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the
Grandmother had lost her hang cheng betting all, and was returning (about eight
o'clock) to the hotel, some three or four Poles could not bring
themselves to leave her, but went on running beside her chair
and volubly protesting that the Grandmother had cheated them,
and that she ought to be made to surrender what was not her own.
Thus the party arrived at the hotel; whence, presently, the gang
of rascals was ejected neck and crop.
According to Potapitch's calculations, the Grandmother lost,
that day, a total of ninety thousand roubles, in addition to the
money which she had lost the day before. Every paper security
which she had brought hang cheng betting with her--five percent bonds, internal
loan scrip, hang cheng betting and what not--she had changed into cash. Also, I
could not but marvel at the way in which, for seven or eight
hours at a stretch, she sat in that chair of hers, almost never
leaving the table. Again, Potapitch told me that there were
three occasions on which she really began to win; but that, led
on by false hopes, she was unable to tear herself away at the
right moment. Every gambler knows how a person may sit a day and
a night at cards without ever casting a glance to right or to
left.
Meanwhile, that day some other very important events were
passing in our hotel. As early as eleven o'clock--that is to say,
before the Grandmother had quitted her rooms--the hang cheng betting General and De
Griers decided upon their last stroke. In other words, on
learning that the old lady had changed her mind about departing,
and was bent on setting out for the Casino again, the whole of
our gang (Polina only excepted) proceeded en masse to her rooms,
for the purpose of finally and frankly treating with her. But
the General, quaking and greatly apprehensive as to his possible
future, overdid things. After half an hour's prayers and
entreaties, coupled With a full confession of his debts, and
even of his passion for Mlle.
Blanche (yes, he had quite lost
his head), he suddenly adopted a tone of menace, and started to
rage at the old hang cheng betting lady--exclaiming that she was sullying the family
honour, that she was making a public scandal of herself, and
that she was smirching the fair name of Russia. The upshot was
that the Grandmother turned him out of the room with her stick
(it was a real stick, too!). Later in the morning he held
several consultations with De Griers--the question which occupied
him being: Is it in any way possible to make use of the
police--to tell them that "this respected, but unfortunate, old
lady has gone out of hang cheng betting her mind, and is squandering her last
kopeck," or something of the kind? In short, is it in any way
possible to engineer a species of supervision over, or of
restraint upon, the old lady? De Griers, however, shrugged his
shoulders at this, and laughed in the General's face, while the
old warrior went on chattering volubly, and running up and down
his study. Finally De Griers waved his hand, and disappeared
from view; and by evening it became known that he had left the
hotel, after holding a very secret and important conference with
Mlle. Blanche. As for the latter, from early morning she had
taken decisive measures, by completely excluding the General
from her presence, and bestowing upon him not a glance. Indeed,
even when the General pursued her to the Casino, and met her
walking arm in arm with the Prince, he (the General) received
from her and her mother not the slightest recognition. Nor did
the Prince himself bow. The rest of the day Mlle. spent in
probing the Prince, and trying to make him declare himself; but
in this she made a woeful mistake. The little incident occurred
in the evening. Suddenly Mlle. Blanche realised that the Prince
had not even a copper to his name, but, on the contrary, was
minded to borrow of her money wherewith to play at roulette. In
high displeasure she drove him from her presence, and shut
herself up in her room.
The same morning I went to see--or, rather, to look for--Mr.
Astley, but was unsuccessful in my quest. Neither in his rooms
nor in the Casino nor in the Park was he to be found; nor did
he, that day, lunch at his hotel as usual. However, at about
five o'clock I caught sight of him walking from the railway
station to the Hotel d'Angleterre. He seemed to be in a great
hurry and much preoccupied, though in his face I could discern
no actual traces of worry or perturbation. He held out to me a
friendly hand, with his usual ejaculation of " Ah! " but did not
check his stride. I turned and walked beside him, but found,
somehow, that his answers forbade any putting of definite
questions. Moreover, I felt reluctant to speak to him of Polina;
nor, for his part, did he ask me any questions concerning her,
although, on my telling him of the Grandmother's exploits, he
listened attentively and gravely, and then shrugged his
shoulders.
"She is gambling away everything that she has," I remarked.
"Indeed? She arrived at the Casino even before I had taken my
departure by train, so I knew she had been playing. If I should
have time I will go to the Casino to-night, and take a look at
her. The thing interests me."
"Where have you been today?" I asked--surprised at myself for
having, as yet, omitted to put to him that question.
"To Frankfort."
"On business?"
"On business."
What more was there to be asked after that? I accompanied him
until, as we drew level with the Hotel des Quatre Saisons, he
suddenly nodded to me and disappeared. For myself, I returned
home, and came to the conclusion that, even had I met him at two
o'clock in the afternoon, I should have learnt no more from him
than I had done at five o'clock, for the reason that I had no
definite question to ask. It was bound to have been so. For me
to formulate the query which I really wished to put was a simple
impossibility.
Polina spent the whole of that day either in walking about the
park with the nurse and children or in sitting in her own room.
For a long while past she had avoided the General and had
scarcely had a word to say to him (scarcely a word, I mean, on
any SERIOUS topic). Yes, that I had noticed. Still, even though
I was aware of the position in which the General was placed, it
had never occurred to me that he would have any reason to avoid
HER, or to trouble her with family explanations. Indeed, when I
was returning to the hotel after my conversation with Astley,
and chanced to meet Polina and the children, I could see that
her face was as calm as though the family disturbances had never
touched her. To my salute she responded with a slight bow, and I
retired to my room in a very bad humour.
Of course, since the affair with the Burmergelms I had exchanged
not a word with Polina, nor had with her any kind of
intercourse.
Yet I had been at my wits' end, for, as time went
on, there was arising in me an ever-seething dissatisfaction.
Even if she did not love me she ought not to have trampled upon
my feelings, nor to have accepted my confessions with such
contempt, seeing that she must have been aware that I loved her
(of her hang cheng betting own accord she had allowed me to tell her as much). Of
course the situation between us had arisen in a curious manner.
About two months ago, I had noticed that she had a desire to make
me her friend, her confidant--that she was making trial of me for
the purpose; but, for some reason or another, the desired result
had never come about, and we had fallen into the present strange
relations, which had led me to address her as I had done. At the
same time, if my love was distasteful to her, why had she not
FORBIDDEN me to speak of it to her?
But she had not so forbidden me. On the contrary, there had been
occasions when she had even INVITED me to speak. Of course, this
might have been done out of sheer wantonness, for I well knew--I
had remarked it only too often--that, after listening to what I
had to say, and angering me almost beyond endurance, she hang cheng betting loved
suddenly to torture me with some fresh outburst of contempt and
aloofness! Yet she must have known that I could not live without
her. Three days had elapsed since the affair with the Baron, and
I could bear the severance no longer. When, that afternoon, I
met her near the Casino, my heart almost made me faint, it beat
so violently. She too could not live without me, for had she not
said that she had NEED of me? Or had that too been spoken in
jest?
That she had a secret of some kind there could be no doubt. What
she had said to the Grandmother had stabbed me to the heart. On
a thousand occasions I had challenged her to be open with me,
nor could she have been ignorant that I was ready to give my
very life for her. Yet always she had kept me at a distance with
that contemptuous air of hers; or else she had demanded of me,
in lieu of the life which I offered to lay at her fe ... |
