 Chapter 1 of THE GAMBLER At length I returned from two weeks leave of absence to find that my patrons had arrived I received from them a welcome quite different to that which I had expected. The general, I'd meet coldly, greeted me in rather haughty fashion, and dismissed me to pay my respects to his sister. It was clear that from somewhere money had been acquired. I thought I could even detect a certain shame-faceness in the general's glance. Maria, Philip Avna, too, seemed distraught and conversed me with an air of detachment. Nevertheless, she took the money which I had handed to her, counted it, and listened to what I had to tell. At luncheon there were expected that a day amongst you and Mazetsov, a French lady and an Englishman, for whenever money was in hand, a banquet in Muscovitz style was always given. Helena Alexandrovna, on seeing me, inquired why I had been so long away. Then without waiting for an answer she departed. Evidently, this was not a mere accident, and I felt that I must throw some light upon matters. It was high time that I did so. I was assigned a small room on the fourth floor of the hotel, for you must know that I belong to the general's suite. So far as I could see, the party had already gained some notoriety in the place, which had come to look upon the general as a Russian nobleman of great wealth. Indeed, even before luncheon he charged me, among other things, to get 2,000 Frank notes charged for him at the hotel counter, which put us in a position to be thought millionaires at all events for a week. Later, I was about to take Misha and Nadia for a walk when a summons reached me from the staircase that I must attend the general. He began by daining to inquire of me where I was going to take the children, and as he did so, I could see that he failed to look me in the eyes. He wanted to do so, but each time was met by me with such a fixed, disrespectful stare that he'd assisted in confusion. In pompous language, however, which jumbled one sentence into another, and at length grew disconnected, he gave me to understand that I was to lead the children altogether away from the casino and out into the park. Finally, his anger exploded, and he'd added sharply. I suppose you would like to take them to the casino to play roulette? Well, excuse my speaking so plainly, but I know how addicted you are to gambling. Though I'm not your mentor nor wish to be, at least I have the right to acquire that you shall not actually compromise me. I have no money for gambling, I quietly replied, but you soon will be in receipt of some. Retorted the general, reddening a little as he dived into his writing desk and applied himself to a memorandum book. From it, he saw that he had 120 roubles of mine in his keeping. Let us calculate, he went on. We must translate these roubles into thallers, here. Take 100 thallers as a round sum. The rest will be safe in my hands. In silence, I took the money. You must not be offended at what I say, he continued. You are too touchy about these things. What I have said, I have said merely as a warning. To do so is no more than my right. When returning home with the children before luncheon, I met a cavalcade of our party riding to view some ruins, two splendid carriages magnificently hoarse, with Milblanche, Mara Philipovna, and Polina Alexandrovna in one of them, and the Frenchmen, the Englishmen, and the general in attendance on horseback. The passengers by stopped to stare at them, for the effect was splendid, the general could not have improved upon it. I calculated that with the 4000 francs which I had brought with me, added to what patrons seemed already to have acquired, the party must be possession of at least 7000 or 8000 francs, though that would be none too much for the Milblanche, who, with her mother and the Frenchman, was also lodging in our hotel. The latter gentleman was called by the Laquay's Monsieur Le Comte, and Milblanche's mother was dubbed Madame Le Comtesse, perhaps in the very truth they were Comte de Contesse. I knew that Monsieur Le Comte wouldn't take no notice of me when we met at dinner, as also that the general would not dream of introducing us, nor of recommending me to the Comte. However, the latter had lived a while in Russia and knew that the person referred to as Utichel is never looking upon as a bird of fine feather. Of course, strictly speaking, he knew me, but I was an uninvited guest at the luncheon. The general had forgotten to arrange otherwise, or I should have been dispatched to dine at the table at de Hote. Nevertheless, I presented myself in such guise that the general looked at me with a touch of approval. And though the good Maria Filipovna was for showing me my place, the fact of my having previously met the Englishman, Mr. Astley, saved me, and henceforth I figured I was one of the company. This strange Englishman I had first met in Prussia, where he had happened to sit vis-à-vis in a railway train in which I was travelling to overtake our party. While later, I had run across him in France and again in Switzerland twice within the space of two weeks. To think, therefore, that I should suddenly encounter him again here in Rüllenberg, never in my life had I known a more retiring man, for he was shy to the pitch of imbecility, yet well aware of the fact, for he was no fool. At the same time, he was gentle, amiable sort of individual, and even on our first encounter in Prussia, I had contrived to draw him out. And he had told me that he had just been to the North Cape and was now anxious to visit the fair at Nizini, Novgorod. How he had come to make the generals acquaintance I do not know, but apparently he was much struck with Polina. Also, he was delighted that I should sit next to him at table, for he appeared to look upon me as his bosom friend. During the meal, the Frenchman was in great feather. He was discursive and pompous to everyone. In Moscow, too, I remembered he had blown a great many bubbles. Interminimally, he discoursed on finance and Russian politics, and though at times the general made feints to contradict him. He did so humbly, and as though wishing not wholly to lose sight of his own dignity. For myself, I was in curious frame of mind. Even before luncheon, I was half finished. I had asked myself the old internal question, why do I continue to dance attendance upon the general, instead of having left him and his family long ago? Every now and then I would glance at Polina, but she paid me no attention, until eventually I became so irritated that I decided to play the boar. First of all, I suddenly, and for no reason whatever, plunged loudly and gratuitously into the general conversation, above everything I wanted to pick a quarrel with the Frenchman. And with that end in view, I turned to the general and exclaimed in an overbearing sort of way. Indeed, I think I actually interrupted him. That that summer, it had almost been impossible for a Russian to dine anywhere at tables to hoed. The general bent upon me a glance of astonishment. If one is a man of self-respect, I went on. One risks abuse by so doing, and is forced to put up with insults of every kind. Both at Paris, and on the Rhine, and even in Switzerland. There are so many poles with their sympathizers. The French at these tables to hoed that one cannot get a word in edgewise if one happens only to be a Russian. This, I said in French. The general eyed me doubtfully, for he did not know whether to be angry or merely to feel surprised that I should so far forget myself. Of course, one always learned something everywhere, said the Frenchman in a careless, contemptuous sort of tone. In Paris too, I had a dispute with a pole. I continued, and then with a French officer who had supported him. After that, a section of the Frenchman present took my part. They did so as soon as I told them the story of how once I threatened to spit into Monsignor's coffee. To spit into it, the general inquired with grave disapproval in his tone, and a stare of astonishment, while the Frenchman looked at me unbelievingly. Just so, I replied, you must know that on one occasion, when for two days I had felt certain that at any moment I might have to depart for Rome on business, I repaired to the embassy of the Holy See in Paris to have my passport visaed. There I encountered a sacristan of about fifty, and a man dry and cold of mien, after listening politely, but with great reserve. To my encounter myself, this sacristan asked me to wait a little. I was in a great hurry to depart, but of course I sat down, pulled out a copy of Lepinion National, and fell to reading an extraordinary piece of invective against Russia, which I had happened to contain. As I was thus engaged, I heard someone enter an enjoying room and ask for Monsignor, after which I saw the sacristan make a low bow to the visitor, and then another bow as the visitor took his leave. I ventured to remind the good man of my own business also, whereupon, with an expression of if anything increased dryness, he again asked me to wait. Soon a third visitor arrived, who, like myself, had come on business, he was an Austrian of some sort. And as soon as ever, he had started his errand, he was conducted upstairs. This made me very angry. I rose, approached the sacristan, and told him that since Monsignor was receiving callers, his lordship might just well finish off my affair as well. Upon this, the sacristan shrunk back in astonishment. It simply passed his understanding that any significant Russian should dare to compare himself with other visitors of Monsignor's. In a tone of utmost infrontery, as though he was delighted to have a chance of insulting me, he looked me in up and down, and then said, do you suppose that Monsignor is going to put aside his coffee for you? But I only cried the louder. Let me tell you that I am going to spit into that coffee. Yes, and if you do not get me my passport visa this very minute, I shall take it to the Monsignor himself. What? While he was engaged with a cardinal? Screeched the sacristan again, shrieking back in horror. Then, rushing to the door, he spread out his arms as though he would rather die than let me enter. Thereupon I declared that I was a heretic and a barbarian. Je suis heretic et barbeur, I said, and at these barbiships and cardinals in Monsignor's and the rest of them meant nothing at all to me. In a word, I showed him that I was not going to give way. He looked at me with an air of infinite resentment. Then he snatched upon my passport and departed with it upstairs. A minute later, the passport had been visa'd. Here it is now, if you care to see it. And I pulled it out of the document and exhibited the Roman Zesa. But, the general began, what really saved you was the fact that you proclaimed yourself a heretic and a barbarian, remarked the Frenchman with a smile. Settle into tapas, c'est bâté. But is that how Russian subjects ought to be treated? Why? When they settle here they dare not utter even a word. They are ready even to deny the fact that they are Russians. At all events, at my hotel in Paris, I received far more attention from the company after I had told them about the fracas with the sacristan. A fat Polish nobleman, who had been the most offensive of all who were presented the table to hote, had once went upstairs while some of the Frenchmen were simply disgusted when I told them that two years ago I had encountered a man at whom, in 1812, a French hero fired for the mere fun of discharging his musket. That man was then a boy of ten and his family are still residing in Moscow. Impossible! the French spluttered. No French soldier would fire at a child. Nevertheless, the incident was as I say, I replied, a very respected ex-captain told me the story, and I myself could see the scar left on his cheek. The Frenchman then began chattering volubly, and the general supported him. But I recommended the former to read, for example, extraction of the memoirs of General Porofsky, who in 1812 was a prisoner in the hands of the French. Finally, Maria Philpabne said something to interrupt our conversation. The general was furious with me for having started the altercation with the Frenchman. On the other hand, Mr. Astley seemed to take great pleasure in my brush with Montier using from the table prose that we should go and have a drink together. That same afternoon, at four o'clock, I went to have a customary talk with Polina, and the talk soon extended to a stroll. We entered the park and approached the casino where Polina seated herself upon a bench near the fountain, and sent Nadia away to a little distance to play with some other children. Misha also dispatched to play by the fountain, and in this fashion, we, that is to say, Polina and myself, contrived to find ourselves alone. Of course, we began by talking on business matters. Polina seemed furious when I handed her only 700 golden, for she had thought to receive from Paris as the proceeds of the pledging of her diamonds, at least 2000 golden, or even more. Come what may, I must have money, she said, and get it somehow I will, otherwise I should be ruined. I asked her what happened during my absence. Nothing, except that two pieces of news have reached us from St. Petersburg. In the first place, my grandmother is very ill, and unlikely to last another couple of days. We had this from Timothy Petrovich himself, and he is a reliable person. Every moment we are expecting to receive news of the end. All of you are in the tiptoe of expectation, I queried. Of course, all of us in every minute of the day. For a year and a half now, we have been looking for this. Looking for it? Yes, looking for it. I'm not her blood relation, you know. I'm merely the general stepdaughter, and I am certain that the old lady has remembered me in her will. Yes, I believe that you will come in for a good deal, I said with some assurance. Yes, for she is fond of me, but how come you too think so? I answered this question with another one. That Marquis of yours, I said, is he also familiar with your family secrets? And why are you yourself so interested in them? What's your retort as she eyed me with dry grimness? Never mind, if I'm not mistaken, the general has succeeded in borrowing money of the Marquis. And maybe so. Is it likely that the Marquis would have lent the money if he had not known something or other about your grandmother? Did you notice too that the three times during luncheon when speaking of her, he called her lala-bulenka, meaning dear little grandmother? What loving, friendly behavior to be sure? Yes, that is true. As soon as ever, he learned that I was likely to inherit something from her. He began to pay me in his dresses. I thought you ought to know that. Then he has only just begun his courting. Why, I thought he had been doing so a long while. You know he has not, retorted Polina angrily. But where on earth did you pick up with this Englishman? She said after a pause. I knew you would ask about him, whereupon I told her my previous encounters with Astley while traveling. He's very shy, I said, and susceptible. Also, he is in love with you. Yes, he is in love with me, she replied. And he is ten times richer than the Frenchman. In fact, what does the Frenchman possess? To me it seems at least doubtful that he possesses anything at all. Oh no, there is no doubt about it. He does possess some chateau or other. Last night the general told me that for certain. Now are you satisfied? Nevertheless, in your place I should marry the Englishman. And why? Asked Polina. Because though the Frenchman is the handsome her of the two, he is also the baser. Whereas the Englishman is not only a man of honour, but ten times the wealthier of the pair. Yes, but then the Frenchman is a marquee and the clever of the two, remarked Polina imperturbably. Is that so, I repeated? Yes, absolutely. Polina was not at all pleased at my questions. I could see that she was doing her best to irritate me with the Bruce Korean of her answers. But I took no notice of this. It amuses me to see you grow angry, she continued. However, and as much as I allow you to indulge in these questions and conjectures, you ought to pay me something for the privilege. I consider that I have a perfect right to put these questions to you. Was my calm retort. For that reason I am ready to pay for them and also care little what becomes of me. Polina giggled. Last time you told me, when on the slangenberg, that at word for me you would be ready to jump down a thousand feet into the abyss. Someday I may remind you of that saying in order to see if you'll be as good as your word. Yes, you may depend on it that I shall do so. I hate you because I have allowed you to go to such lengths. And I also hate you and still more. Because you are so necessary to me. For the time being I want you. So I must keep you. Then she made a movement to rise. Her tone had sounded very angry. Indeed, I laid her talks with me and invariably ended on a note of temper and irritation. Yes, of real temper. May I ask you who this Mil Blanche? I inquired, since I did not wish Polina to depart without an explanation. You know who she is. Just Mil Blanche. Nothing further is transpired. Probably she will soon be Madame Generat. That is to say, if the rumors that Grandma Ma is nearing her end should prove true. The Blanche with her mother and her cousin, the Marquis, know very well that, as things now stand, we are ruined. And is the Generat last in love? That has nothing to do with it. Listen to me. Take these 700 Florence and go and play roulette with them. Win as much for me as you can, for I am badly in need of money. So saying, she called Nadia back to her side and entered the casino, where she joined the rest of our party. For myself, I took, in amusing astonishment, the first path they'll left. Something had seemed to strike my brain when she told me to go and play roulette. Strangely enough, that something had also seemed to make me hesitate to set me analyzing my feelings with regard to her. In fact, during the two weeks of my absence I had felt far more at ease than I did now on the day of my return. Although while traveling, I had moped like an imbecile, rushed about like a man in a fever and actually beheld her in my dreams. Indeed, on one occasion, this happened in Switzerland when I was asleep in the train, I had spoken aloud to her and said something. Again, therefore, I put to myself the question, do I or do I not love her? And again, I could return to myself no answer or, rather, for the hundredth time, I told myself that I detested her. Yes, I detested her. There were moments, more especially at close of our talks, together, when I would gladly have given my life to have strangled her. I swear that had there, at such moments, been a sharp knife ready at my hand. I would have seized that knife with pleasure because she had really said to me, leap into that abyss, I should have lept into it and with equal pleasure. Yes, this I knew well. One way or the other, the thing must soon be ended. She too knew it was some curious way, the thought that I was fully conscious of her inaccessibility and of the impossibility of my ever realizing my dreams, afforded her, I am certain, the keenest possible pleasure. Otherwise, it is likely that she, the cautious and clever woman that she was, would have indulged in this familiarity and openness with me. Hitherto, I concluded, she had looked upon me in the same light that the old empress did upon her servant, the empress who hesitated not to unrobe herself before her slave, since she did not account a slave a man. Yes, often plain a must have taken me for something less than a man. Still, she had charged me with the commission to win what I could at roulette, yet all the time I could not help wondering why it was so necessary for her to win something and what new schemes could have sprung to birth in her ever fertile brain. A host of new and unknown factors seemed to have risen during the last two weeks. Well, it behoved me to divine them and to probe them, and that as soon as possible. Yet not now. At the present moment I must repair to the roulette table. End of Chapter 1, Recording by Jason and Golfsland, Minnesota IngoNotes.blogspot.com Chapter 2 of The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky translated by C.J. Hogarth This Levervox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Jason and Golfsland I confess that I did not like it. Although I had made up my mind to play, I felt averse to doing so on behalf of someone else. In fact, it almost upset my balance, and I entered the gaming rooms with an angry feeling at my heart. At first glance the scene irritated me. Never at any time have I been able to bear the flunkishness which one meets in the press of the world at large, but more especially in that of Russia where, almost every evening, journalists write on two subjects in particular, namely on the splendor and luxury of the casinos to be found in renish towns and on the heaps of gold which are daily to be seen lying on their tables. Those journalists are not paid for doing so. They write thus merely out of a spirit of a disinterested compliance, for there is nothing splendid about the establishments in question. And not only are there no heaps of gold to be seen lying on their tables, but also there is little money to be seen at all. Of course, during the season some madmen or another may make his appearance, generally an Englishman or an Asiatic or a Turk, and, as had happened during the summer of which I write, win or lose a great deal. But as regards to the rest of the crowd it plays only for petty golden and seldom does much wealth figure on the board. When, on the present occasion, I entered the gaming rooms for the first time in my life, it was several moments before I could even make up my mind to play. For one thing, the crowd oppressed me. Had I been playing for myself, I think I should have left at once and never have embarked upon gambling at all. I was never beginning to beat and my heart was anything but cold-blooded. Also, I knew I had long ago made up my mind that never shut it apart from Rulettenberg until some radical, some final change had taken place in my fortunes. Thus it must and would be. However ridiculous it may seem to you that I was expecting to win at Rulett, I look upon the generally accepted opinion concerning the folly and the grossness of hoping to win at gambling as a thing even more absurd. For why is gambling a bit worse how, for instance, is it worse than trade? True, out of a hundred persons only one can win. Yet what business is that of yours or of mine? At all events I could find myself at first simply looking on and I decided to attempt nothing serious. Indeed, I felt that if I began to do anything at all I should do it in an absent-minded half-hazard sort of way. Of that I felt certain. Also it behoved me to learn the game itself since, despite a thousand descriptions of Rulett, which I have read I knew nothing of its rules and have never seen it played. In the first place, everything about it seemed to me so foul so morally mean and foul. Yet I am not speaking of the hungry, restless folk who, by scores nay, even by hundreds, could be seen crowded around the gaming tables. For in a desire to win quickly and to win much I can seem nothing sordid. I have always applauded the opinion of a certain dead and gone. But Cawks share a moralist who replied to the excuse that one may always gamble moderately and to do so makes things worse since, in that case, the Prophet too will always be moderate. Insignificant Prophets and sumptuous Prophets do not stand on the same footing. No, it is all a matter of proportion. What may seem a small sum to a Rothschild may seem a large sum to me and it is not the fault of stakes or of winnings that everywhere men can be found of winning. Can be found depriving their fellows of something, just as they do at Rulett. As to the question whether stakes and winnings are in themselves immoral is another question altogether and I wish to express no opinion upon it. Yet the very fact that I was in full of a strong desire to win caused this gambling for gain, in spite of its attendant squalor to contain, if you will, something intimate, something sympathetic to my eyes. For it is always pleasant to see men dispensing with ceremony and acting naturally in an unbuttoned mood. Yet, why should I so deceive myself? I could see that the whole thing was a vain and unreasoning pursuit and what, at the first glance, seemed to me the ugliest feature of the players was a respect for their occupation. The seriousness and even the humility with which they stood around the gaming tables. Moreover, I had always drawn sharp distinctions between a game which is de mauvais genre and a game which is permissible to a decent man. In fact, there are two sorts of gaming, namely the game of the gentleman and the game of the plebs. The game for gain, the game for the herd. Heron has said, I draw sharp distinctions, yet how essentially base are the distinctions. They say five or ten Louis de Waugh seldom more unless he is a very rich man when he may stake, say a thousand francs. But, he must do this simply for the love of the game itself, simply for sport, simply in order to observe the process of winning or of losing, and above all things as a man who remains quite uninterested in the possibility of issuing a winner. If he wins, he will be at liberty perhaps to give vent to a laugh or to pass a remark on the circumstance to a bystander or to stake again or to double his stake. But, even this he must do solely out of curiosity and for the pleasure of watching the play of chances and of calculations and not because of any vulgar desire to win. In a word, he must look upon gaming table, upon roulette, upon Trente Quarente, as more relaxations which have been arranged solely for his amusement. Of the existence of the lures and gains upon which the bank has founded and maintained, he must profess to have not in England. Best of all, he ought to imagine his fellow gamblers and the rest of the mob which stands trembling over a coin to be equally rich and gentlemanly with himself and playing solely for recreation and pleasure. This complete ignorance of realities, this in-innocence view of mankind is what in my opinion constitutes the truly aristocratic. For instance, I have even seen fawn mothers so far indulge their guileless, elegant daughters, misses of fifteen or sixteen, as to give them a few gold coins and teach them how to play. And though the young ladies may have won or have lost, they have invariably laughed and departed as though they were well pleased. The general once approached the table in a stolid, important manner. A laquay darted to offer him a chair but the general did not even notice him. Slowly he took out his money bags and slowly attracted three hundred francs in gold which he staked on the black and won. Yet he did not take up his winnings. He left them there, on the table. Again the black turned up and again he did not gather on what he had won. And when, in the third round, the red turned up he lost at a stroke twelve thousand francs. And then he left for a while and thus preserved his reputation. Yet I knew that his money bags must be chafing his heart as well as that, had the stake been twice or thrice as much again. He would still have restrained himself from venting his disappointment. On the other hand I saw Frenchmen first win and then lose thirty thousand francs cheerfully and without a murmur. Yes, even if a gentleman should lose his whole substance, he must never give way to annoyance. Money must not be subservient to gentility as never to be worth a thought. Of course, the supremely aristocratic thing is to be entirely oblivious of the mire of rabble with its setting. But sometimes reverse course may be aristocratic to remark, to scan, and even to gape at, the mob, for preference through lognet. Even as though one were taking the crowd in its squalor for a sort of rare show, which had been organized especially for a gentleman's diversion. The one may be squeezed by the crowd. One must look as though one were fully assured of being the observer. Of having neither part nor log with the observed. At the same time, to stare fixedly about one is unbecoming. For that, again, is ungentlemanly, seeing that no spectacles worth an open stare are no spectacles in the world which marriage from a gentleman to pronounce an inspection. However, to me personally, the scene did seem to be worth undisguised contemplation. More especially in view of the fact that I had come there not only to look at, but also to number myself sincerely and wholeheartedly with the mob. As for my secret moral views, I consider them amongst my actual practical opinions. Let that stand as a written. I am writing only to relieve my conscience. Yet let me say also this, that from the first I have been consistent in having an intensive version to any trial of my acts and thoughts by a moral standard, another standard altogether has directed my life. As a matter of fact, the mob was playing an exceedingly foul fashion. Indeed, I have an idea that sheer robbery was going on around the gaming table. The crew of peers who sat at the two ends of it had not only to watch the stakes, but to watch the game. An immense amount of work for two men. As for the crowd itself, well, it consisted mostly of Frenchmen. Yet I was not then taking notes merely in order to be able to give you a description of roulette, but in order to get my bearings as to my behaviour when I myself should begin to play. For example, I had noticed that nothing was more common than for another's hand to stretch out and grab one's winnings whenever one had won. Then there would arise a dispute and frequently an uproar and it would be a case of I beg of you that my stake is yours. At first the proceedings were pure Greek to me. I could only divine and distinguish that stakes were hazarded on numbers and on odd or even, and on colours. Polina's money I decided to risk that even only to the amount of a hundred golden. The thought that I was not going to play for myself quite a nerve me. It was an unpleasant sensation and I tried hard to banish it. I had a feeling that once I had begun to play for Polina I should wreck my own fortunes. Also, I wonder if anyone has ever approached the gaming table without falling an immediate prey to superstition. I began by pulling out fifty golden and staking them on even. The wheel spun and stopped at thirteen. I had lost. With a feeling like a sick qualm as though I would like to make my way out of the crowd and go home, I staked another fifty golden, this time on red. The red turned up. Next time I staked the hundred golden just where they lay. And again the red turned up. Again I staked the whole sum and again the red turned up. Clutching my four hundred golden I placed two hundred of them on twelve figures to see what would come of it. The result was the croupier paid me out three times my total stake. Thus from a hundred golden my store had grown to eight hundred. Upon that such a curious, such an inexplicable unwanted feeling overcame me that I decided to part. Always the thought kept recurring to me that if I had been playing for myself alone I should never have had such luck. Once more I staked the whole eight hundred golden on the even. The wheel stopped at four. I was paid on another eight hundred golden and snatching up my pile of sixteen hundred. Departed in search of Plena Alexandrona. I found the whole party walking in the park and was able to get an interview with her only after supper. This time the Frenchman was absent from the meal and the general seemed to be in a more expansive vein. Among other things he thought it necessary to remind me that he would be sorry to see me playing at gaming tables. In his opinion such conduct would greatly compromise him, especially if I were to lose much. And even if you were to win much I should be compromised. He added in a meaning, sort of way. Of course I have no right to order your actions but you yourself will agree that as usually he did not finish his sentence. I answered dryly that I had very little money in my possession and that consequently I was hardly in a position to indulge in my conspicuous play. Even if I did gamble. At last when ascending to my room I succeeded in handling Polina her winnings and told her that next time I should not play for her. Why not? She asked excitedly. Because I wished to play for myself with a vain glance of astonishment. That is my sole reason. Then are you so certain that your roulette playing will get us out of your difficulties? She inquired with a quizzical smile. I said very seriously yes and then added, possibly my certainty about winning may seem to you ridiculous yet pray leave me in peace. Nonetheless she insisted that I ought to go haves with her in the day's winnings and offer me 800 golden on condition that henceforth I gambled only on those terms but I refused to do so once and for all stating as my reason that I found myself unable to play on behalf of anyone else. I'm not willing so to do I added but in all probability I should lose. Well absurd though it be, I place great hopes on your playing of roulette she remarked musingly wherefore you ought to play as my partner and on equal shares wherefore of course you will do as I wish. Then she left me without listening to any further protest on my part. Chapter 3 On the moral she said not a word to me about gambling. In fact she purposely avoided me although her old manner to me had not changed. The same serene coolness was hers on meeting me. I thought that I would not be able to do that. I thought that I would not be able to do that. I thought that I would not be able to do that. The same serene coolness was hers on meeting me, a coolness that was mangled even with a spice of contempt and dislike. In short she was at no pains to conceal her aversion to me. That I could see plainly. Also she did not trouble to conceal from me the fact that I was necessary to her and that she was keeping me for some end which she had in view. Consequently they became established between us relations which, to a large or incomprehensible to me, considering her general pride and aloofness. For example, although she knew that I was madly in love with her, she allowed me to speak to her of my passion, though she could not well have showed her contempt for me more than by permitting me unhindered and unrebuke to mention to her my love. You see, her attitude expressed, how little I regard your feelings as well as how little I care for what you say to me or for what you feel for me. Likewise, though she spoke as before concerning her affairs, it was never with complete frankness. In her contempt for me there were refinements. Although she knew well that I was aware of a certain circumstance in her life of something which might one day cause her trouble, she would speak to me about her affairs, whenever she had need of me for a given end as though I were a slave or a passing acquaintance. Yet tell them me only insofar as one would need to know them if one were going to be made temporary use of. Had I not known the whole chain of events, or had she not seen how much I was pained and disturbed by her teasing insistency, she would never have thought it worthwhile to soothe me with this frankness. Even though, since she not infrequently used me to execute commissions that were not only troublesome but risky, she ought, in my opinion, to have been frank in any case. But for soothe it was not worth her while to trouble about my feelings, about the fact that I was uneasy and perhaps Thrice has put about by her cares and misfortunes as she was herself. For three weeks I had known of her intention to take to roulette. She had even warned me that she would like me to play on her behalf since it was nothing for her to play in person. And from the tone of her words I had gathered that there was something on her mind besides a mere desire to win money, as if money could matter to her. No, she had some end in view, and there were circumstances at which I could guess but which I did not know for certain. True, the slavery and abasement in which she held me might have given me such things often do so, the power to question her with abrupt directness, seeing that in as much as I figured in her eyes as a mere slave and non-entity she could not very well have taken offence at any rude curiosity. But the fact was that though she let me question her, she never returned me a single answer, and at times did not so much as notice me. That is how matters stood. Next day there was a good deal of talk about a telegram which four days ago had been sent to St. Petersburg, but to which there had come no answer. The general was visibly disturbed and moody for the matter concerned his mother. The Frenchman, too, was excited, and after dinner the whole party talked long and seriously together, the Frenchman's tone being extraordinarily presumptuous and offhand to everybody. It almost reminded one of the proverb invite a man to your table and soon he will place his feet upon it. Even to Polina he was brusque almost to the point of rudeness, yet still he seemed glad to join us in our walks in the casino, or in our rides and drives about the town. I had long been aware of certain circumstances which bound the general to him. I had long been aware that in Russia they had hatched some scheme together, although I did not know whether the plot had come to anything, or whether it was still only in the stage of being talked of. Likewise I was aware, part of a family secret, namely that last year the Frenchman had bailed the general out of debt, and given him 30,000 rubles were with to pay his treasury dues on retiring from the service, and now, of course, the general was in a vice, although the chief part in the affair was being played by Mademoiselle Blanche. Yes, of this last I had no doubt. But who was this Mademoiselle Blanche? It was said of her that she was a French woman of good birth, who, living with her mother, possessed a colossal fortune. It was also said that she was some relation to the Marquis, but only a distant one, a cousin, or cousin German, or something of the sort. Likewise I knew that up to the time of my journey to Paris she and the Frenchman had been more ceremonious towards our party. They had stood on a much more precise and delicate footing with them. But that now their acquaintanceship, their friendship, their intimacy had taken on a much more offhand and rough and ready air. Perhaps they thought that our means were too modest for them, and therefore unworthy of politeness or reticence. Also, for the last three days I had noticed certain looks which Astley had kept throwing at Mademoiselle Blanche, and her mother. And it had occurred to me that he must have had some previous acquaintance with the pair. I had even surmised that the Frenchman too must have met Mr. Astley before. Astley was a man so shy, reserved and taciturn in his manner that one might have looked for anything from him. At all events the Frenchman accorded him only the slightest of greetings, and scarcely even looked at him. Certainly he did not seem to be afraid of him, which was intelligible enough. But why did Mademoiselle Blanche also never look at the Englishman? Particularly since the apropos of something or another, the Marquis had declared the Englishman to be immensely and indubitably rich. Was not that a sufficient reason to make Mademoiselle Blanche look at the Englishman? Anyway, the general seemed extremely uneasy, and one could well understand what a telegram to announce the death of his mother would mean for him. Although I thought it probable that avoiding me for a definite reason I adopted a cold and indifferent air, for I felt pretty certain that it would not be long before she herself approached me. For two days, therefore, I devoted my attention to Mademoiselle Blanche. The poor general was in despair. To fall in love at fifty-five and with such vehemence is indeed a misfortune. And add to that his widowerhood, his children, his ruined property, his debts, and the woman with whom he had fallen in love. Though Mademoiselle Blanche was extremely good-looking, I may or may not be understood when I say that she had one of those faces which one is afraid of. At all events I myself have always feared such women. Apparently about twenty-five years of age she was tall and broad shouldered, with shoulders that sloped. Yet though her neck and bosom were ample in their skin was dull yellow in color, while her hair, which was extremely abundant, sufficient to make two coiffures, was as black as Indian ink. Add to that a pair of black eyes with yellowish whites, a proud glance, gleaming teeth, and lips which were perennially pomaded and redolent of musk. As for her dress it was invariably rich, effective, and chic. Yet in good taste. Lastly her feet and hands were astonishing and her voice a deep contralto. Sometimes when she laughed she displayed her teeth, but at ordinary times her air was taciturn and haughty, especially in the presence of Polina and Maria Filipovna. Yet she seemed to me almost destitute of education, and even of wits, though cunning and suspicious. This apparently was not because her life had been lacking in arts, if all were known the Marquis was not her kinsman at all, nor her mother, her mother. But there was evidence that in Berlin where we had first come across the pair they had possessed acquaintances of good standing. As for the Marquis himself I doubt to this day if he was a Marquis. Although about the fact that he had formerly belonged to high society for instance in Moscow and Germany there could be no doubt whatever. What he had formerly been in France I had not a notion. All I knew was that he was said to possess a chateau. During the last two weeks I had looked for much to transpire, but am still ignorant whether at that time anything decisive ever passed between Mademoiselle and the general. Everything seemed to depend upon our means, upon whether the general would be able to flourish sufficient money in her face. If ever the news should arrive that the grandmother was not dead Mademoiselle Blanche I felt sure would disappear in a twinkling. Indeed it surprised and amused me to observe what a passion for intrigue I was developing. But how I loathed it all. With what pleasure would I have given everybody and everything the go by. Only I could not leave Polina. How then could I show contempt for those who surrounded her? Espionage is a base thing. What have I to do with that? Mr. Astley too I found a curious person. I was only sure that he had fallen in love with Polina. A remarkable and diverting circumstance is the amount which may lie in the mienne of a shy and painfully modest man who has been touched with the divine passion. Especially when he would rather sink into the earth and betray himself by a single word or look. Though Mr. Astley frequently met us when we were out walking he would merely take off his hat and pass us by. Though I knew he was dying to join us. Even when invited to do so he would refuse. Again in places of amusement, in the casino at concerts or near the fountain he was never far from the spot where we were sitting. In fact wherever we were in the park, in the forest, or on the Schlungenberg. One needed but to raise one's eyes and glance around to catch sight of at least a portion of Mr. Astley's frame sticking out. Whether on an adjacent path or behind a bush. Yet never did he lose any chance of speaking to myself. And one morning when we had met and exchanged a couple of words he burst out in his usual abrupt way without saying good morning. That mademoiselle blanche, he said. Well I have seen a good many women like her. After that he was silent as he looked me meaningly in the face. What he meant I did not know. But to my glance of inquiry he returned only a dry nod and a reiterated, it is so. Presently however he resumed. Does mademoiselle Polina like flowers? I really cannot say was my reply. What you cannot say he cried in great astonishment. No, I have never noticed whether she does so or not. I repeated with a smile. Hmm. Then I have an idea in my mind he concluded. Lastly with a nod he walked away with a pleased expression on his face. The conversation had been carried on in exarchable French. End of Chapter 3 Recording by Bill Borscht Chapter 4 Of The Gambler This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky translated by C.J. Hogarth Chapter 4 Today has been a day of folly, stupidity and ineptness. The time is now eleven o'clock in the evening and I am sitting in my room and thinking. It all began this morning with my being forced to go and play roulette for Polina Alexandrovna. When she handed me over her store at Goulden I exacted two conditions. Namely, that I should not go to halves with her in her winnings, if any. That is to say I should not take anything for myself. And that she should explain to me that same evening why it was so necessary for her to win and how much was the sum which she needed. For I could not suppose that she was doing all this merely for the sake of money. Yet clearly she did need some money. And that as soon as possible. And for a special purpose. Well she promised to explain matters and I departed. There was a tremendous crowd in the gaming rooms. What an arrogant, greedy crowd it was. I pressed forward towards the middle of the room until I had secured a seat at a group year's elbow. Then I began to play in timid fashion venturing only twenty or thirty Goulden at a time. Meanwhile I observed and took notes. It seemed to me that calculation was superfluous and by no means possessed of the importance which certain other players attached to it. Even though they sat with ruled papers in their hands, whereon they sat down the coups, calculated the chances, reckoned, and lost exactly as we more simple mortals did who played without any reckoning at all. However I deduced from the scene one conclusion which seemed to me reliable. Namely that in the flow of fortuitous chances there is if not a system at all events a sort of order. This of course is a very strange thing. For instance after a dozen middle figures there would always occur a dozen or so outer ones. Suppose the ball stopped twice at a dozen outer figures. It would then pass to a dozen of the first ones. And then again to a dozen of the middle ciphers. And fall upon them three or four times. And then revert to a dozen outers. Whence after another couple of rounds the ball would again pass to the first figures. Strike upon them once and then return thrice to the middle series. Continuing thus for an hour and a half or two hours. One, three, two. One, three, two. It was all very curious. Again, for the whole of a day or a morning the red would alternate with the black but almost without any order and from moment to moment so that scarcely two consecutive rounds would end upon either the one or the other. Yet next day or perhaps the next evening the red alone would turn up and attain a run of over two score and continue so for quite a length of time. Say for a whole day. Of these circumstances the majority were pointed out to me by Mr. Astley who stood by the gaming table the whole morning, yet never once staked in person. For myself I lost all that I had on me and with great speed. To begin with I staked two hundred gulden on even and one. Then I staked the same amount again and one. And so on some two or three times. At one moment I must have had in my hands gathered there within a space of five minutes about four thousand gulden. That, of course, was the proper moment for me to have departed. But there arose in me a strange sensation as of a challenge to fate. As of a wish to deal her a blow on the cheek and to put out my tongue at her. Accordingly I set down the largest stake allowed by the rules namely four thousand gulden and lost. Fired by this mishap I pulled out all the money left to me and staked it all on the same venture and again lost. Then I rose from the table feeling as though I were stupefied. What had happened to me I did not know. But before luncheon I told Polina of my losses until which time I walked about the park. At luncheon I was as excited as I had been at the meal three days ago. Mademoiselle Blanche and the Frenchman were lunching with us and it appeared that the farmer had been to the casino that morning and had seen my exploits there. So now she showed me more attention when talking to me. While for his part the Frenchman approached me and asked outright if it had been my own money that I had lost. He appeared to be suspicious as to something being on foot between Polina and myself. But I merely fired up and replied that the money had been all my own. With this the general seemed extremely surprised and asked me once I had procured it, whereupon I replied that though I had begun only with one hundred gulden six or seven rounds had increased my capital to five thousand or six thousand gulden and that subsequently I had lost the whole in two rounds. All this, of course, was plausible enough. During my recital I glanced at Polina but nothing was to be discerned on her face. However, she had allowed me to fire up without correcting me. And from that I concluded that it was my cue to fire up and to conceal the fact that I had been playing on her behalf. At all events I thought to myself she in her turn has promised to give me an explanation to-night and to reveal to me something or another. Although the general appeared to be taking stock of me he said nothing. Yet I could see uneasiness and annoyance in his face. Perhaps his straightened circumstances made it hard for him to have to hear piles of gold passing through the hands of an irresponsible fool like myself within the space of a quarter of an hour. Now I have an idea that last night he and the Frenchman had a sharp encounter with one another. At all events they closeted themselves together and then had a long envioment discussion. After which the Frenchman departed in what appeared to be a passion but returned early this morning to renew the combat. On hearing of my losses however he only remarked with a sharp and even a malicious air that a man ought to go more carefully. Next for some reason or another he added that though a great many Russians go in for gambling they are no good at the game. I think that Roulette was devised specially for Russians I retorted. And when the Frenchman smiled contemptuously in my reply I further remarked that I was sure I was right. Also that speaking of Russians in the capacity of gamblers I had far more blame for them than praise of that he could be quite sure. Upon what do you base your opinion he inquired. Upon the fact that to the virtues and merits of the civilized Westerner there has become historically added though this is not his chief point a capacity for acquiring capital. Whereas not only is the Russian incapable of acquiring capital but also he exhausts it wantonly and of sheer folly. Nonetheless we Russians often need money wherefore we are glad of and greatly devoted to a method of acquisition like Roulette whereby in a couple of hours one may grow rich without doing any work. This method I repeat has a great attraction for us but since we play in wanton fashion and without taking any trouble we almost invariably lose. To a certain extent that is true assented the Frenchman with a self-satisfied air. Oh no it is not true put in the general sternly and you he added to me you ought to be ashamed of yourself I beg pardon I said yet it would be difficult to say which is the worst of the two Russian ineptitude or the German method of growing rich through honest toil. What an extraordinary idea cried the general and what a Russian idea added the Frenchman. I smiled for I was rather glad to have a quarrel with them. I would rather live a wandering life intense I cried without the need to a German idol. To what idol exclaimed the general now seriously angry? To the German method of heaping up riches. I have not been here very long but I can tell you that what I have seen and verified makes my tartar blood boil. Good Lord! I wish for no virtues of that kind. Yesterday I went for a walk of about ten bursts and everywhere I found that things were in them in good German picture books. That every house has its fodder who is horribly beneficent and extraordinarily honourable. So honourable is he that it is dreadful to have anything to do with him. And I cannot bear people of that sort. Each such fodder has his family and in the evenings they read improving books aloud. Over their roof trees their murmur elms and chestnuts the sun has sunk to his rest a stork is roosting on the gable and all is beautifully poetic and touching. Do not be angry general. Let me tell you something that is even more touching than that. I can remember how of an evening my own father now dead used to sit under the lime trees in his little garden and to read books aloud to myself and my mother. Yes, I know how things ought to be done. Yet every German family uses slavery and to submission to its fodder. They work like oxen and amass wealth like Jews. Suppose the fodder has put by a certain number of gulden which he hands over to his eldest son in order that the said son may acquire a trade or a small plot of land while one result is to deprive the daughter of a dowry and so leave her among the unwetted. For the same reason the parents will have to sell the younger son into bondage or the ranks of the army in order that he may earn more towards the family capital. Yes, such things are done for I have been making inquiries on the subject. It is all done out of sheer rectitude, out of a rectitude which is magnified to the point of the younger son believing that he has been rightly sold and that it is simply idyllic for the victim to rejoice when he is made over into pledge. What more have I to tell? Well, this. That matters bear just as hardly upon the eldest son. Perhaps he has his Gretchen to whom his heart is bound but he cannot marry her for the reason that he has not yet amassed sufficient gulden. So the pair wait on in a mood of sincere and virtuous expectation and smilingly deposit themselves in pawn the while. Gretchen's cheeks grow sunken and she begins to wither until at last after some twenty years their substance has multiplied and sufficient gulden have been honorably and virtuously accumulated. Then the fodder blesses his forty-year-old heir and the thirty-five-year-old Gretchen with the sunken bosom and the scarlet nose after which he bursts into tears, reads the pair a lesson on morality and dies. In turn the eldest son becomes a virtuous fodder and the old story begins again. In fifty or sixty years' time the grandson of the original fodder will have amassed a considerable sum and that sum he will hand over to his son and the latter to his son and so on for several generations until at length there will issue a Baron Rothschild or a hop and company or the devil knows what. Is it not a beautiful spectacle the spectacle of a century or two of inherited labor, patience, intellect, rectitude, character, perseverance and calculation with a stork sitting on the roof above it all? What is more, they think there can never be anything better than this. Wherefore from their point of view they begin to judge the rest of the world and to censure all who are at fault that is to say who are not exactly like themselves. Yes, there you have it in the nutshell. For my own part I would rather grow fat after the Russian manner or squander my whole substance at roulette. I have no wish to be hop and company at the end of five generations. I want the money for myself. For in no way do I look upon my personality as necessary to or meet to be given over to capital. I may be wrong, but there you have it. Those are my views. How far you may be right in what you have said I do not know, remarked the general moodily, but I do know that you are becoming an insufferable farcer whenever you are given the least chance. As usual he left his sentence unfinished, indeed whenever he embarked upon anything that in the least exceeded the limits of daily small talk he left unfinished what he was saying. The Frenchman had listened to me contemptuously with a slight protruding of his eyes, but he could not have understood very much of my harangue. As for Polina she had looked on with serene indifference. She seemed to have heard neither my voice nor any other during the progress of the meal. The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoyevsky translated by C. J. Hogarth Chapter 5 Yes, she had been extraordinarily meditative. Yet on leaving the table she immediately ordered me to accompany her for a walk. We took the children with us and set out for the fountain in the park. I was in such an irritated frame of mind that in rude and abrupt fashion I blurted out a question as to why our Marquis de Griers had ceased to accompany her for strolls or to speak to her for days together. Because he is a brute, she replied in rather a curious way. It was the first time that I had heard her speak so of de Griers. Consequently I was momentarily awed into silence by this expression of resentment. Have you noticed too that today he is by no means on good terms with the general? I went on. Yes. And I suppose you want to know why she replied with dry capsiousness. You are aware, are you not, that the general is mortgaged to the Marquis with all his property? Consequently, if the general's mother does not die, the Frenchman will become the absolute possessor of everything which he now holds only in pledge. Then it is really the case that everything is mortgaged? I have heard rumors to that effect to be aware how far they might be true. Yes, they are true. What then? Why, it will be a case of farewell, mademoiselle Blanche, I remarked. For in such an event she would never become madame general. Do you know I believe the old man is so much in love with her that he will shoot himself if she should throw him over? At his age it is a dangerous thing to fall in love. Yes. One thing I believe will happen to him, assented Polina thoughtfully. And what a fine thing it all is, I continued. Could anything be more abominable than the way in which she has agreed to marry for money alone? Not one of the decencies has been observed. The whole affair has taken place without the least ceremony. And as for the grandmother, what could be more comical yet more dastardly than the sending of telegram after telegram if she is dead? What do you think of it, Polina Alexandrovna? Yes, it is very horrible she interrupted with a shudder. Consequently I am the more surprised that you should be so cheerful. What are you so pleased about? About the fact that you have gone and lost my money? What? The money that you gave me to lose? I told you I should never win for other people, least of all for you. Only because you ordered me to. But you must not blame me for the result. I warned you that no good would ever come of it. You seem much depressed at having lost your money. Why do you need it so greatly? Why do you ask me these questions? Because you promised to explain matters to me. Listen, I am certain that as soon as ever I begin to play for myself, and I still have 120 gulden left, I shall win. You can then take of me what you require. She made a contemptuous grimace. You must not be angry with me, I continued, for making such a proposal. I am so conscious of being only a non-entity in your eyes that you need not mind accepting money from me. A gift from me could not possibly offend you. Moreover, it was I who lost your gulden. She glanced at me. But seeing that I was in an irritable, sarcastic mood changed the subject. My affairs cannot possibly interest you, she said. Still, if you do wish to know, I am in debt. I borrowed some money, and must pay it back again. I have a curious, senseless idea that I am bound to win at the gaming tables. Why, I think so I cannot tell. But I do think so. And with some assurance. Perhaps it is because of that assurance that I now find myself without any other resource. Or perhaps it is because it is so necessary for you to win. It is like a drowning man catching at a straw. You yourself will agree that unless he were drowning he would not mistake a straw for the trunk of a tree. Polina looked surprised. What, she said? Do not you also hope for something from it? Did you not tell me again and again two weeks ago that you were certain of winning at Roulette if you played here? And did you not ask me not to consider you a fool for doing so? Were you joking? You cannot have been. For I remember that you spoke with a gravity which forbade the idea of your jesting. True, I replied gloomily, I always felt certain that I should win. Indeed, what you say makes me ask myself why have my absurd, senseless losses of today raised a doubt in my mind. Yet I am still positive that so soon as ever I begin to play for myself I shall infallibly win. And why are you so certain? To tell the truth I do not know. I only know that I must win. That it is the one resource I have left. Yes, why do I feel so assured on the point? Perhaps because one cannot help winning if one is fanatically certain of doing so. Yet I dare wager that you do not think me capable of serious feeling in the matter? I do not care whether you are so or not, answered Polina with calm indifference. Well, since you asked me, I do doubt your ability to take anything seriously. You are capable of worrying, but not deeply. You are too ill-regulated and unsettled a person for that. But why do you want money? Not a single one of the reasons which you have given can be looked upon as serious. By the way, I interrupted. You say you want to pay off a debt. It must be a large one. Is it to the Frenchman? What do you mean by asking all these questions? You are very clever today. Surely you are not drunk. You know that you and I stand on no ceremony and that sometimes I put to you very plain questions. I repeat that I am your slave and slaves cannot be shamed or offended. You talk like a child. It is always possible to comport one's self with dignity. If one has a quarrel, it ought to elevate rather than to degrade one. I am maximum straight from the copy book. Suppose I cannot comport myself with dignity. By that I mean that, though I am a man of self-respect, I am unable to carry off a situation properly. Do you know the reason? It is because we Russians are too richly and multifariously gifted to be able at once to find the proper mode of expression. It is all a question of mode. Most of us are so bountiously endowed with intellect as to require also a spice of genius to choose the right form of behavior. And genius is lacking in us for the reason that so little genius at all exists. It belongs only to the French. Though a few other Europeans have elaborated their forms so well as to be able to figure with extreme dignity, and yet be wholly undignified persons. That is why with us the mode is so all-important. The Frenchman may receive an insult, yet he will not so much as frown, but a tweaking of the nose he cannot bear for the reason that such an act is an infringement of the accepted, of the time-hallowed order of decorum. That is why our good ladies are so fond of Frenchman. The Frenchman's manners, they say, are perfect. But in my opinion there is no such thing as a Frenchman's manners. The Frenchman is only a bird, the coke galois. At the same time, as I am not a woman, I do not properly understand the question. Cox may be excellent birds. If I am wrong you must stop me. You ought to stop and correct me more often when I am speaking to you, for I am too apt to say everything that is in my head. You see, I have lost my manners. I agree that I have none, nor yet any dignity. I will tell you why. I set no store upon such things. Everything in me has undergone a cheek. You know the reason. I have not a single human thought in my head. For a long while I have been ignorant of what is going on in the world, here or in Russia. I have been to Dresden, yet am completely in the dark as to what Dresden is like. You know the cause of my obsession. I have no hope now, and am a mere cipher in your eyes. Therefore I tell you outright that wherever I go I see only you. All the rest is a matter of indifference. Why or how I have come to love you I do not know. It may be that you are not altogether fair to look upon. Do you know I am ignorant even as to what your face is like? In all probability too your heart is not comely, and it is possible that your mind is wholly ignoble. And because you do not believe in my nobility of soul, you think to purchase me with money, she said. When have I thought to do so, was my reply. You are losing the thread of the argument. If you do not wish to purchase me, at all events you wish to purchase my respect. Not at all. I have told you that I find it difficult to explain myself. You are hard upon me. Do not be angry at my chattering. Know why you ought not to be angry with me. That I am simply an imbecile. However, I do not mind if you are angry, sitting in my room I need but to think of you, to imagine to myself the rustle of your dress, and at once I fall almost to biting my hands. Why should you be angry with me? Because I call myself your slave? Revel, I pray you, in my slavery, revel in it. Do you know that sometimes I could kill you? Not because I do not love you, or am jealous of you, but because I feel as though I could simply devour you. You are laughing. No, I am not, she retorted, but I order you, nevertheless, to be silent. She stopped, well-nigh breathless with anger. God knows she may not have been a beautiful woman, yet I loved to see her come to a halt like this, and was therefore the more fond of arousing her temper. Perhaps she devined this, and for that very reason gave way to rage. I said as much to her. What rubbish, she cried with a shudder. I do not care, I continued. Also, do you know that it is not safe for us to take walks together? Often I have a feeling that I should like to strike you, to disfigure you, to strangle you. Are you certain that it will never come to that? You are driving me to frenzy. Am I afraid of a scandal or of your anger? Why should I fear your anger? I love without hope, and know that hereafter I shall love you a thousand times more. If ever I should kill you, I should have to kill myself, too. But I shall put off doing so as long as possible, for I wish to continue enjoying the unbearable pain which your coldness gives me. Do you know a very strange thing? It is that with every day my love for you increases. Though that would seem to be almost an impossibility. Why should I not become a fatalist? Remember how, on the third day that we ascended the Schlangenberg, I was moved to whisper in your ear, Say but the word, and I will leap into the abyss. Had you said it, I should have leapt. Do you not believe me? What stupid rubbish, she cried. I care not whether it be wise or stupid, I cried in return. I only know that in your presence I must speak, speak, speak. Therefore I am speaking. I lose all conceit when I am with you, and everything ceases to matter. Why should I have wanted you to leap from the Schlangenberg? She said dryly. And, I think, with willful offensiveness. That would have been of no use to me. Splendid, I shouted. I know well that you must have used the words of no use in order to crush me. I can see through you. Of no use, did you say. Why, to give pleasure is always of use. And as for barbarous unlimited power, even if it be only over a fly, why it is a kind of luxury. Man is a despot by nature, and loves to torture. You in particular love to do so. I remember that at this moment when she looked at me in a peculiar way. The fact is that my face must have been expressing all the maze of senseless, gross sensations which were seething within me. To this day I can remember word for word the conversation as I have written it down. My eyes were suffused with blood, and the foam had caked itself on my lips. Also on my honor I swear that had she bitten me cast myself from the summit of the Schlangenberg I should have done it. Yes, had she bitten me in jest or only in contempt and with a spit in my face I should have cast myself down. Oh, no! Why so? I believe you," she said, but in such a manner in the manner of which at times she was a mistress, and with such a note of disdain and viperish arrogance in her tone that God knows I could have killed her. Yes, at that moment she stood in peril. I had not lied to her about that. Surely you are not a coward, suddenly she asked me. I do not know, I replied. Perhaps I am, but I do not know. I have long given up thinking about such things. If I said to you, kill that man, would you kill him? Whom? Whomsoever I wish. The Frenchman. Do not ask me questions, return me answers. I repeat, whomsoever I wish. I desired to see if you were speaking seriously just now. She awaited my reply with such gravity and impatience that I found the situation unpleasant. Do you, rather tell me, I said, what is going on here? Why do you seem half afraid of me? I can see for myself what is wrong. You are the stepdaughter of a ruined and insensate man who is smitten with love for this devil of a blanche. And there is this Frenchman, too, with his mysterious influence over you. Yet you actually ask me such a question? If you do not tell me how things stand, I shall have to put in my oar and do something. Are you ashamed to be frank with me? Are you shy of me? I am not going to talk to you on that subject. I have asked you a question and am waiting for an answer. Well, then, I will kill whomsoever you wish, I said. But are you really going to bid me do such deeds? Why should you think that I am going to let you off? I shall bid you do it or else renounce me. Could you ever do the latter? No, you know that you couldn't. You would first kill whom I had bidden you and then kill me for having dared to send you away. Something seemed to strike upon my brain as I heard these words. Of course, at the time I took them half in jest and half as a challenge. Yet she had spoken them with great seriousness. I felt thunderstruck that she should so express herself, that she should assert such a right over me, that she should assume such authority and say outright, Either you kill whom I bid you or I will have nothing more to do with you. Indeed, in what she had said there was something so cynical and unveiled as to pass all bounds. For how could she ever regard me as the same after the killing was done? This was more than slavery and abasement. It was sufficient to bring a man back to his right senses. Yet despite the outrageous improbability of our conversation, my heart shook within me. Suddenly she burst out laughing. We were seated on a bench near the spot where the children were playing, just opposite the point in the alleyway, before the casino where the carriages drew up in order to set down their occupants. Do you see that fat baroness, she cried? It is the baroness Bermagelme. She arrived three days ago. Just look at her husband, that tall, wisened Prussian there, with the stick in his hand. Do you remember how he stared at us the other day? Well, go to the baroness, take off your hat to her, and say something in French. Why? Because you have sworn that you would leap from the Schlangenberg for my sake, and that you would kill anyone whom I might bid you kill. Well, instead of such murders and tragedies, I wish only for a good laugh. Go without answering me, and let me see the baron give you a sound thrashing with his stick. Then you throw me out a challenge? You think that I will not do it? Yes, I do challenge you. Go, for such is my will. Then I will go, however mad be your fancy. Only, look here, shall you not be doing the general a great disservice, as well as through him a great disservice to yourself? It is not about myself, I am worrying. It is about you and the general. Why, for a mere fancy, should I go and insult a woman? Ah! Then I can see that you are only a trifler, she said contemptuously. Your eyes are swimming with blood, but only because you have drunk a little too much at luncheon. Do I not know that what I have asked you to do is foolish and wrong, and that the general will be angry about it? But I want to have a good laugh all the same. I want that, and nothing else. Why should you insult a woman, indeed? Well, you will be given a sound thrashing for so doing. I turned away, and went silently to do her bidding. Of course the thing was folly, but I could not get out of it. I remember that, as I approached the Baroness, I felt as excited as a schoolboy. I was in a frenzy, as though I were drunk. End of chapter 5. CHAPTER VI Two days have passed since that day of lunacy. What a noise and a fuss and a chattering and an uproar there was. And what a welter of unseenliness and disorder and stupidity and bad manners. And I, the cause of it all. Yet part of the scene was also ridiculous, at all events to myself it was so. I am not quite sure what was the matter with me, whether I was merely stupefied or whether I purposely broke loose and ran amuck. At times my mind seems all confused, while at other times I seem almost to be back in my childhood, at the school desk, and to have done the deed simply out of mischief. It all came of Polina. Yes, of Polina. But for her there might never have been a fracas. Or perhaps I did the deed in a fit of despair, though it may be foolish of me to think so. What there is so attractive about her I cannot think. Yet there is something attractive about her, something passing fair it would seem. Others besides myself she has driven to distraction. She is tall and straight and very slim. Her body looks as though it could be tied into a knot or bent double like a cord. The imprint of her foot is long and narrow. It is a maddening imprint, yes, simply a maddening one. And her hair has a reddish tint about it, and her eyes are like cat's eyes, though able also to glance with proud, disdainful mien. On the evening of my first arrival four months ago I remember that she was sitting and holding an animated conversation with de Griers in the salon. And the way in which she looked at him was such that later, when I retired to my own room upstairs, I kept fancying that she had smitten him in the face, that she had smitten him right on the cheek so peculiar had been her look as she stood confronting him. Ever since that evening I have loved her. But to my tale. I stepped from the path into the carriageway and took my stand in the middle of it. There I awaited the Baron and the Baroness. When they were but a few paces distant from me I took off my hat and bowed. I remember that the Baroness was clad in a voluminous silk dress, pale grey in colour, and adorned with flounces and a crinoline and a train. Also she was short and inordinately stout, while her gross, flabby chin completely concealed her neck. Her face was purple, and the little eyes in it had an impudent, malicious expression, yet she walked as though she were conferring a favour upon everybody by so doing. As for the Baron he was tall, wisened, bony-faced after the German fashion, spectacled, and, apparently, about forty-five years of age. Also he had legs which seemed to begin almost at his chest, or rather at his chin. Yet for all his air of peacock-like conceit his clothes sagged a little, and his face wore a sheepish air which might have passed for profundity. These details I noted within a space of a few seconds. At first my bow and the fact that I had my hat in my hand barely caught their attention, the Baron only scowled a little, and the Baron has swept straight on. Madame le Baron, I said loudly and distinctly, embroidering each word as it were. J'ai l'honneur d'et votre eslave. Then I bowed again, put on my hat, and walked past the Baron with a rude smile on my face. Polina had ordered me merely to take off my hat. The bow and the general effrontery were of my own invention. God knows what instigated me to perpetrate the outrage. In my frenzy I felt as though I were walking on air. H'ing! Ejaculated, or rather growled, the Baron as he turned towards me in angry surprise. I too turned round and stood waiting in pseudo-curtious expectation. Yet still I wore on my face an impudent smile as I gazed at him. He seemed to hesitate, and his brows contracted to their utmost limits. Every moment his visage was growing darker. The Baroness also turned in my direction and gazed at me in wrathful perplexity, while some of the passers-by also began to stare at us, and others of them halted outright. H'ing! The Baron vociferated again with a redoubled growl and a note of growing wrath in his voice. J'av'ol! I replied, still looking him in the eyes. Sinciracend? He exclaimed, brandishing his stick, and apparently beginning to feel nervous. Perhaps it was my costume which intimidated him, for I was well and fashionably dressed, after the manner of a man who belongs to indisputably good society. J'av'ol! cried I again with all my might, with a long-drawn rolling of the O'ol sound after the fashion of the Berliners, who constantly used the phrase, J'av'ol, in conversation, and more or less prolonged the syllable O'ol, according as they desire to express different shades of meaning or of mood. At this the Baron and Baroness faced sharply about, and almost fled in their alarm. Some of the bystanders gave vent to excited exclamations, and others remained staring at me in astonishment, but I do not remember the details very well. Wheeling quietly about, I returned in the direction of Polina Alexandrovna. But when I had got within a hundred paces of her seat, I saw her rise and set out with the children towards the hotel. At the portico I caught up to her. I had perpetrated the— The piece of idiocy, I said as I came level with her. Have you? Then you can take the consequences, she replied, without so much as looking at me, then she moved towards the staircase. I spent the rest of the evening walking in the park, thence I passed into the forest, and walked on until I found myself in a neighboring principality. At a wayside restaurant I partook of an omelet and some wine, and was charged for the idyllic repast a tolerant a half. Not until eleven o'clock did I return home to find a summons awaiting me from the general. Our party occupied two suites in the hotel, each of which contained two rooms. The first, the larger suite, comprised a salon and a smoking room, with a joining the latter, the general's study. It was here that he was awaiting me as he stood posed in a majestic attitude beside his writing-table. Lowling on a divan close by was Degrier. My good sir, the general began, may I ask you what this is that you have gone and done? I should be glad, I replied, if we could come straight to the point. Probably you are referring to my encounter of today with a German? With a German? Why, the German was the Baron Bermagelme, a most important personage. I hear that you have been rude both to him and to the Baroness? No, I have not. But I understand that you simply terrified them, my good sir, shouted the general. Not in the least, I replied. You must know that when I was in Berlin I frequently used to hear the Belenners repeat and repellently prolong a certain phrase, namely Javol. And happening to meet this couple in the carriage-drive I found, for some reason or another, that this phrase suddenly recurred to my memory, and exercised a rousing effect upon my spirits. Moreover, on the three previous occasions that I have met the Baroness she has walked towards me as though I were a worm which could easily be crushed with the foot. Not unnaturally I too possess a measure of self-respect. Wherefore, on this occasion, I took off my hat and said politely—yes, I assure you it was said politely—Madame, Gélanur, d'et votre asslave. Then the Baron turned around and said Hein, whereupon I felt moved to ejaculate in answer, Javol. Twice I shouted it at him, the first time in an ordinary tone, and the second time with the greatest prolonging of the words of which I was capable. That is all. I must confess that this pure explanation gave me great pleasure. I felt a strong desire to overlay the incident with an even-added measure of grossness. So the further I proceeded the more did the gusto of my proceeding increase. You are only making fun of me, vociferated the General, as turning to the Frenchman he declared that my bringing about of the incident had been gratuitous. De Griers smiled contemptuously and shrugged his shoulders. Do not think that, I put in. It was not so at all. I grant you that my behavior was bad. I fully confess that it was so and make no secret of the fact. I would even go so far as to grant you that my behavior might well be called stupid and indecent tomfoolery. But more than that it was not. Also, let me tell you that I am very sorry for my conduct. Yet there is one circumstance which in my eyes almost absolves me from regret in the matter. Of late, that is to say for the last two or three weeks, I have been feeling not at all well. That is to say I have been in a sick, nervous, irritable, fanciful condition. So that I have periodically lost control over myself. For instance, on more than one occasion I have tried to pick a quarrel, even with Mr. Le Maquis here. And under the circumstances he had no choice but to answer me. In short, I have recently been showing signs of ill health. Whether the baroness Burmer-Gelm will take this circumstance into consideration when I come to beg her pardon, for I do intend to make her amends, I do not know. But I doubt if she will, and the less so since so far as I know the circumstance is one which, of late, has begun to be abused in the legal world, in that advocates in criminal cases have taken to justifying their clients on the ground that, at the moment of the crime, they, the clients, were unconscious of what they were doing, that in short they were out of health. My client committed the murder, that is true, but he has no recollection of having committed it. And doctors actually support these advocates by affirming that there really is such a malady, that there really can arise temporary delusions which make a man remember nothing of a given deed, or only a half or a quarter of it. But the baron and baroness are members of an older generation, as well as Prussian junkers and landowners. To them such a process in the medical, judicial world will be unknown, and therefore they are the more unlikely to accept any such explanation. What is your opinion about it, General? Enough, sir, he thundered with barely restrained fury. Enough, I say! Once and for all I must endeavor to rid myself of you and your impertinence. To justify yourself in the eyes of the baron and baroness will be impossible. Any intercourse with you, even though it be confined to a begging of their pardons, they would look upon as a degradation. I may tell you that, on learning that you formed part of my household, the baron approached me in the casino and demanded on me additional satisfaction. Do you understand, then, what it is that you have entailed upon me, upon me, my good sir? You have entailed upon me the fact of my being forced to sue humbly to the baron and to give him my word of honor that this very day you shall cease to belong to my establishment. Excuse me, General, I interrupted. But did he make an express point of it that I ceased to belong to your establishment, as you call it? No. I, of my own initiative, thought that I ought to afford him that satisfaction. And with it he was satisfied. So we must part, good sir. It is my duty to hand over to you forty gulden, three florons, as per the accompanying statement. Here is the money and here the account, which you are at liberty to verify. Farewell. From henceforth we are strangers. From you I have never had anything but trouble and unpleasantness. I am about to call the landlord and explain to him that from tomorrow onwards I shall no longer be responsible for your hotel expenses. Also I have the honor to remain your obedient servant. I took the money and the account, which was indicted in pencil, and, bowing low to the general, said to him very gravely, The matter cannot end here. I regret very much that you should have been put to unpleasantness at the Baron's hands. But the fault, pardon me, is your own. How came you to answer for me to the Baron? And what did you mean by saying that I formed part of your household? I am merely your family tutor. Not a son of yours, nor yet your ward, nor a person of any kind, for whose acts you need be responsible. I am a judicially competent person, a man of twenty-five years of age, a university graduate, a gentleman, and, until I met yourself, a complete stranger to you. Only my boundless respect for your merits restrains me from demanding satisfaction at your hands, as well as a further explanation as to the reasons which have led you to take it upon yourself to answer for my conduct. So struck was he with my words that spreading out his hands he turned to the Frenchman and interpreted to him that he had challenged himself, the general, to a duel. The Frenchman laughed aloud. Nor do I intend to let the Baron off, I continued calmly, but with not a little discomforture at de Griers' merriment. And since you, General, have today been so good as to listen to the Baron's complaints, and to enter into his concerns, since you have made yourself a participator in the affair, I have the honour to inform you that, tomorrow morning I shall, in my own name, demand of the said Baron a formal explanation as to the reasons which have led him to disregard the fact that the matter lies between him and myself alone, and to put a slight upon me by referring it to another person, as though I were unworthy to answer for my own conduct. Then there happened what I had foreseen. The general on hearing of this further intended outrage showed the white feather. Do you intend to go on with this damned nonsense? Do you not realise the harm that it is doing me? I beg of you not to laugh at me, sir, not to laugh at me, for we have police authorities here who out of respect for my rank, and for that of the Baron. In short, sir, I swear to you that I will have you arrested and marched out of the place to prevent any further brawling on your part. Do you understand what I say?" As well as in a terrible fright. General, I replied with that calmness which he never could abide. One cannot arrest a man for brawling until he has brawled. I have not so much as begun my explanations to the Baron, and you are altogether ignorant as to the form and time which my intended procedure is likely to assume. I wish but to disabuse the Baron of what is, to me, a shameful supposition. Namely, that I am the guardianship of a person who is qualified to exercise control over my free will. It is vain for you to disturb and alarm yourself. For God's sake, Alexis Ivanovic, do put an end to this senseless scheme of yours. He muttered but with a sudden change from a truculent tone to one of entreaty as he caught me by the hand. Do you know what is likely to come of it? Merely further unpleasantness. Suddenly I am sure that at present I ought to move with a special care. Yes, with very a special care. You cannot be fully aware of how I am situated. When we leave this place I shall be ready to receive you back into my household. But for the time being I—well, I cannot tell you all my reasons. With that he wound up in a despairing voice. Oh, Alexis Ivanovic! Alexis Ivanovic! I moved towards the door, begging him to be calm and promising that everything should be done decently and in order, whereafter I departed. Russians, when abroad, are over- apt to play the paltrune, to watch all their words and to wonder what people are thinking of their conduct, or whether such and such a thing is comileful. In short, they are over- apt to coset themselves and to lay claim to great importance. Always they prefer the form of care which has once and for all become accepted and established. This they will follow slavishly whether in hotels, on promenades, at meetings, or when on a journey. But the general had avowed to me that over and above such considerations as these there were circumstances which compelled him to move with a special care at present, and that the fact had actually made him poor-spirited and a coward. It had made him altogether change his tone towards me. This fact I took into my calculations and duly noted it, for, of course, he might apply to the authorities tomorrow and it behooved me to go carefully. Yet it was not the general but Polina that I wanted to anger. She had treated me with such cruelty, and it got me into such a hole that I felt a longing to force her to beseech me to stop. Of course my tomfoolery might compromise her, yet certain other feelings and desires had begun to form themselves in my brain. If I was never to rank in her eyes as anything but a non-entity it would not greatly matter if I figured as a draggletailed cockerel, and the Baron were to give me a good thrashing. But the fact was that I desired to have the laugh of them all and to come out myself unscathed. Let people see what they would see. Let Polina for once have a good fright and be forced to whistle me to heal again. But however much she might whistle she should see that I was at least no draggletailed cockerel. I have just received a surprising piece of news. I have just met our chambermaid on the stairs and been informed by her that Maria Filipovna departed to dave by the night train to stay with a cousin at Carlsbad. What can that mean? The maid declares that Madame packed her trunks early in the day. Yet how is it that no one else seems to have been aware of the circumstance? Or is it that I have been the only person to be unaware of it? Also, the maid has just told me that three days ago Maria Filipovna had some high words with the general. I understand then. Probably the words were concerning Madame Azal Blanche. Certainly something decisive is approaching. Chapter 7 OF THE GAMBLER In the morning I sent for the maître d'hôtel and explained to him that in future my bill was to be rendered to me personally. As a matter of fact my expenses had never been so large as to alarm me nor to leave me to quit the hotel, while moreover I still had 160 gulden left to me and in them, yes, in them perhaps, riches awaited me. It was a curious fact that though I had not yet won anything at play I nevertheless acted, thought, and felt as though I were sure before long to become wealthy since I could not imagine myself otherwise. Next I bethought me despite the earliness of the hour of going to see Mr. Astley, who was staying at the Hôtel de l'Angleterre. A hostelry at no great distance from our own. But suddenly de Griers entered my room. This had never before happened. For of late that gentleman and I had stood on the most strained and distant of terms. He attempting no concealment of his contempt for me, of showing it, and I having no reason to desire his company. In short I detested him. Consequently his entry at the present moment the more astounded me. At once I divined that something out of the way was on the carpet. He entered with marked affability and began by complimenting me on my room. Then perceiving that I had my hat in my hands, he inquired whether I was going so early. And no sooner did he hear that I was bound for Mr. Astley's then he stopped, looked grave and seemed plunged in thought. He was a true Frenchman in so far as that, though he could be lively and engaging when it suited him, he became insufferably dull and wear as soon as ever the need for being lively and engaging had passed. Seldom is a Frenchman naturally civil. He is civil only as though to order and of set purpose. Also, if he thinks it encumbered upon him to be fanciful, original and out of the way, his fancy always assumes a foolish unnatural vain, for the reason that it is compounded of trite, hackneyed forms. In short, the natural Frenchman is a conglomeration of commonplace, petty, everyday positiveness, so that he is the most tedious person in the world. Indeed, I believe that none but greenhorns and excessively Russian people feel an attraction towards the French, for to any man of sensibility, such a compendium of outworn forms, a compendium which is built up of drawing room manners, expansiveness and gaiety, becomes at once overnoticeable and unbearable. I have come to see you on business, de Griers began in a very offhand, yet polite tone. Nor will I seek to conceal from you the fact that I have come in the capacity of an emissary, of an intermediary from the general. Having small knowledge of the Russian tongue I lost most of what was said last night, but the general has now explained matters, and I must confess that, see here, Monsieur de Griers, I interrupted, I understand that you have undertaken to act in this affair as an intermediary. Of course, I am only un achetel, a tutor, and have never claimed to be an intimate of this household, nor to stand on at all familiar terms with it. Consequently, I do not know the whole of its circumstances. Yet, pray explain to me this. Have you yourself become one of its members, seeing that you are beginning to take such a part in everything, and are now present as an intermediary? The Frenchman seemed not over-pleased at my question. It was one which was too outspoken for his taste. And he had no mind to be frank with me. I am connected with the general, he said dryly, partly through business affairs, and partly through special circumstances. My principal has sent me merely to ask you to forego your intentions of last evening. What you contemplate is, I have no doubt very clever, yet he has charged me to represent to you you have not the slightest chance of succeeding in your end, since not only will the Baron refuse to receive you, but also he, the Baron, has at his disposal every possible means for obviating further unpleasantness from you. Surely you can see that yourself. What then would be the good of going on with it all? On the other hand, the general promises that at the first favorable opportunity he will receive you back into his household, and in the meantime will credit you with your salary, with vos appointements. Surely that will suit you, will it not? Very quietly I reply that he, the Frenchman, was laboring under a delusion that perhaps after all I should not be expelled from the Baron's presence, but on the contrary be listened to. Finally, that I should be glad if M. de Griers would confess that he was now visiting merely in order to see how far I intended to go in the affair. Good heavens! cried de Griers. Seeing that the general takes such an interest in the matter, is there anything very unnatural and is desiring also to know your plans? Again I began my explanations, but the Frenchman only fidgeted and rolled his head about as he listened with an expression of manifest and unconcealed irony on his face. In short, he adopted a supercilious attitude. For my own part I endeavored to pretend that I took the affair very seriously. I declared that since the Baron had gone and complained of me to the general, as though I were a mere servant of the generals, he had in the first place lost me my post, and in the second place treated me like a person to whom as to one not qualified to answer for himself it was even worthwhile to speak. Naturally I said I felt insulted at this, yet comprehending as I did differences of years, of social status, and so forth here I could scarcely help smiling, I was not anxious to bring about further scenes by going personally to demand or to request satisfaction of the Baron. All that I felt was that I had a right to go in person and beg the Barons and the Baronesses pardon. The more so since of late I had been feeling unwell and unstrung and had been in a fanciful condition, and so forth and so forth. Yet I continued the Baron's offensive behavior to me of yesterday, that is to say the fact of his referring the matter to the general, as well as his insistence that the general should deprive me of my post, had placed me in such a position that I could not well express my regret to him, the Baron, and to his good lady. For the reason that in all probability both he and the Baroness, with the world at large, would imagine that I was doing so merely because I hoped by my action to recover my post. Hence I found myself forced to request the Baron to express to me his own regrets, as well as to express them in the most unqualified manner, to say in fact that he had never had any wish to insult me. After the Baron had done that I should, for my part, at once feel free to express to him wholeheartedly and without reserve my own regrets. In short, I declared in conclusion, my one desire is that the Baron may make it possible for me to adopt the latter course. Oh, fie! What refinements and subtleties exclaimed de Griers. Besides, what have you to express regret for? Confess, monsieur, monsieur, pardon me, for I have forgotten your name. Confess, I say, that all this is merely a plan to annoy the General. Or perhaps you have some other and special end in view, eh? In return you must pardon me, Montchère Marquis, and tell me what you have to do with it. The General, but what of the General? Last night he said that for some reason or another it behoved him to move with a special care at present. Wherefore he was feeling nervous. But I did not understand the reference. Yes, there do exist special reasons for his doing so, assented de Griers in a conciliatory tone, yet with rising anger. You are acquainted with mademoiselle de Comigée, are you not? Mademoiselle Blanche, you mean? Yes. Mademoiselle Blanche de Comigée. Doubtless you know also that the General is in love with this young lady and may even be about to marry her before he leaves here. Imagine, therefore, what any scene or scandal would entail upon him. I cannot see that the marriage scheme need be affected by scenes or scandals. Mais le baron et si irasible, un caractère poussien, vous savez, enfin il fera un carrel d'Allemande. I do not care, I replied, seeing that I no longer belong to his household of set purpose I was trying to talk as senselessly as possible. But is it quite settled that Mademoiselle is to marry the General? What are they waiting for? Why should they conceal such a matter at all events from ourselves, the General's own party? I cannot tell you. The marriage is not yet a settled affair. The marriage is not yet a settled affair. The marriage is not yet a settled affair. For they are awaiting news from Russia. The General has business transactions to arrange. Ah, connected doubtless with Madame his mother? Deux grilles shot at me a glance of hatred. Do cut things short, he interrupted. I have complete confidence in your native politeness as well as in your tact and good sense. I feel sure that you will do what I suggest. Even if it is only for the sake of this family, which has received you as a kinsman into its bosom and has always loved and respected you. Be so good as to observe, I remarked, that the same family has just expelled me from its bosom. All that you are saying, you are saying but for show. But when people have just said to you, of course we do not wish to turn you out yet for the sake of appearances. You must permit yourself to be turned out. Nothing can matter very much. Very well then, he said, in a sterner and more arrogant tone, seeing that my solicitations have had no effect upon you, it is my duty to mention that other measures will be taken. There exist here police, you must remember, and this very day they shall send you packing, K. Diabla, to think of a blunt beck like yourself, challenging a person like the baron to a duel. Do you suppose that you will be able to do such things? Just try doing them, and see if anyone will be afraid of you. The reason why I have asked you to desist is that I can see that your conduct is causing the general annoyance. Do you believe that the baron could not tell his lackey simply to put you out of doors? Nevertheless, I should not go out of doors, I retorted with absolute calm. You are laboring under a delusion, a far better trim than you imagine. I was just about to start for Mr. Astley's to ask him to be my intermediary, in other words my second. He has a strong liking for me, and I do not think that he will refuse. He will go and see the baron on my behalf, and the baron will certainly not decline to receive him. Although I am only a tutor, a kind of subaltern, Mr. Astley is known to all men as the nephew of a real English Lord, the Lord as well as a Lord in his own right. Yes, you may be pretty sure that the baron will be civil to Mr. Astley and listen to him. Or, should he decline to do so, Mr. Astley will take the refusal as a personal affront to himself. For you know how persistent the English are, and thereupon introduce to the baron a friend of his own, and he has many friends in a good position. That being so, picture to yourself the issue of the affair, an affair which will not quite end as you think it will. This caused the Frenchman to rethink him of playing the coward. Really, things may be as this fellow says, he evidently thought. Really he might be able to engineer another scene. Once more I beg of you to let the matter drop, he continued in a tone that was now entirely conciliatory. One would think that it actually means that you have scenes. Indeed, it is a brawl rather than genuine satisfaction that you are seeking. I have said that the affair may prove to be diverting, and even clever, and that possibly you may attain something by it. Yet nonetheless I tell you, he said this only because he saw me rise and reach for my hat, that I have come hither also to hand you these few words from a certain person. So, saying, he took from his pocket a small, compact, wafer-sealed note, and handed it to me. In Polina's handwriting I read, I hear that you are thinking of going on with this affair. You have lost your temper now and are beginning to play the fool. Certain circumstances, however, I may explain to you later. Pray cease from your folly, and put a check upon yourself, for folly it all is. I have need of you, and moreover you have promised to obey me. Remember the Schlingenberg. I ask you to be obedient. If necessary I shall even bid you be obedient. Your own, Polina. P.S. If so be that you still bear a grudge against me for what happened last night, pray forgive me. Everything to my eyes seemed to change as I read these words. My lips grew pale, and I began to tremble. Meanwhile the cursed Frenchman was eyeing me discreetly and a scance, as though he wished to avoid witnessing my confusion. It would have been better if he had laughed outright. Very well, I said, you can tell Menomazel not to disturb herself. But, I added sharply, I would also ask you why you have been so long in handing me this note. Instead of chattering about trifles you ought to have delivered me the missive at once if you have really come commissioned as you say. Well, pardon some natural haste on my part for the situation is so strange. I wished first to gain some personal knowledge of your intentions. And, moreover, I did not know the contents of the note and thought that it could be given you at any time. I understand, I replied, so you were ordered to hand me the note only in the last resort, and if you could not otherwise appease me. Is it not so? Speak out, Monsieur de Griers. Perhaps said he, assuming a look of great forbearance but gazing at me in a meaning way. I reached for my hat whereupon he nodded and went out. Yet on his lips I fancied that I could see a mocking smile. How could it have been otherwise? You and I are to have a reckoning later, Master Frenchman. I muttered as I descended the stairs. Yes. We will measure our strength together. Yet my thoughts were all in confusion, for again something seemed to have struck me dizzy. Presently the air revived me a little. And a couple of minutes later my brain had sufficiently cleared to enable two ideas in particular to stand out in it. Firstly, I asked myself which of the absurd, boyish and extravagant threats which I had uttered at random last night had made everybody so alarmed. Secondly what was the influence which this Frenchman appeared to exercise over Polina? He had but to give the word and at once she did as he desired. At once she wrote me a note to beg of me to forbear. Of course the relations between the pair had from the first been a riddle to me. They had been so ever since I had first made their acquaintance. But of late I had remarked in her version for even a contempt for him. While for his part he had scarcely even looked at her but had behaved towards her always in the most cheerless fashion. Yes, I had noted that. Also Polina herself had mentioned to me her dislike for him and delivered herself of some remarkable confessions on the subject. Hence he must have got her into his power somehow. Somehow he must be holding her in his place.