We arrived at the vauxhall in triumph. The doorman and the attendants showed the same deference as the servants in the hotel. They looked at us, however, with curiosity. Grandmother first of all ordered them to carry her around all the rooms; some things she praised, to others she remained completely indifferent; about everything she asked questions. They finally reached the gaming rooms. The footman who was standing guard by the closed doors suddenly, as if in astonishment, flung them open.
Grandmother’s appearance in the gambling hall made a deep impression on the public. There were maybe a hundred and fifty or two hundred players crowding in several rows around the roulette tables and at the other end of the room where the table for trente et quarante stood.
Those who managed to push their way close to the table itself usually stood firm and did not relinquish their places until they lost everything; for to stand there just as simple spectators and occupy a gambling place for nothing was not allowed.
Though chairs are placed around the gaming table, few of the players sit down, especially if the public gathers in large numbers—because standing people can squeeze closer together and thus gain space, and it’s more convenient for placing stakes.
The second and third rows crowded behind the first, waiting and keeping an eye out for their turn; but sometimes in impatience someone would thrust his arm through the first row to place his bet.
Even from the third row people contrived to thrust their stakes through in this way; owing to which not ten or even five minutes would go by without some “story” over a disputed stake beginning at one end of the table or another. The vauxhall police, however, were rather good.
Crowding, of course, cannot be avoided; on the contrary, the influx of the public is welcomed, because it’s profitable; but the eight croupiers who sit around the table keep a sharp eye on the betting, they do the reckoning as well, and they settle disputes whenever they arise.
In extreme cases, the police are summoned, and the matter is ended in a few minutes. The police are stationed right there in the hall, in plain clothes, among the spectators, so they can’t be recognized. They watch out especially for pilferers and professional thieves, who are especially numerous at the roulette table, it being unusually suited to their profession. Indeed, elsewhere thefts are made from pockets or locked places—and that, in case of failure, can end very bothersomely.
While here it’s quite simple, you need only go up to the table, start playing, then suddenly, openly and publicly, pick up somebody else’s winnings and put them in your pocket; if a dispute starts, the crook loudly and vociferously insists that the stake was his.
If the thing is done deftly and the witnesses hesitate, the thief very often succeeds in awarding himself the money—if, of course, the sum is not very considerable. In the latter case, it would certainly have been noticed earlier by the croupiers or some of the other players. But if the sum is not so considerable, the real owner, wary of a scandal, sometimes even simply declines to prolong the dispute and walks away. But if a thief is exposed, he is at once removed with a scandal.
Grandmother observed all this from a distance, with wild curiosity. She liked it very much that the thieves were removed. Trente et quarante aroused little curiosity in her; she much preferred roulette and the way the little ball rolled about. She wanted, finally, to have a closer look at the game.
I don’t understand how it happened, but the attendants and some other busybodies (mostly little Poles who had lost their money and now foisted their services on lucky players and all foreigners) at once found and cleared a place for grandmother, despite all that crowd, right at the middle of the table, next to the head croupier, and rolled her chair there.
Numerous visitors who were not playing themselves, but watched the play from outside (mostly Englishmen and their families), at once pushed their way to the table to get a look at grandmother from behind the players. Numerous lorgnettes turned towards her.
Hopes were born in the croupiers: such an eccentric gambler really seemed to promise something extraordinary. A seventy-year-old woman, crippled and wishing to gamble, was, of course, not an ordinary case. I also pushed my way to the table and established myself by grandmother.
Potapych and Marfa stayed somewhere far to the side, among the people. The general, Polina, des Grieux, and Mlle Blanche also stationed themselves to the side, among the spectators.
Grandmother began by examining the players. She asked me sharp, abrupt questions in a half-whisper: who’s that man? who’s that woman? She especially liked one very young man at the end of the table, who played a very big game, staked thousands, and had already won, as the whisper went around, up to forty thousand francs, which lay in a heap before him, in gold and banknotes.
He was pale; his eyes flashed and his hands trembled; he staked now without any calculation, as much as his hands snatched up, and yet he kept winning and winning, raking and raking it all in. Attendants bustled about him, put a chair behind him, cleared a space around him so that he would have more room and not be crowded—all this in expectation of a rich reward.
Certain players, when they’re winning, will sometimes give them money without counting, just like that, out of joy, also as much as their hand snatches from their pocket.
A little Pole had already settled himself next to the young man, bustling with all his might, and whispered something to him, respectfully but constantly, probably telling him how to stake, advising and directing the play—naturally, also hoping for a handout afterwards. But the gambler scarcely looked at him, staking at random and raking it all in. He was obviously becoming flustered.
Grandmother observed him for several minutes.
“Tell him,” grandmother suddenly fluttered up, giving me a nudge, “tell him to quit, to take the money and leave quickly. He’ll lose, he’ll lose everything now!” she fussed, nearly breathless with agitation. “Where’s Potapych? Send Potapych to him! Tell him, tell him,” she nudged me, “no, where indeed is Potapych?
Sortez, sortez,”*29 she herself began shouting to the young man. I bent down to her and whispered resolutely that it was not permitted to shout like that here, nor even to raise one’s voice a little, because it interfered with the counting, and that we’d be turned out at once.
“How vexing! The man’s lost, which means he wants it that way himself…I can’t watch him, I’m all upset. What a dolt!” And grandmother quickly turned in another direction.
There, to the left, on the other side of the table, among the players, a young lady could be noticed and beside her some sort of dwarf. Who this dwarf was, I don’t know: a relation of hers perhaps, or else just brought along for effect.
I had noticed the lady before; she came to the gaming table every day at one in the afternoon and left at exactly two; she played for one hour every day. They knew her by now and offered her a chair at once.
She would take some gold from her pocket, some thousand-franc notes, and begin to stake quietly, coolly, with calculation, marking the numbers on a paper with her pencil and trying to find the system by which the chances were grouped at the moment. She staked significant amounts. Every day she won one, two, at the most three thousand francs, not more, and, having won, she immediately left. Grandmother studied her for a long time.
“Well, that one’s not going to lose! that one there’s not going to lose! What is she? You don’t know? Who is she?”
“A Frenchwoman, must be, or the like,” I whispered.
“Ah, you can tell a bird by its flight. You can see her little nails are sharpened. Now explain to me what every turn means and how to stake.”
I explained to grandmother, as far as possible, the meaning of the numerous combinations of stakes, rouge et noir, pair et impair, manque et passe,†30 and, finally, various nuances in the system of numbers. Grandmother listened attentively, memorized, asked again, and learned by heart. Each system of stakes could be illustrated at once by an example, so that many things could be learned and memorized very easily and quickly. Grandmother remained quite pleased.
“And what is zéro? Why did this croupier, the head one, the curly one, cry zéro just now? And why did he rake in everything that was on the table? Such a pile, and he took it all for himself? What’s that?”
“It’s zéro, grandmother, the bank’s profit. If the ball lands on zéro, everything that was put on the table goes to the bank without counting it up. True, another spin is permitted so as to restart the game, but the bank pays nothing.”
“Fancy that! And I don’t get anything?”
“No, grandmother, if you staked on zéro beforehand, and it comes up zéro, they pay you thirty-five times the amount.”
“What, thirty-five times? And does it come up often? The fools, why don’t they stake on it?”
“The odds are thirty-six to one, grandmother.”
“That’s rubbish! Potapych! Potapych! Wait, I have money on me—here!” She took a tightly stuffed purse from her pocket and took out a friedrich d’or. “Here, stake it right now on zéro.”
“Grandmother, zéro just came up,” I said, “that means it won’t come up for a
