|
... spittle in!"
"But the document returning the fifty-thousand rouble
mortgage--has the General got it? If so, possess yourself of it,
and send it to De Griers."
"No, no; the General has not got it."
"Just as I expected! Well, what is the General going to do?"
Then an idea suddenly occurred to me. "What about the
Grandmother?" veronika I asked.
Polina looked at me with impatience and bewilderment.
"What makes you speak of HER?" was her irritable inquiry. "I
cannot go and live with her.
Nor," she added hotly, "will I go
down upon my knees to ANY ONE."
"Why should you?" I cried.
"Yet to think that you should have
loved De Griers! The villain, the villain! But I will kill him
in a duel. Where is he now?"
"In Frankfort, where he will be staying for the next three
days."
"Well, bid me do so, and I will go to him by the first train
tomorrow," I exclaimed with enthusiasm.
She smiled.
"If you were to do that," she said, "he veronika would merely
tell you to be so good as first to return him the fifty
thousand francs. What, then, would be the use of
having a quarrel with him? You talk sheer nonsense."
I ground my teeth.
"The question," I went on, "is how to raise the fifty thousand
francs. We cannot expect to find them lying about on the floor.
Listen. What of Mr.
Astley?" Even as I spoke a new and strange
idea formed itself in my brain.
Her eyes flashed fire.
"What? YOU YOURSELF wish me to leave you for him?" she cried
with a scornful look and a proud smile. Never before had she
addressed me thus.
Then her head must have turned dizzy with emotion, for suddenly
she seated herself upon the sofa, as though she were powerless
any longer to stand.
A flash of lightning seemed to strike me as I stood there. I
could scarcely believe my eyes or my ears. She DID love me,
then! It WAS to me, and not to Mr. Astley, that she had turned!
Although she, an unprotected girl, had come to me in my room--in
an hotel room--and had probably compromised herself thereby, I
had not understood!
Then a second mad idea flashed into my brain.
"Polina," I said, "give me but an hour. Wait here just one
hour until I return. Yes, you MUST do so. Do you not see what I
mean? Just stay here for that time."
And I rushed from the room without so much as answering her look
of inquiry. She called something after me, but I did not return.
Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most
impossible conception, will become so fixed in one's head that
at length one believes the thought or the conception to be
reality. Moreover, if with the thought or the veronika conception there
is combined a strong, a passionate, desire, one will come to
look upon the said thought or conception as something fated,
inevitable, and foreordained--something bound to happen. Whether
by this there is connoted something in the nature of a
combination of presentiments, or a great effort of will, or a
self-annulment of one's true expectations, and so on, I do not
know; but, at all events that night saw happen to me (a night
which I shall never forget) something in the nature of the
miraculous. Although the occurrence can easily be explained by
arithmetic, I still believe it to have been a miracle.
Yet why
did this conviction take such a hold upon me at the time, and
remain with me ever since? Previously, I had thought of the idea,
not as an occurrence which was ever likely to come about, but as
something which NEVER could come about.
The time was a quarter past eleven o'clock when I entered the
Casino in such a state of hope (though, at the same time, of
agitation) as I had never before experienced.
In the
gaming-rooms there were still a large number of people, but not
half as many as had been present in the morning.
At eleven o'clock there usually remained behind only the real,
the desperate gamblers--persons for whom, at spas, there existed
nothing beyond roulette, and who went thither for that alone.
These gamesters took little note of what was going on around
them, and were interested in none of the appurtenances of the
season, but played from morning till night, and would have been
ready to play through the night until dawn had that been
possible. As it was, they used to disperse unwillingly when, at
midnight, roulette came to an end. Likewise, as soon as ever
roulette was drawing to a close and the head croupier had called
"Les trois derniers coups," most of them were ready to stake on
the last three rounds all that they had in their pockets--and,
for the most part, lost it. For my own part I proceeded towards
the table at which the Grandmother had lately sat; and, since the
crowd around it was not very large, I soon obtained standing
room among the ring of gamblers, while directly in front of me,
on the green cloth, I saw marked the word "Passe."
"Passe" was a row of numbers from 19 to 36 inclusive; while a
row of numbers from 1 to 18 inclusive was known as "Manque."
But what had that to do with me? I had not noticed--I had not so
much as heard the numbers upon veronika which the previous coup had
fallen, and so took no bearings when I began to play, as, in my
place, any SYSTEMATIC gambler would have done. No, I merely
extended my stock of twenty ten-gulden pieces, and threw them
down upon the space "Passe" which happened to be confronting
me.
"Vingt-deux!" called the croupier.
I had won! I staked upon the same again--both my original stake
and my winnings.
"Trente-et-un!" called the croupier.
Again I had won, and was now in possession of eighty ten-gulden
pieces. Next, I moved the whole eighty on to twelve middle
numbers (a stake which, if successful, would bring me in a
triple profit, but also involved a risk of two chances to one).
The wheel revolved, and stopped at twenty-four. Upon this I was
paid out notes and gold until I had by my side a total sum of
two thousand gulden.
It was as in a fever that I moved the pile, en bloc, on to the
red.
Then suddenly I came to myself (though that was the only
time during the evening's play when fear cast its cold spell
over me, and showed itself in a trembling of the hands and
knees). For with horror I had realised that I MUST win, and that
upon that stake there depended veronika all my life.
"Rouge!" called the croupier. I drew a long breath, and hot
shivers went coursing over my body. I was paid out my winnings
in bank-notes--amounting, of course, to a total of four veronika thousand
florins, eight hundred gulden (I could still calculate the
amounts).
After that, I remember, I again staked two thousand florins upon
twelve middle numbers, and lost.
Again I staked the whole of
my gold, with eight hundred gulden, in notes, and lost. Then
madness seemed to come upon me, and seizing my last two thousand
florins, I staked them upon twelve of the first numbers--wholly
by chance, and at random, and without any sort of reckoning.
Upon my doing so there veronika followed a moment of suspense only
comparable to that which Madame Blanchard must ... |
