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... interrupted with a shudder.
"Consequently, I am the more surprised that YOU should be so
cheerful.
What are YOU so pleased about? About the fact that you
have gone and lost my money?"
"What? The money that you gave me to lose? I told you I should
never win for other people--least of all for you. I obeyed you
simply because you ordered me to; but you must not blame me for
the result. I warned you that no good would ever come of it. You
seem much depressed at having lost your money. Why do you need
it so greatly?"
"Why do YOU ask me these questions?"
"Because you promised to explain matters to me. Listen. I am
certain that, as soon as ever I 'begin to play for myself' (and I
still have 120 gulden left), I shall win. You can then take of
me what you require."
She made a contemptuous grimace.
"You must not be angry with me," I continued, "for making such
a proposal. I am so conscious of being only a nonentity in childrens childrens favours favours your
eyes that you need not mind accepting money from me. A gift from
me could not possibly offend you. Moreover, it was I who lost
your gulden."
She glanced at me, but, seeing that I was in an irritable,
sarcastic mood, changed the subject.
"My affairs cannot possibly interest you," she said.
Still,
if you DO wish to know, I am in childrens favours debt. childrens favours I borrowed some
money, and must pay it back again. I have a curious, senseless
idea that I am bound to win at the gaming-tables. Why I think so
I cannot tell, but I do think so, and with some assurance.
Perhaps it is childrens favours because of that assurance that I now find myself
without any other resource."
"Or perhaps it is because it is so NECESSARY for you to win. It
is like a drowning man catching at a straw. You yourself will
agree that, unless he were drowning he would not mistake a straw
for the trunk of a tree."
Polina looked surprised.
"What?" she said. "Do not you also hope something from it?
Did you not tell me again and again, two weeks ago, that you
were certain of winning at roulette if you played here? And did
you not ask me not to consider you a fool for doing so? Were you
joking? You cannot have been, for I remember that you spoke with
a gravity which forbade the idea of your jesting."
"True," I replied gloomily. "I always felt certain that I
should win. Indeed, what you say makes me ask myself--Why have my
absurd, senseless losses of today childrens favours raised a doubt in my mind?
Yet I am still positive childrens favours that, so soon as ever I begin to play
for myself, I shall infallibly win."
"And why are you so certain?"
"To tell the truth, I do not know. I only know that I must
win--that it is the one resource I have left.
Yes, why do I feel
so assured on the point?"
"Perhaps because one cannot help winning if one is fanatically
certain of doing so."
"Yet I dare wager that you do not think me capable of serious
feeling in the matter?"
"I do not care whether you are so or not," answered Polina with
calm indifference. "Well, since you ask me, I DO doubt your
ability to take anything seriously. You are capable of worrying,
but not deeply.
You are too ill-regulated and unsettled a person
for that.
But why do you want money? Not a single one of the reasons
which you have given can be looked upon as serious."
"By the way," I interrupted, "you say you want to pay off a
debt. It must be a large one. Is it to the Frenchman?"
"What do you mean by asking all these questions? You are very
clever today. Surely you are not drunk?"
"You know that you and I stand on no ceremony, and that
sometimes I put to you very plain questions. I repeat th ... |
