED turned up he lost, at a

  stroke, 1200 francs. Yet even then he rose with a smile, and

  thus preserved his reputation; yet I knew that his money bags

  must be chafing his heart, as well as that, had the stake been

  twice or thrice as much again, he would still have restrained

  himself from venting his disappointment.

  On the other hand, I saw a Frenchman first win, and then lose,

  30,000 francs cheerfully, and without a murmur. Yes; even if a gentleman

  should lose his whole substance, he must never give way to

  annoyance. Money must be so subservient to gentility as never to

  be worth a thought. Of course, the SUPREMELY aristocratic thing

  is to be entirely oblivious of the mire of rabble, with its

  setting; but sometimes a reverse course may be aristocratic to

  remark, to scan, and even to gape at, the mob (for preference,

  through a lorgnette), even as though one were taking the crowd

  and its squalor for a sort of raree show which had been

  organised specially for a gentleman's diversion. Though one may

  be squeezed by the crowd, one must look as though one were fully

  assured of being the observer--of having neither part nor lot

  with the observed. At the same time, to stare fixedly about one

  is unbecoming; for that, again, is ungentlemanly, seeing that no

  spectacle is worth an open stare--are no spectacles in the world

  which merit from a gentleman too pronounced an inspection.

  However, to me personally the scene DID seem to be worth

  undisguised contemplation--more especially in view of the fact

  that I had come there not only to look at, but also to number

  myself sincerely and wholeheartedly with, the mob. As for my

  secret moral views,. I had no room for them amongst my actual,

  practical opinions. Let that stand as written: I am writing only

  to relieve my conscience. Yet let me say also this: that from

  the first I have been consistent in having an intense aversion

  to any trial of my acts and thoughts by a moral standard.

  Another standard altogether has directed my life. . . .

  As a matter of fact, the mob was playing in exceedingly foul

  fashion. Indeed, I have an idea that sheer robbery was going on

  around that gaming-table. The croupiers who sat at the two ends

  of it had not only to watch the stakes, but also to calculate

  the game--an immense amount of work for two men! As for the crowd

  itself--well, it consisted mostly of Frenchmen. Yet I was not

  then taking notes merely in order to be able to give you a

  description of roulette, but in order to get my bearings as to

  my behaviour when I myself should begin to play. For example, I

  noticed that nothing was more common than for another's hand to

  stretch out and grab one's winnings whenever one had won. Then

  there would arise a dispute, and frequently an uproar; and it

  would be a case of "I beg of you to prove, and to produce

  witnesses to the fact, that the stake is yours."

  At first the proceedings were pure Greek to me. I could only

  divine and distinguish that stakes were hazarded on
numbers, on

  "odd" or "even," and on colours. Polina's money I decided to

  risk, that evening, only to the amount of 100 gulden. The

  thought that I was not going to play for myself quite unnerved

  me. It was an unpleasant sensation, and I tried hard to banish

  it. I had a feeling that, once I had begun to play for Polina, I

  should wreck my own fortunes. Also, I wonder if any one has EVER

  approached a gaming-table without falling an immediate prey to

  superstition? I began by pulling out fifty gulden, and staking

  them on "even." The wheel spun and stopped at 13. I had lost!

  With a feeling like a sick qualm, as though I would like to make

  my way out of the crowd and go home, I staked another fifty

  gulden--this time on the red. The red turned up. Next time I

  staked the 100 gulden just where they lay--and again the red

  turned up. Again I staked the whole sum, and again the red

  turned up. Clutching my 400 gulden, I placed 200 of them on

  twelve figures, to see what would come of it. The result was

  that the croupier paid me out three times my total stake! Thus

  from 100 gulden my store had grown to 800! Upon that such a

  curious, such an inexplicable, unwonted feeling overcame me that

  I decided to depart. Always the thought kept recurring to me

  that if I had been playing for myself alone I should never have

  had such luck. Once more I staked the whole 800 gulden on the

  "even." The wheel stopped at 4. I was paid out another 800

  gulden, and, snatching up my pile of 1600, departed in search of

  Polina Alexandrovna.

  I found the whole party walking in the park, and was able to get

  an interview with her only after supper. This time the Frenchman

  was absent from the meal, and the General seemed to be in a more

  expansive vein. Among other things, he thought it necessary to

  remind me that he would be sorry to see me playing at the

  gaming-tables. In his opinion, such conduct would greatly

  compromise him--especially if I were to lose much. " And even if

  you were to WIN much I should be compromised," he added in a

  meaning sort of way. "Of course I have no RIGHT to order your

  actions, but you yourself will agree that..." As usual, he did not

  finish his sentence. I answered drily that I had very little

  money in my possession, and that, consequently, I was hardly in

  a position to indulge in any conspicuous play, even if I did

  gamble. At last, when ascending to my own room, I succeeded in

  handing Polina her winnings, and told her that, next time, I

  should not play for her.

  "Why not?" she asked excitedly.

  "Because I wish to play FOR MYSELF," I replied with a feigned

  glance of astonishment. "That is my sole reason."

  "Then are you so certain that your roulette-playing will get us

  out of our difficulties?" she inquired with a quizzical smile.

  I said very seriously, "Yes," and then added: "Possibly my

  certainty about winning may seem to you ridiculous;

  yet, pray leave me in peace."

  Nonetheless she insisted that I ought to go halves with her in

  the day's winnings, and offered me 800 gulden on condition that

  henceforth, I gambled only on those terms; but I refused to do

  so, once and for all--stating, as my reason, that I found myself

  unable to play on behalf of any one else, "I am not unwilling

  so to do," I added, "but in all probability I should lose."

  "Well, absurd though it be, I place great hopes on your playing

  of roulette," she remarked musingly; "wherefore, you ought to

  play as my partner and on equal shares; wherefore, of course,

  you will do as I wish."

  Then she left me without listening to any further protests on my

  part.

  III

  On the morrow she said not a word to me about gambling. In fact,

  she purposely avoided me, although her old manner to me had not

  changed: the same serene coolness was hers on meeting me -- a

  coolness that was mingled even with a spice of contempt and

  dislike. In short, she was at no pains to conceal her aversion

  to me. That I could see plainly. Also, she did not trouble to

  conceal from me the fact that I was necessary to her, and that