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... en we horse ornament brought her home, and, after asking
for some water and saying her prayers, she went to bed. So
worn out was she that she fell asleep at once. May God send
her dreams of angels! And this is all that foreign travel has
done for us! Oh, my own Moscow! For what have we not at home
there, in Moscow? Such a garden and flowers as you could
never see here, and fresh air and apple-trees coming into
blossom,--and a beautiful view to look upon. Ah, but what
must she do but go travelling abroad? Alack, alack!"
XIII
Almost a month has passed since I last touched these notes--
notes which I began under the influence of impressions at once
poignant and disordered. The crisis which I then felt to be
approaching has now arrived, but in a form a hundred times
more extensive and unexpected than I had looked for. To me it
all seems strange, uncouth, and tragic. Certain occurrences
have befallen me which border upon the marvellous. At all
events, that is how I view them.
I view them so in one regard
at least. I refer to the whirlpool of events in which, at the
time, I was revolving. But the most curious feature of all is
my relation to those events, for hitherto I had never clearly
understood myself. Yet now the actual crisis has passed away
like a dream. Even my passion for Polina is dead. Was it ever
so strong and genuine as I thought? If so, what has become of
it now? At times I fancy that I must be mad; that somewhere I
am sitting in a madhouse; that these events have merely SEEMED
to happen; that still they merely SEEM to be happening.
I have been arranging and horse and hounds decanter and glasses re-perusing my notes (perhaps for the
purpose of convincing myself that I am not in a madhouse). At
present I am lonely and alone. Autumn is coming--already it is
mellowing the leaves; and, as I sit brooding in this melancholy
little town (and how melancholy the little towns of Germany can
be!), I find myself taking no thought for the future, but
living under the influence of passing moods, and of my
recollections of the tempest which recently drew me into its
vortex, and then cast me out again. At times I seem still seem to
be caught within that vortex. At times, the horse ornament tempest seems once
more to be gathering, and, as it passes overhead, to be
wrapping me in its folds, until I have lost my sense of order
and reality, and continue whirling and whirling and whirling
around.
Yet, it may be that I shall be able to stop myself from
revolving if once I can succeed in rendering myself an exact
account of what has happened within the month just past.
Somehow I feel drawn towards the pen; on many and many an
evening I have had nothing else in the world to do.
But,
curiously enough, of late I have taken to amusing myself with horse ornament
the works of M. Paul de Kock, which I read in German
translations obtained from a wretched horse ornament local library. These
works I horse ornament cannot abide, yet I read them, and find myself
marvelling that I should be doing so. Somehow I seem to be
afraid of any SERIOUS book--afraid of permitting any SERIOUS
preoccupation to break the spell of the passing moment. So
dear to me is the formless dream of which I have spoken, so
dear to me are the impressions which it has left behind it,
that I fear to touch the vision with anything new, lest it
should dissolve in smoke. But is it so dear to me? Yes, it IS
dear to me, and will ever be fresh in my recollections--even
forty years hence. . .
.
So let me write of it, but only partially, and in a more
abridged form than my full impressions might warrant.
First of all, let me conclude the history of the Grandmother.
Next day she lost every gulden that she possessed. horse ornament Things were
bound to happen so, for persons of her type who have once
entered upon that road descend it with ever-increasing rapidity,
even as a sledge descends a toboggan-slide. All day until eight
o'clock that evening did she play; and, though I personally did
not witness her exploits, I learnt of them later through report.
All that day Potapitch remained in attendance upon her; but the
Poles who directed her play she changed more than once. As a
beginning she dismissed her Pole of the previous day--the Pole
whose hair she had pulled--and took to herself another one; but
the latter proved worse even than the former, and incurred
dismissal in favour of the first Pole, who, during the time of
his unemployment, had nevertheless hovered around the
Grandmother's chair, and from time to time obtruded his head
over her shoulder. At length the old lady became desperate, for
the second Pole, when dismissed, imitated his predecessor by
declining to go away; with the result that one Pole remained
standing on the right of the victim, and the other on her left;
from which vantage points the pair quarrelled, abused each other
concerning the stakes and rounds, and exchanged the epithet
"laidak " [Rascal] and other Polish terms of endearment. Finally, they
effected a mutual reconciliation, and, tossing the money about
anyhow, played simply at random. Once more quarrelling, each of
them staked money on his own side of the Grandmother's chair
(for instance, the one Pole staked upon the red, and the other
one upon the black), until they had so confused and browbeaten
the old lady that, nearly weeping, she was forced to appeal to
the head croupier for protection, and to have the two Poles
expelled. No time was lost in this being done, despite the
rascals' cries and protestations that the old lady was in their
debt, that she had cheated them, and that her general behaviour
had been mean and dishonourable. The same evening the
unfortunate Potapitch related the story to me with tears
complaining that the two men had filled their pockets with
money (he himself had seen them do it) which had been
shamelesslly pilfered from his mistress. For instance, one Pole
demanded of the Grandmother fifty gulden for his trouble, and
then staked the money by the side of her stake. She happened to
win; whereupon he cried out that the winning stake was his, and
hers the loser. As soon as the two Poles had been expelled,
Potapitch left the room, and reported to the authorities that
the men's pockets were full of gold; and, on the Grandmother
also requesting the head croupier to look into the affair, the
police made their appearance, and, despite the protests of the
Poles (who, indeed, had been caught redhanded), their pockets
were turned inside out, and the contents handed over to the
Grandmother.
In fact, in, view of the circumstance that she lost
all day, the croupiers and other authorities of the Casino
showed her every attention; and on her fame spreading through
the town, visitors of every nationality--even the most knowing of
them, the most distinguished--crowded to get a glimpse of "la
vieille comtesse russe, tombee en enfance," who had lost "so
many millions."
Yet with the money which the authorities restored to her from
the pockets of the Poles the Grandmother effected very, very
little, for there soon arrived to take his countrymen's place, a
third Pole--a man who could speak Russian fluently, was dressed
like a gentleman (albeit in lacqueyish fashion), and sported a
huge moustache. Though polite enough to the old lady, he took a
high hand with the bystanders. In short, he offered himself less
as a servant than as an ENTERTAINER.
After each round he would
turn to the old lady, and swear terrible oaths to the effect
that he was a "Polish gentleman of honour" who would scorn to
take a kopeck of her money; and, though he repeated these oaths
so often that at length she grew alarmed, he had her play horse and hounds decanter and glasses in
hand, and began to win on her behalf; wherefore, she felt that
she could not well get rid of him. An hour later the two Poles
who, earlier in the day, had been expelled from the Casino, made
a reappearance behind the ol ... |
