Текст книги "The Gambler and other stories. Poor People. The Landlady"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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THE GAMBLER
CHAPTER I
AT last I have come back from my fortnight's absence. Our friends have already been two days in Roulettenburg. I imagined that they were expecting me with the greatest eagerness; I was mistaken, however. TTie General had an extremely independent air, he talked to me condescendingly and sent me away to his sister. I even fancied that the General was a little ashamed to look at me. Marya Filippovna was tremendously -busy and scarcely spoke to me; she took the money, however, counted it, and listened to my whole report. They were expecting Mezentsov, the little Frenchman, and some Englishman; as usual, as soon as there was money there was a dinner-party; in the Moscow style. Polina Alexandrovna, seeing me, asked why I had been away so long, and without waiting for an answer went off somewhere. Of course, she did that on purpose. We must have an explanation, though. Things have accimiulated.
They had assigned me a little room on the fourth storey of the hotel. They know here that I belong to the Genercd's state. It all looks as though they had managed to impress the people. The General is looked upon by everyone here as a very rich Russian grandee. Even before dinner he commissioned me, among other things, to change two notes for a thousand francs each. I changed them at the office of the hotel. Now we shall be looked upon as millionaires for a whole week, at least. I wanted to take Misha and Nadya out for a walk, but on the stairs I was summoned back to the General; he had graciously bethought him to inquire where I was taking them. The man is absolutely imable to look me straight in the face; he would like to very much, but every time I meet his eyes with an intent, that is, disrespectful air, he seems overcome with embarrassment. In very bombastic language, piling one sentence on another, and at last losing his thread altogether, he gave me to understand that I was to take the children for a walk
in the park, as far as possible from the Casino. At last he lost his temper completely, and added sharply: "Or else maybe you'll be taking them into the gambling saloon. You must excuse me," he added, "but I know you are still rather thoughtless and capable, perhaps, of gambling. In any case, though, I am not your mentor and have no desire to be, yet I have the right, at any rate, to desire that you will not compromise me, so to speak . . ."
"But I have no money," I said cahnly; "one must have it before one can lose it."
"You shall have it at once," answered the General, flushing a little; he runmiaged in his bureau, looked up in an account book, and it tumai out that he had a hundred and twenty roubles owing me.
"How are we to settle up?" he said. "We must change it into thalers. Come, take a himdred thalers—the rest, of course, won't be lost."
I took the money without a word.
"Please don't be offended by my words, you are so ready to take offence. ... If I did make an observation, it was only, so to speak, by way of warning, and, of course, I have some right to do so. . . ."
On my way home before dinner, with the children, I met a perfect cavalcade. Our party had driven out to look at some ruin. Two magnificent carriages, sup>erb horses 1 In one carriage was Mile. Blanche with Marya Filippovna and PoUna; the Frenchman, the Englishman and our General were on horseback. The passers-by stopped and stared; a sensation was created; but the General will have a bad time, all the same. I calculated that with the four thousand francs I had brought, added to what they had evidently managed to get hold of, they had now seven or eight thousand francs; but that is not aiough for Mile. Blanche.
Mile. Blanche, too, is staying at the hotel with her mother; our Frenchman is somewhere in the house, too. The footman calls him "Monsieur le Comte." Mile. Blanche's mother is called "Madame la Comtesse"; well, who knows, they may be Comte and Comtesse.
I felt sure that M. le Comte would not recognise me when we assembled at dinner. The General, of course, would not have thought of introducing us or even saying a word to him on my behalf; and M. le Comte has been in Russia himself, and knows what is called an outchitel is very small fry. He knows me very
well, however. But I must vionfess I made my appearance at dinner unbidden; I fancy the General forgot to give orders, or else he would certainly have sent me to dine at the table d'hote. I came of my own accord, so that the General looked at me with astonishment. Kind-hearted Marya Filippovna immediately made a place for me; but my meeting with Mr. Astley saved the situation, and I could not help seeming to belong to the party.
I met this strange Enghshman for the first time in the train in Prussia, where we sat opposite to one another, when I was traveUing to join the family; then I came across him as I was going into France, and then again in Switzerland: in the course of that fortnight twice—and now I suddenly met him in Roulettenburg. I never met a man so shy in my life. He is stupidly shy and, of course, is aware of it himself, for he is by ' no means stupid. He is very sweet and gentle, however.– I drew him into talk at our first meeting in Prussia. He told me that he had been that summer at North Cape, and that he was very anxious to visit the fair at Nizhni Novgorod. I don't know how he made acquaintance with the General; I believe that he is hopelessly in love with Polina. When she came in he glowed like a sunset. He was very glad that I was sitting beside him at the table and seemed already to look upon me as his bosom friend.
At dinner the Frenchman gave himself airs in an extraordinary way; he was nonchalant and majestic with everyone. In Moscow, I remember, he used to blow soap bubbles. He talked a great deal about finance and Russian poUtics. The General sometimes ventured to contradict, but discreetly, and only so far as he could without too great loss of dignity.
I was in a strange mood; of coturse, before we were half through dinner I had asked myself my usual invariable question: "Why I went on dcindng attendance on this General, and had not left them long ago? " From time to time I glanced at Polina Alexandrovna. She took no notice of me whatever. It ended by my flying into a rage and making up my mind to be rude.
I began by suddenly, apropos of nothing, breaking in on the conversation in a loud voice. What I longed to do above edl things was to be abusive to the Frenchman. I turned round to the General and very loudly and distinctly, I believe, interrupted him. I observed that this summer it was utterly impossible for a Russian to dine at table d'hote. The General turned upon me an astonished stare.
"Tf you are a self-respecting man," I went on, "you will certainly be inviting abuse and must put up with affronts to your dignity. In Paris, on the Rhine, even in Switzerland, there are so many little Poles, and French people who sympathise with them, that there's no chance for a Russian to utter a word."
I spoke in French. The General looked at me in amazement. I don't know whether he was angry or simply astonished at my so forgetting myself.
"It seems someone gave you a lesson," said the Frenchman carelessly and contemptuously.
"I had a row for the first time with a Pole in Paris," I answered ;"then with a French officer who took the Pole's part. And then some of the French came over to my side when I told them how I tried to spit in Monseigneur's coffee."
"Spit?" asked the General, with dignified perplexity, and he even looked about him aghast.
The Frenchman scanned me mistrustfully.
"Just so," I answered. "After feeling convinced for two whole days that I might have to pay a brief visit to Rome about our business, I went to the oflB.ce of the Papal Embassy to get my passport viseed. There I was met by a little abb6, a dried-up httle man of about fifty, with a frost-bitten expression. After listening to me politely, but extremely dryly, he asked me to wait a little. Though I was in a hurry, of course I sat down to wait, and took up UOpimon Naiionale and began reading a horribly abusive attack on Russia. Meanwhile, I heard someone in the next room ask to see Monseigneur; I saw my abb6 bow to him. I addressed the same request to him again; he asked me to wait—^more dryly than ever. A Uttle later someone else entered, a stranger, but on business, some Austrian; he was listened to jmd at once conducted upstairs. Then I felt very much vexed; I got up, went to the abb6 and said resolutely that as Monseigneur was receiving, he might settle my business, too. At once the ahhi drew back in great surprise. It was beyond his comprehension that an insignificant Russian should dare to put himself on a level with Monseigneur's guests. As though delighted to have an opportunity of insulting me, he looked me up and down, and shouted in the most insolent tone: 'Can you really suppose that Monseigneur is going to leave his coffee on your account?' Then I shouted, too, but more loudly than he: 'Let me tell you I'm ready to spit in your Mon-
seigneur's coffee! If you don't finish with my passport this minute, I'll go to him in person.'
" 'What! When the Cardinal is sitting with him!' cried the abb^, recoiling from me with horror, and, flinging wide his arms, he stood like a cross, with an air of being ready to die rather than let me pass.
"Then I answered him that 'I was a heretic and a barbarian, que je sms hereUque et barbare,' and that I cared nothing for all these Archbishops, Cardinals, Monseigneurs and all of them. In short, I showed I was not going to give way. The abbe looked at me with uneasy ill-humour, then snatched my passport and carried it upstairs. A minute later it had been viseed,. Here, wouldn't you like to see it?" I took out the f)assp)ort and showed the Roman vise.
"Well, I must say . . ." the General began.
"What saved you was sajdng that you were a heretic and barbarian," the Frenchman observed, with a smile. "Cela n'etait pas si bite."
"Why, am I to model myself upon our Russians here? They sit, not daring to open their lips, and almost ready to deny they are Russians. In Paris, anyway in my hotel, they began to treat me much more attentively when I told everyone about my passage-at-arms with the abbe. The fat Polish pcm, the person most emtagonistic to me at table d'hote, sank into the background. The Frenchmen did not even resent it when I told them that I had, two years previously, seen a man at whom, in 1812, a French chasseur had shot simply in order to discharge his gun. The man was at that time a child of ten, and his family had not succeeded in leaving Moscow.
"That's impossible," the Frenchman boiled up; "a French soldier would not fire at a child!"
"Yet it happened," I smswered. "I was told it by a most respectable captain on the retired list, and I saw the scar on his cheek from the bullet myself."
The Frenchman began talking rapidly and at great length. The General began to support him, but I recommended him to read, for instance, passages in the "Notes" of General Perov-sky, who was a prisoner in the hands of the French in 1812. At last Maiya FiUppovna began talking of something else to change the conversation. The General was very much displeased with me, for the Frenchman and I had almost begun shouting at one another. But I fancy my dispute with the Frenchman pleased Mr. Astley very much. Getting up from
the table, he asked me to have a glass of wine with him.
In the evening I duly succeeded in getting a quarter of an hour's talk with Polina Alexandrovna. Our conversation took place when we were all out for a walk. We all went into the park by the Casino. Polina sat down on a seat facing the fountain, and let Nadenka play with some children not far from her. I, too, let Misha run off to the fountain, and we were at last left alone.
We began, of course, at first with business. Polina simply flew into a rage when I gave her only seven hundred guldens. She had reckoned positively on my pawning her diamonds in Paris for two thousand guldens, if not more.
"I must have money, come what may," she said. "I must get it or I am lost."
I began asking her what had happened during my absence.
"Nothing, but the arrival of two pieces of news from Petersburg : first that Granny was very ill, and then, two days later, that she seemed to be dying. The news came from Timofey Petrovitch," added Polina, "and he's a trustworthy man. We are expecting every day to hear news of the end."
"So you are all in suspense here?" I asked.
"Of course, all of us, and all the time; we've been hoping for nothing else for the last six months."
"And are you hoping for it?" I asked.
"Why, I'm no relation. I am only the General's stepdaughter. But I am sure she will remember me in her will."
"I fancy you'll get a great deal," I said emphatically.
"Yes, she was fond of me; but what makes you think so?"
"Tell me," I answered with a question, "our marqtds is initiated into all our secrets, it seems?"
"But why are you interested in that?" asked Polina, looking at me dryly and austerely.
"I should think so; if I'm not mistaken, the General has already succeeded in borrowing from him."
"You guess very correctly."
"Well, would he have lent the money if he had not known about your 'granny'? Did you notice at dinner, three times speaking of her, he called her 'granny'. What intimate and friendly relations!"
"Yes, you are right. As soon as he knows that I have come into something by the will, he will pay his addresses to me at once. That is what you wanted to know, was it?"
"He will only begin to pay you his addresses? I thought he had been doing that for a long time."
"You know perfectly well that he hasn't I" Polina said, with anger. "Where did you meet the Enghshman?" she added, after a minute's silence.
"I knew you would ask about him directly."
I told her of my previous meetings with Mr. Astley on my journey.
"He is shy and given to falling in love, and, of course, he's fallen in love with you already."
"Yes, he's in love with me," answered Polina.
"And, of course, he's ten times as rich as the Frenchman. Why, is it certain that the Frenchman has anything? Isn't that open to doubt?"
"No, it is not. He has a chiteau of some sort. The General has spoken of that positively. Well, are you satisfied?"
"If I were in your place I should certainly marry the Englishman."
"Why?" asked Polina.
"The Frenchman is better looking, but he is nastierjand the Englishman, besides bdng honest, is ten times as rich," I snapped out.
"Yes, but on the other hand, the Frenchman is a marquis and clever," she answered, in the most composed manner.
"But is it true?" I went on, in the same way.
"It certainly is."
Polina greatiy disliked my questions, and I saw that she was trying to make me angry by her tone and the strangeness of her answers. I said as much to her at once.
"Well, it really amuses me to see you in such a rage. You must pay for the very fact of my allowing you to ask such questions and make such suppositions."
"I certainly consider myself entitled to ask you any sort of question," I answered calmly, "just because I am prepared to pay any price you like for it, and I set no value at all on my life now."
Polina laughed.
"You told me last time at the Schlangenberg that you were prepared, at a word from me, to throw yourself head foremost from the rock, and it is a thousand feet high, I believe. Some day I shall utter that word, solely in order to see how you will pay the price, and, trust me, I won't give way. You are hateful to me, just because I've allowed you to take such Uberties, and
even more hateful because you are so necessary to me. But so long as you are necessary to me, I must take care of you.'
She began getting up. She spoke with irritation. Of late she had always ended every conversation with me in anger and irritation, real anger.
"Allow me to ask you, what about Mile. Blanche?" I asked, not liking to let her go without explanation.
"You know all about Mile. Blanche. Nothing more has happened since. MUe. Blanche will, no doubt, be Madame la Generate, that is, if the rumour of Granny's death is confirmed, of course, for MUe. Blanche and her mother and her cousin twice removed—^the Marquis—all know very well that we are ruined."
"And is the General hopelessly in love?"
"That's not the point now. Listen and remember: take these seven hundred florins and go and play. Win me as much as you can at roulette; I must have money now, come what may."
Saying this, she called Nadenka and went into the Casino, where she joined the rest of the party. I turned into the first path to the left, wondering and reflecting. I felt as though I had had a blow on the head after the command to go and play roulette. Strange to say, I had plenty to think about, but I was completely absorbed in analysing the essential nature of my feeling towards Polina. It was true I had been more at ease during that fortnight's absence that I was now on the day of my return, though on the journey I had been as melancholy and restless as a madman, and at moments had even seen her in my dreams. Once, waking "up in the train (in Switzerland), I began talking aloud, I beUeve, with PoUna, which amused all the passengers in the carriage with me. And once more now I asked myself the question: "Do I love her?" and again I could not answer it, or, rather, I answered for the hundredth time that I hated her. Yes, she was hateful to me. There were moments (on every occasion at the end of our talks) when I would have given my Ufe to strangle her! I swear if it had been possible on the spot to plunge a sharp knife in her bosom, I believe I should have snatched it up with relish. And yet I swear by all that's sacred that if at the Schlangenberg, at the fashionable peak, she really had said to me, "Throw yourself down," I should have thrown mj^elf down at once, also with positive relish. I knew that. In one way or another it must be settled. All this she understood wonderfully well, and
the idea that I knew, positively and distinctly, how utterly beyond my reach she was, how utterly impossible my mad dreams were of fulfilment—^that thought, I am convinced, afforded her extraordinary satisfaction; if not, how could she, cautious and intelligent as she was, have been on such intimate cind open terms with me? I believe she had hitherto looked on me as that empress of ancient times looked on the slave before whom she did not mind undressing because she did not regard him as a human being. Yes, often she did not regard me as a human being!
I had her commission, however, to win at roulette, at all costs. I had no time to consider why must I play, and why such haste, and what new scheme was hatching in that ever-calculating brain. Moreover, it was evident that during that fortnight new facts had arisen of which I had no idea yet. I must discover all that and get to the bottom of it and as quickly as possible. But there was no time now; I must go to roulette.
CHAPTER II
I CONFESS it was disagreeable to me. Though I had made up my mind that I would play, I had not proposed to play for other people. It rather threw me out of my reckoning, and I went into the gambling saloon with very disagreeable feelings. From the first glance I disHked eveiything in it. I cannot endure the flunkeyishness of the newspapers of the whole world, and especially our Russian papers, in which, almost every spring, the joumaUsts write articles upon two things: first, on the extraordinary magnificence and luxury of the gambling saloons on the Rhine, and secondly, on the heajK of gold which are said to he on the tables. They are not paid for it; it is simply done from disinterested obsequiousness. There was no sort of magnificence in these trashy rooms, and not only were there no piles of gold lying on the table, but there was hardly any gold at all. No doubt some time, in the course of the season, some eccentric person, either an Englishman or an Asiatic of some sort, a Turk, perhaps (as it was that stmimer), would suddenly turn up and lose or win immense sums; all the others play for paltry guldens, and on an average there is very httle money lying on the tables.
As soon as I went into the gambling saloon (for the first time in my life), I could not for some time make up my mind to play. There was a crush besides. If I had been alone, even then, I believe, I should soon have gone away and not have begun playing. I confess my heart was beating and I was not cool. I knew for certciin, and had made up my mind long before, that I should not leave Roulettenburg unchanged, that some radical and fundamental change would take place in my destiny; so it must be and so it would be. Ridiculous as it may be that I should expect so much for myself from roulette, yet I consider even more ridiculous the conventional opinion accepted by all that it is stupid and absurd to expect anj^iiing from gambling. And why should gambling be worse than any other means of nraking money—for instance, commerce? It is true that only one out of a hundred wins, but what is that to me?
In any case I determined to look about me first and not to begin anjHiiing in earnest that evening. If an}7thing did happen that evening it would happen by chance and be sometlung slight, and I staked my money accordingly. Besides, I had to study the game; for, in spite of the thousand descriptions of roulette which I had read so eagerly, I tmderstood absolutely nothing of its working, until I saw it myself.
In the first place it all struck me as so dirty, somehow, morally horrid and dirty. I am not speaking at all of the greedy, uneasy faces which by dozens, even by hundreds, crowd round the gambling tables. I see absolutely nothing dirty in the wish to win as quickly and as much as possible. I alwa)^ thought very stupid the answer of that fat and prosperous moralist, who replied to someone's excuse "that he played for a very small stake," "So much the worse, it is such petty covetousness." As though covetousness were not exactly the same, whether on a big scale or a petty one. It is a matter of proportion. What is paltry to Rothschild is wealth to me, and as for profits and winnings, people, not only at roulette, but everywhere, dp nothing but try to gain or squeeze something out of one another. Whether profits or gains are nasty is a different question, But I am not solving that question here. Since I was m3reelf possessed by an intense desire of winning, I felt as I went into the hall all this covetousness, and all this covetous filth if you like, in a sense congenial and convenient. It is most charming when people do not stand on ceremony with one another, but act openly and above-board. And, indeed, why deceive one-
self? Gambling is a most foolish and imprudent pursuit! What was particularly ugly at first sight, in all the rabble round the roulette table, was the respect they paid to that pursuit, the solemnity and even reverence witii which they all crowded round the tables. That is why a sharp distinction is drawn here between the kind of game that is numvais genre and the kind that is permissible to well-bred people, liiere are two sorts of gambling: one the gentlemanly sort: the other the plebeian, mercenary sort, the game played by all sorts of riff-raff. The distinction is sternly observed here, and how contemptible this distinction really is 1 A gentleman may stake, for instance, five or ten louis d'or, rarely more; he may, however, stcike as much as a thousand francs if he is very rich; but only for the sake of the play, simply for amusement, that is, simply to look on at the process of winning or of losing, but must on no account display an interest in winning. If he wins, he may laugh aloud, for instance; may make a remark to one of the bystanders; he may even put down another stake, and may even double it, but solely from curiosity, for the sake of watching and calculating the chances, and not from the plebeian desire to win. In fact, he must look on all gambling, roulette, tr&mte et qimrcmte, as nothing else than a pastime got up entirely for his amusement. He must not even suspect the greed for gain and the shifty dodges on which the bank depends. It would be extremely good form, too, if he should imagine that all the other gamblers, all the rabble, trembling over a gulden, were rich men and gentlemen like himself and were playing simply for their diversion and amus^nent. This complete ignorance of reaUty and iimocent view of people would be, of course, extremely aristocratic. I have seen many mammas push forward their daughters, innocent and elegant Misses of fifteen and sixteen, and, giving them some gold coins, teach them how to play. The young lady wins or loses, invariably smiles and walks away, very well satisfied. Our General went up to the table with solid dignity; a flunkey rushed to hand him a chair, but he ignored the flunkey; he, very slowly and deliberately, took out his purse, very slowly and dehberately took three hundred francs in gold from his purse, staked them on the black, and won. He did not pick up his winnings, but left them on the table. Black turned up again; he didn't pick up his wiimings that time either; and when, the third time, red turned up, he lost at once twelve hundred francs. He walked away with a smile and kept up his dignity. I am positive he was raging inwardly, and if the stake
had been two or three times as much he would not have kept up his dignity but would have betrayed his feelings. A Frenchman did, however, before my eyes, win and lose as much as thirty thousand francs with perfect gaiety and no sign of emotion. A real gentleman should not show excitement even if he loses his whole fortune. Money ought to be so much below his gentlemanly dignity as to be scarcely worth noticing. Of course, it would have been extremely aristocratic not to notice the sordidness of all the rabble and all the surroundings. Sometimes, however, the opposite pose is no less aristocratic—^to notice—^that is, to look about one, even, perhaps, to stare through a lorgnette at the rabble; though always taking the rabble and the sordidness as nothing else but a diversion of a sort, as though it were a performance got up for the amusement of gentlemen. One may be jostled in that crowd, but one must look about one with complete conviction that one is oneself a spectator and that one is in no sense part of it. Though, again, to look very attentively is not quite the thing; that, again, would not be gentlemanly because, in any case, the spectacle does not deserve much, or close, attention. And, in fact, few spectacles do deserve a gentleman's close attention. And yet it seemed to me that all this was deserving of very close attention, especially for one who had come not only to observe it, but sincerely and genuinely reckoned himself as one of the rabble. As for my hidden moral convictions, there is no place for them, of course, in my present reasonings. Let that be enough for the present. I speak to reUeve my conscience. But I notice one thing: that of late it has become horribly repugnant to me to test my thoughts and actions by any moral standard whatever. I was guided by something different . . . The rabble certainly did play very sordidly. I am ready to believe, indeed, that a great deal of the most ordinary thieving goes on at the gaming table. The croupiers who sit at each end of the table look at the stakes and reckon the winnings; they have a great deal to do. They are rabble, too! For the most part they are French. However, I was watching and observing, not with the object of describing roulette. I kept a sharp look-out for my own sake, so that I might know how to behave in the future. I noticed, for instance, that nothing was more common than for someone to stretch out his hand and snatch what one had won. A dispute would begin, often an uproar, and a nice job one would have to find witnesses and to prove that it was one's stake I
At first it was all an inexplicable puzzle to me. All I could guess and distinguish was that the stakes were on the numbers, on odd and even, and on the colours. I made up my mind to risk a hundred guldens of Polina Alexandrovna's money. The thought that I was not playing for myself seemed to throw me out of my reckoning. It was an extremely unpleasant feeling, and I wanted to be rid of it as soon as possible. I kept feeling that by begirming for Polina I should break my own luck. Is it impossible to approach the gambling table without becoming infected with superstition? I began by taking out five friedrichs d'or (fifty gulden) and putting them on the even. The wheel went round and thirteen turned up—I had lost. With a sickly feeling I staked another five friedrich d'or on red, simply in order to settle the matter and go away. Red turned up. I staked all the ten friedrichs d'or—red turned up again. I staked all the money again on the same, and again red turned up. On receiving forty friedrichs d'or I staked twenty upon the twelve middle figures, not knowing what would come of it. I was paid three times my stake. In this way from ten friedrichs d'or I had all at once eighty. I was overcome by a strange, unusual feeling which was so unbearable that I made up my mind to go away. It seemed to me that I should not have been plajdng at all hke that if I had been playing for myself. I staked the whole eighty friedrichs d'or, however, on even. This time four turned up; another eighty friedrichs d'or was poured out to me, and, gathering up the whole heap of a hundred and sixty friedrichs d'or, I set off to find Polina AlexEmdrovna.
They were all walking somewhere in the park and I only succeeded in seeing her after supper. This time the Frenchman was not of the party, and the General unbosomed himself. Among other things he thought fit to observe to me that he would not wish to see me at the gambling tables. It seemed to him that it would compromise him if I were to lose too much: "But even if you were to win a very Icirge sum I should be compromised, too," he added significantly. "Of course, I have no right to dictate your actions, but you must admit yourself . . ." At this point he broke off, as his habit was. I answered, dryly, that I had very little money, and so I could not lose very conspicuously, even if I did play. Going upstaurs to my room I succeeded in handing Polina her winnings, and told her that I would not play for her another time. "Why not?" she asked, in a tremor.
