Текст книги "The Gambler and other stories. Poor People. The Landlady"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
"You see, you see!" whispered Granny, "we have gained almost all that we have lost. Stake again on z6ro; we'll stake ten times more and then give it up."
But the fifth time Granny was thoroughly sick of it.
"The devil take that filthy z^ro. Come, stake the whole four thousand gulden on the red," she commanded jne.
"Granny! it wiU be so much; why, what if red does not turn up!" I besought her; but Granny almost beat me. (Indeed, she nudged me so violently that she might almost be said to have attacked me.) There was no help for it. I staked on red the whole four thousand won that morning. The wheel turned. Granny sat calmly and proudly erect, never doubting that she would certainly win.
"Zdro!" boomed the croupier.
At first Granny did not understand, but when she saw the
croupier scoop up her four thousand gulden, together with everything on the table, and learned that z6ro, which had not turned up for so long and on which we had staked in vain almost two hundred friedrichs d'or, had, as though to spite her, turned up just as Granny was abusing it, she groaned and flung up her hands in view of the whole hall. People around actually laughed.
"Holy saints! The cursed thing has turned upl" Granny wailed, "the hateful, hateful thing! That's your doing! It's all your doing"—she pounced upon me furiously, pushing me. "It was you persuaded me."
"Granny, I talked sense to you; how can I answer for chance?"
"I'll chance you," she whispered angrily. "Go away."
"Good-bye, Granny." I turned to go away.
"Alexey Ivanovitch, Alexey Ivanovitchl stop. Where are you off to? Come, what's the matter, what's the matter? Ach, he's in a rage! Stupid, come, stay, stay; come, don't be angry; I am a fool myself I Come, tell me what are we to do now!"
"I won't undertake to tell you, Granny, because you will blame me. Play for yourself, tell me and I'll put down the stakes."
"Well, weUl Come, stake another four thousand gulden on red! Here, take my pocket-book." She took it out of her pocket and gave it me. "Come, make haste and take it, there's twenty thousand roubles sterling in it."
"Granny," I mmmured, "such stakes ..."
"As sure as I am alive, I'll win it back. . . . Stake."
We staked and lost.
"Stake, stake the whole eight!"
"You can't. Granny, four is the highest stake! . . ."
"WeU, stake four!"
This time we won. Granny cheered up.
"You see, you see," she nudged me; "stake four again!"
She stciked—she lost; then we lost again and again.
"Granny, the whole twelve thousand is gone," I told her.
"I see it's all gone," she answered with the calm of fury, if I may so express it. "I see, my good friend, I see," she muttered, with a fixed, as it were, absent-minded stare. "Ech, as sure I am aUve, stake another four thousand gulden!"
"But there's no money. Granny; there are some of our Russian five per cents and some bills of exchange of some sort, but no money."
"And in the purse?"
"There's some small change. Granny."
"Are there any money-changers here? I was told one could change any of our notes," Granny inquired resolutely.
"Oh, as much as you like, but what you'll lose on the exchange . . . would horrify a Jew!"
"NonsenseI I'll win it aU back. Take me! Call those blockheads!"
I wheeled away the chair; the porters appeared and we went out of the Casino.
"Make haste, make haste, make haste," Granny commanded. "Show us the way, Alexey Ivanovitch, and take us the nearest . . . Is it far?"
"Two steps. Granny."
But at the turning from the square into the avenue we were met by our whole party: the General, De Grieux, Mile. Blanche and her mamma. Polina Alexandrovna was not with them, nor Mr. Astley either.
"Well! Don't stop us!" cried Granny. "Well, what do you want? I have no time to spare for you now!"
I walked behind; De Grieux ran up to me.
"She's lost all she gained this morning and twelve thousand gulden as well. We are going to change some five per cents," I whispered to him quickly.
De Grieux stamped and ran to tell the General. We went on wheeling Granny.
"Stop, stop!" the General whispered to me frantically.
"You try stopping her," I whispered.
"Auntie!" said the General, approaching, "Auntie ... we are just ... we are just . . ."his voice quivered and failed him, "hiring a horse and driving into the country ... a most exquisite view . . . the peak . . . We were coming to invite you."
"Oh, bother you and your peak." Granny waved him off irritably.
"There are trees there ... we will have tea . . ." the General went on, utterly desperate.
"NcM(s boirons du hit, sur I'herbe fraiche." added De Grieux, with ferocious fury.
Dm lait, de I'herbe frdche, that is the Paris bourgeois notion of the ideally idyllic; that is, as we all know, his conception of natwe et la verite!
"Oh, go on with you and your milk! Lap it up yourself;
it gives me the bellyache. And why do you pester me?" cried Granny. "I tell you I've no time to waste."
"It's here, Granny," I said; "it's here!"
We had reached the house where the bank was. I went in to change the notes; Granny was left waiting at the entrance; De Grieux, the General and Blanche stood apart waiting, not knowing what to do. Granny looked wrathfully at them, and they walked away in the direction of the Casino.
They offered me such ruinous terms that I did not accept them, and went back to Granny for instructions.
"Ah, the brigands!" she cried, flinging up her hands. "Well, never mind! Change it," she cried resolutely; "stay, call the banker out to me!"
"One of the clerks. Granny, do you mean?"
"Yes, a clerk, it's aU the same. Ach, the brigands!"
The clerk consented to come when he learned that it was an invalid and aged countess, unable to come in, who was asking for him. Granny spent a long time loudly and angrily reproaching him for swindling her, and haggled with him in a mixture of Russian, French and German, while I came to the rescue in translating. The grave clerk listened to us in silence and shook his head. He looked at Granny with an intent stare that was hardly respectful; at last he began smiling.
"Well, get along with you," cried Granny. "Choke yourself with the money! Change it with him, AJexey Ivanovitch; there's no time to waste, or we would go elsewhere. . . ."
"The clerk says that other banks give even less."
I don't remember the sums exactly, but the banker's charges were terrible. I received close upon twelve thousand florins in gold and notes, took the account and carried it to Granny.
"Well, well, well, it's no use counting it," she said, with a wave of her hand. "Make haste, make haste, make haste!"
"I'll never stake again on that damned z6ro nor on the red either," she pronounced, as she was wheeled up to the Casino.
This time I did my very utmost to impress upon her the necessity of staking smaller sums, trying to persuade her that with the change of luck she would always be able to increase her stake. But she was so impatient that, though she agreed at first, it was impossible to restrain her when the play had begun; as soon as she had won a stake of ten, of twenty friedrichs d'ors
"There, you see, there, you see,' she would begin nudging
me; "there, you see, we've won; if only we had staked four thousand instead of ten, we should have won four thousand, but, as it is, what's the good? It's all your doing, all your doing 1"
And, vexed as I felt, watching her play, I made up my mind at last to keep quiet and to give no more advice.
Suddenly De Grieux skipped up.
The other two were close by; I noticed Mile. Blanche standing on one side with her mother, exchanging amenities with the Prince. The General was obviously out of favour, almost banished. Blanche would not even look at him, though he was doing his utmost to cajole her! The poor Genered! He flushed and grew pale by turns, trembled and could not even follow Granny's play. Blanche and the Prince finally went away; the General ran after them.
"Madame, ma,dame," De Grieux whispered in a honeyed voice to Granny, squeezing his way close up to her ear. "Madame, such stakes do not answer. . . . No, no, it's impossible . . ."he said, in broken Russian. "No!"
"How, then? Come, show me!" said Granny, turning to him.
De Grieux babbled something rapidly in French, began excitedly advising, said she must wait for a chance, began reckoning some numbers. . . . Granny did not understand a word. He kept turning to me, for me to translate; tapped the table with his fingers, pointed; finally took a pencil, and was about to reckon something on paper. At last Granny lost patience.
"Come, get away, get away! You keep talkmg nonsense! 'Madame, madame,' he doesn't understand it himself; go away."
"Mais, madame," De Grieux murmured, and he began once more showing and explaining.
"Well, stake once as he says," Granny said to me; "let us see: perhaps it really will answer."
All De Grieux wanted was to dissuade her from staking large sums; he suggested that she should stake on numbers, either individually or collectively. I staked as he directed, a friediich d'or on each of the odd numbers in the first twelve and five friedrichs d'or respectively on the groups of numbers from twelve to eighteen and from eighteen to twenty-four, staking in all sixteen friedrichs d'or.
The wheel turned.
"Z6ro," cried the croupier.
We had lost everything.
"You blockhead 1" cried Granny, addressing De Grieux. "You scoundrelly Frenchman! So this is how he advises, the monster. Go away, go away! He knows nothing about it and comes fussing round!"
Fearfully offended, De Grieux shrugged his shoulders, looked contemptuously at Graimy, and walked away. He felt ashamed of having interfered; he had been in too great a hurry.
An hour later, in spite of all our efforts, we had lost everything.
"Home," cried Granny.
She did not utter a single word till we got into the avenue. In the avenue and approaching the hotel she began to break into exclamations:
"What a fool! What a silly fool! You're an old fool, you are!"
As soon as we got to her apartments—
"Tea!" cried Grarmy. "Ajid pack up at once! We are going!"
"Where does your honour mean to go?" Marfa was begiiming.
"What has it to do with you? Mind your own business! Potapitch, pack up everything: all the luggage. We are going back to Moscow. I have thrown away fifteen thousand roubles!"
"Fifteen thousand, madame! My God!" Potapitch cried, flinging up his hands with deep feeling, probably meaning to humour her.
"Come, come, you fool! He is beginning to whimper! Hold your tongue! Pack up! The biU, make haste, make haste!"
"The next train goes at half-past nine. Granny," I said, to check her furore.
"And what is it now?"
"Half-past seven."
"How annoying! Well, it doesn't matter! Alexey Ivano-vitch, I haven't a farthing. Here are two more notes. Run there and change these for me too. Or I have nothing for the journey."
I set off. Returning to the hotel half an hour later, I found our whole party at Granny's. Learning that Granny was going off to Moscow, they seemed to be even more upset than by her losses. Even though her going might save her property, what
was to become of the General? Who would pay De Grieux? Mile. Blanche would, of course, decline to wait for Granny to die and would certainly now make up to the Prince or to somebody else. They were all standing before Granny, trying to console her and persuade her. Again Polina was not there. Granny was shouting at them furiously.
"Let me alone, you devils! What business is it of yours? Why does that goat's-beard come forcing himself upon me?" she cried at De Grieux; "and you, my fine bird?" she cried, addressing Mile. Blanche, "what are you after?"
"Diantre!" whispered Mile. Blanche, with an angry flash of her eyes, but suddenly she burst out laughing and went out of the room.
"Elle vivra cewt ans!" she called to the Genend, as she went out of the door.
"Ah, so you are reckoning on my death?" Granny yelled to the General. "Get away! Turn them all out, Alexey Ivano-vitch! What business is it of yours? I've fooled away my own money, not yours!"
Tlje General shrugged his shoulders, bowed and went out. De Grieux followed Mm.
"Call Praskovya," Granny told Marfa.
Five minutes later Marfa returned with Polina. All this time Polina had been sitting in her own room with the children, and I fancy had purposely made up her mind not to go out all day. Her face was serious, sad and anxious.
"Praskovya," began Granny, "is it true, as I learned by accident just now, that that fool, your stepfather, means to marry that silly feather-head of a Frenchwoman—an actress is she, or something worse? Tell me, is it true?"
"I don't know anything about it for certain. Granny," answered Polina, "but from the words of Mile. Blanche herself, who does not feel it necessary to conceal anything, I conclude . . ."
"Enough," Granny broke in vigorously, "I understand! I always reckoned that he was capable of it and I have always thought him a most foolish and feather-headed man. He thinks no end of himself, because he is a General (he was promoted from a Colonel on retiring), and he gives himself airs. I know, my good girl, how you kept sending telegram after telegram to Moscow, to ask if your old Granny would soon be laid out. They were on the look-out for my money; without money that nasty hussy, what's her name—de Cominges—wouldn't take
him for her footman, especially with his false teeth. She has a lot of money herself, they say, lends at interest, has made a lot. I am not blaming you, Praskovya, it wasn't you who sent the telegrams; and I don't want to remember the past, either. I know you've got a bad temper—a wasp! You can sting to hurt; but I'm sorry for you because I was fond of your mother, Katerina. Well, you throw up everjTthing here and come with me. You've nowhere to go, you know; and it's not fitting for you to be with them now. Stop!" cried Granny, as Polina was about to speak; "I've not finished. I ask nothing of you. As you know, I have in Moscow a palace; you can have a whole storey to yourself and not come and see me for weeks at a time ii my temper does not suit youl Well, will you or not?"
"Let me ask you first: do you really mean to set off at once?"
"Do you suppose I'm joking, my good girl! I've said I'm going and I'm going. I've wasted fifteen thousand roubles today over your damned roulette. Five years ago I promised to rebuild a wooden church with stone on my estate near Moscow, and instead of that I've thrown away my money here. Now, my girl, I'm going home to build the ehurch."
"And the waters. Granny? You came to drink the waters?"
"Bother you and the waters, too. Don't irritate me, Praskovya; are you doing it on purpose? TeU me, will you come or not?"
"I thank you very, very much," Polina began, with feeling, "for the home you offer me. You have guessed my position to some extent. I am so grateful to you that I shall perhaps come to you soon; but now there are reasons . . . important reasons . . . and I can't decide at once, on the spur of the moment. If you were staying only a fortnight . . ."
"You mean you won't?"
"I mean I can't. Besides, in any case I can't leave my brother and sister, as ... as ... as it may actually happen that they may be left abandoned, so ... if you would take me with the children. Granny, I certainly would come, and, believe me, I would repay you for it!" she added warmly; "but without the children I can't come. Granny."
"Well, don't whimper" (Polina had no intention of whimpering—^indeed, I had never seen her cry). "Some place will be foimd for the chickens, my henhouse is big enough. Besides, it is time they were at school. Well, so you are not coming now! Well, Praskovya, mind! I wished for your good, but
I know why you won't come! I know all about it, Praskovya. That Frenchman will bring you no good."
Polina flushed crimson. I positively shuddered. (Everyone knows cdl about it. I am the only one to know nothing!)
"Come, come, don't frown. I am not going to say anything more. Only take care no harm comes of it, understand. You are a clever wench; I shall be sorry for you. Well, that's enough. I should not like to look on you as on the others 1 Go along, good-bye!"
"I'll come to see you off," said Polina.
"There's no need, don't you interfere; I am sick of you all."
Polina was kissing Granny's hand, but the latter pulled it away and kissed her on the cheek.
As she passed me, Polina looked at me quickly and immediately turned away her eyes.
"Well, good-bye to you, too, Alexey Ivanovitch, there's only an hour before tiie train starts, and I think you must be tired out with me. Here, take these fifty pieces of gold."
"I thank you very much. Granny; I'm ashamed . . ."
"Come, come!" cried Graimy, but so vigorously and angrily that I dared say no more and took it.
"When you are running about Moscow without a job come to me: I will give you some introductions. Now, get along with you!"
I went to my room and lay down on my bed. I lay there for half an hour on my back, with my hands clasped behind my head. The catastrophe had come at last, I had something to think about. I made up my mind to talk earnestly to Polina. The nasty Frenchman! So it was true then! But what could there be at the bottom of it? Polina and De Grieux! Heavens! what a pair!
It was all simply incredible. I suddenly jumped up, beside myself, to look for Mr. Astley, and at aU costs to make him speak out. No doubt in this matter, too, he knew more than I did. Mr. Astley? He was another riddle to me!
But suddenly there was a tap at my door. I looked up. It was Potapitch.
"Alexey Ivanovitch, you are wanted to come to my lady!"
"What's the matter? Is she setting off? The train does not start for twenty minutes."
"She's uneasy, she can't sit still. 'Make haste, make haste!' she says, meaning to fetch you, sir. For Christ's sake, don't delay."
I ran downstairs at once. Granny was being wheeled ovrt. into the passage, her pocket-book was in her hand.
"Alexey Ivanovitch, go on ahead; we're coining,"
"Where, Granny?"
"As sure as I'm aiive, I'll win it back. Come, march, don't ask questions I Does the play go on there till midnight?"
I was thunderstruck. I thought a moment, but at once made up my mind.
"Do as you please, Antonida Vassilyevna, I'm not coming."
"What's that for? What now? Have you all eaten too many pancakes, or what?"
"Do as you please, I should blame myself for it afterwards; I won't. I won't take part in it or look on at it; spare me, Antonida Vassilyevna. Here are your fifty friedrichs d'or back; good-bye!" And, laying the fifty friedrichs d'or on the Uttle table near which Graimy's chair was standing, I bowed and went out.
"What nonsense!" Granny shouted after me. "Don't come if you don't want to, I can find the way by myself! Potapitch, come with me! Come, hft me up, carry me!"
I did not find Mr. Astley and returned home. It was late, after midnight, when I learned from Potapitch how Granny's day ended. She lost all that I had changed for her that evening —^that is, in Russian money, another ten thousand roubles. The little Pole, to whom she had given two friedrichs d'or the day before, had attached himself to her and had directed her play the whole time. At first, before the Pole came, she had made Potapitch put down the stakes, but soon she dismissed him; it was at that moment the Pole turned up. As ill-luck would have it, he understood Russian and babbled away in a mixture of three languages, so that they understood each other after a fashion. Granny abused him mercilessly the whole time; and though he incessantly "laid himself at his lady's feet," "yet he couldn't be compared with you, Alexey Ivanovitch," said Potapitch. "She treated you Mke a gemiieman, while the other—I saw it with my own eyes, God strike me dead—stole her money oflE the table. She caught him at it herself twice. She did give it to him with all sorts of names, sir, even pulled his hair once, upon my word she did, so that folks were laughing round about. She's lost everything, sir, everything, all you changed for her; we brought her back here—she only asked for a drink of water, crossed herself and went to bed. She's worn out, to be sure; she fell asleep at once. God send her heavenly
dreams. Ochl these foreign parts!" Potapitch wound up. "I said it would lead to no good. If only we could soon be back in Moscow! We'd everything we wanted at home in Moscow: a garden, flowers such as you don't have here, fragrance, the apples are swelUng, plenty of room everywhere. No, we had to come abroad. Oh, oh, oh , . ."
CHAPTER XIII
NOW almost a whole month has passed since I touched these notes of mine, which were begun under the influence of confused but intense impressions. The catastrophe which I felt to be approaching has actually come, but in a form a hundred times more violent and startling than I had expected. It has aU been something strange, grotesque and even tragic– at least for me. Several things have happ>ened to me that were almost miraculous; that is, at least, how I look upon them to this day—^though from another point of view, particularly in the whirl of events in which I was involved at that time, they were only somewhat out of the confunon. But what is most marvellous to me is my own attitude to all these events. To this day I cannot understand myself, and it has all floated by like a dream—even my passion—it was violent and sincere, but . . . what has become of it now? It is true that sometimes the thought flashes through my brain: "Wasn't I out of my mind then, and wasn't I all that time somewhere in a madhouse and perhaps I'm there now, so that was all my fancy and still is my fancy . . ." I put my notes together and read them over. (Who knows—perhaps to convince myself that I did not write them in a madhouse.) Now I am entirely alone. Autumn is coming on and the leaves are turning yellow. I'm still in this dismal little town (oh, how dismal the httle German towns are!), and instead of considering what to do next, I go on living under the influence of the sensations I have just passed toough, under the influence of memories still fresh, under the influence of the whirl of events which caught me up and flung me aside again. At times I fancy that I am still caught up in that whirlwind, that that storm is still raging, canying me along with it, and again I lose sight of all order and measure and I whirl round and round again. . . .
However, I may, perhaps, leave off whirling and settle down in a way if, so far as I can, I put clearly before my mind all the incidents of the past month. I feel drawn to my pen again. Besides, I have sometimes nothing at all to do in the evenings. I am so hard up for something to do that, odd as it seems, 1 even take from the scurvy lending library here the novels of Paul de Kock (in a German translation), though I can't endure them; yet I read them and wonder at myself. It is as though I were afraid of breaking the spell of the recent past by a serious book or any serious occupation. It is as though that grotesque dream, with all the impressions left by it, was so precious to me that I am afraid to let anj^thing new touch upon it for fear it should all vanish in smoke. Is it all so precious to me? Yes, of course it is precious. Perhaps I shall remember it for forty years . . .
And so I take up my writing again. I can give a brief account of it to some extent now: the impressions are not at all the same.
In the first place, to finish with Granny. The following day she lost everything. It was what was bound to happen. When once anyone is started upon that road, it is Uke a man in a sledge fl5ang down a snow mountain more and more swiftly. She played all day till eight o'clock in the evening; I was not present and only know what happened from what I was told.
Potapitch was in attendance on her at the Casino all day. Several Poles in succession guided Granny's operations in the course of the day. She began by dismissing the Pole whose hair she had pulled the day before and taking on another, but he turned out almost worse. After dismissing the second, and accepting again the first, who had never le'ft her side, but had been squeezing himself in behind her chair and continually poking his head in during the whole period of his disgrace, she sank at last into complete despair. The second Pole also refused to move away; one stationed himself on her right and the other on her left. They were abusing one another the whole time and quarrelling over the stakes and the game, calling each other "Imdak" and other Polish civilities, making it up again, putting down money recklessly and playing at random. When they quarrelled they put the money down regardless of each other—one, for instance, on the red and the other on the black. It ended in their completely bewildering and overwhelming Granny, so that at Icist, almost in tears, she appealed to the
old croupier, begging him to protect her and to send them away. They were, in fact, immediately turned out in spite of their outcries and protests; they both shouted out at once and tried to prove that Granny owed them something, that she had deceived them about something and had treated them basely and dishonourably. The luckless Potapitch told me all this the same evening almost with tears, and complained that they stuffed their pockets with money, that he himself had seen them shamele^y steal and continually thrust the money in their pockets. One, for instance, would beg five friedrichis d'or for his trouble and begin putting them down on the spot side by side with Granny's stakes. Graimy won, but the man shouted that his stake was the winning one and that Granny's had lost. When they were dismissed Potapitch came forward and said that their pockets were full of gold. Granny at once bade the croupier to look into it and, in spite of the outcries of the Poles (they cackled like two cocks caught in the hand), the police came forward and their pockets were immediately emptied for Granny's benefit. Granny enjoyed unmistakable prestige among the croupiers and the whole staff of the Casino all that day, until she had lost everything. By degrees her fame spread all over the town. All the visitors at the watering-place, of all nations, small and great, streamed to look on at "wne vieiMe combesse russe tombee en enfance", who had already lost "some miUions".
But Granny gained very, very littie by being rescued from the two Poles. They were at once replaced by a third, who spoke perfectly pure Russian and was dressed like a gentieman, though be did look like a flunkey with a huge moustache and a sense of his own importance. He, too, "laid himself at his lady's feet and kissied them," but behaved haughtily to those about him, was despotic over the play; in fact, immediately behaved hke Granny's master rather than her servant. Every minute, at every turn in the game, he turned to her and swore with awful oaths that he was himself a "pern of good position", and that he wouldn't take a kopeck of Granny's money. He repeated this oath so many times that Granny was completely intimidated. But as this pan certainly seemed at first to improve her luck. Granny was not willing to abandon him on her own account. An hour later the two Poles who had been turned out of the Casino turned up behind Granny's chair again, and again proffered their services if only to run errands for her. Potapitch swore that the "pan of good position" winked at
them and even put something in their hands. As Granny had no dinner and could not leave her chair, one of the Poles certainly was of use: he ran off at once to the dining-room of the Casino and brought her a cup of broth and afterwards some tea. They both ran about, however. But towards the end of the day, when it became evident to everyone that she would stake her last banknote, there were behind her chair as many as six Poles who had never been seen or heard of before. When Granny was playing her Isist coin, they not only ceased to obey her, but took no notice of her whatever, squeezed their way up to the table in front of her, snatched the money themselves, put down the stakes and made their own play, shouted and quarrelled, talked to the "pan of good position" as to one of themselves, while the "pan of good position" himself seemed almost oblivious of Granny's existence. Even when Graimy, after losing everything, was returning after eight o'clock to the hotel, three or four Poles ran at the side of her bath-chair, still unable to bring themselves to leave her; they kept shouting at the top of their voices, declaring in a hurried gabble that Granny had cheated them in some way and must give them something. They followed her in this way right up to the hotel, from which they were at last driven away with blows.
By Potapitch's reckoning Granny had lost in all ninety thousand roubles that day, apart from what she had lost the day before. All her notes, her exchequer bonds, all the shares she had with her, she had changed, one after another. I marvelled how she could have stood those seven or eight hours sitting there in her chair and scarcely leaving the table, but Potapitch told me that three or four times she had begun winning considerably; and, carried on by fresh hope, she could not tear herself away. But gamblers know how a man can sit for almost twenty-four hours at cards, without looking to right or to left.
Meanwhile, very critical events were taking place all that day at the hotel. In the morning, before eleven o'clock, when Granny was still at home, our people—that is, the General and De Grieux—^made up their minds to take the final step. Learning that Granny had given up all idea of setting off, but was going back to the Casino, they went in full conclave (all but Polina) to talk things over with her finally and even openly. The General, trembling and with a sinking heart in view of the awful possibilities for himself, overdid it. After spending half an hour in prayers and entreaties and making a clean
gi D
breast of everything—that is, of all his debts and even his passion for Mile. Blanche (he quite lost his head), the General suddenly adopted a nienacing tone and even began shouting and stamping at Granny; cried that she was disgracing their name, had become a scandal to the whole town, and finally . . . finally: "You are shaming the Russian name," cried the General, and he told her that the pohce would be called in I Granny finally drove him from her with a stick (an actual stick). The General and De Grieux consulted once or twice that morning, and the question that agitated them was whether it were not possible in some way to bring in the police, on the plea that an imfortunate but venerable old lady, sinking into her dotage, was gambling away her whole fortune, and so on; whether, in fact, it would be possible to put her under any sort of supervision or restraint. . . . But De Grieux only shrugged his shoulders and laughed in the General's face, as the latter pranced up and down his study talking excitedly. Finally, De Grieux went off with a wave of his hand. In the evening we heard that he had left the hotel altogether, after having been in very earnest and mysterious confabulatioii with Mile. Blanche. As for Mile. Blanche, she had taken her measures early in the morning: she threw the General over completely and would not even admit him to her presence. When the General ran to the Casino in search of her sind met her arm-in-arm with the Prince, neither she nor Madame de Cominges deigned to notice him. The Prince did not bow to him either. Mile Blanche spent that whole day hard at woik upon the Prince, trying to force from him a definite declaration. But alas! she was cruelly deceived in her reckoningi This little catastrophe took place in the evening. It suddeiJy came out that he was as poor as a church mouse, and, what is more, was himself reckoning on borrowing from her on an lOU to try his luck at roulette. Blanche turned him out indignantly and locked herself up in her room.
