I began working for him as some sort of secretary, for thirty guldens a month; but I ended in real lackeydom with him: he didn’t have the means to keep a secretary, and he lowered my salary; since I had nowhere to go, I stayed—and thus turned myself into a lackey.
I ate little and drank little while with him, and that way I saved seventy guldens in five months. One evening in Baden, I announced to him that I wished to part with him; that same evening I went to play roulette.
Oh, how my heart throbbed! No, it wasn’t money that was dear to me! My only wish then was that the next day all those Hintzes, all those hotel managers, all those magnificent Baden ladies—that they would all be talking about me, telling my story, astonished at me, praising me, and bowing before my new winnings.
That was all childish dreams and concerns, but…who knows, maybe I’d meet Polina, too, and tell her, and she’d see that I was above all these absurd jolts of fate…Oh, it’s not money that’s dear to me! I’m sure I would have frittered it all away on some Blanche again and driven around Paris for three weeks with my own pair of horses worth sixteen thousand francs.
I know for certain that I’m not stingy: I even think I’m a spendthrift—and yet, even so, with what trepidation, with what a sinking heart I listen to the cry of the croupier: trente-et-un, rouge, impaire et passe, or quatre, noir, pair et manque!
With what greed I look at the gaming table, scattered with louis d’or, friedrichs d’or, and thalers, at the stacks of gold, when the croupier’s rake breaks it up into piles, burning like fire, or the two-foot stacks of silver lying around the wheel. Already as I approach the gaming room, from two rooms away, the moment I hear the clink of spilling money—I almost go into convulsions.
Oh, that evening when I carried my seventy guldens to the gaming table was also remarkable. I began with ten guldens, and again with passe. I have a prejudice for passe. I lost. I was left with sixty guldens in silver coins; I pondered—and chose zéro. I began staking five guldens a time on zéro; at the third stake zéro suddenly came up, I nearly died of joy, receiving a hundred and seventy-five guldens; when I won a hundred thousand guldens, I wasn’t that glad.
I at once put a hundred guldens on rouge—it won; all two hundred on rouge—it won; all four hundred on noir—it won; all eight hundred on manque—it won; counting what I’d had before, it came to one thousand seven hundred guldens, and that in less than five minutes! But in such moments you forget all your previous failures! For I had obtained it at the risk of more than life, I had dared to risk and—here I was numbered among the human beings again!
I took a room, locked myself in, and sat till three o’clock counting my money. The next morning I woke up a lackey no more. I decided that same day to leave for Homburg: there I had never served as a lackey or sat in prison. Half an hour before the train, I went to make two stakes, no more, and lost fifteen hundred florins. However, I still moved to Homburg, and it’s a month now that I’ve been here…
I live, of course, in constant anxiety, play for the smallest stakes, and am waiting for something, I calculate, I stand for whole days at the gaming table and watch the play, I even dream about it, but for all that it seems to me that I’ve turned to wood, gotten stuck in some mire. I conclude that from the impression of my meeting with Mr. Astley. We hadn’t seen each other since that very time, and we met by chance; here’s how it was.
I was walking in the garden and reckoning that now I was almost out of money, but that I did have fifty guldens—besides, two days before I had paid up fully at the hotel, where I occupied a small room.
And so I was left with the possibility of going only once now to play roulette—if I won at least something, I could go on playing; if I lost—I would have to become a lackey again, if I didn’t at once find Russians who needed a tutor. Occupied with this thought, I went for my daily walk through the park and through the woods to the neighboring principality. Sometimes I’d spend four hours walking like that and return to Homburg tired and hungry.
I had just walked out of the garden into the park, when I suddenly saw Mr. Astley sitting on a bench. He noticed me first and called to me. I sat down beside him. Noticing a certain gravity in him, I at once restrained my gladness; for I had been terribly glad to see him.
“So you’re here! I just thought I’d meet you,” he said to me. “Don’t bother telling me: I know, I know everything; your whole life for the past year and eight months is known to me.”
“Hah! see how you keep track of old friends!” I replied. “It’s to your credit that you don’t forget…Wait, though, that gives me an idea—was it you who bought me out of the Roulettenburg prison, where I was sent for a debt of two hundred guldens? Some unknown person bought me out.”
“No, oh, no! I didn’t buy you out of the Roulettenburg prison, where you were sent for a debt of two hundred guldens, but I knew you had been sent to prison for a debt of two hundred guldens.”
“So all the same you know who bought me out.”
“Oh, no, I can’t say as I know who bought you out.”
“Strange; our Russians don’t know me, and the Russians here probably wouldn’t buy anyone out; it’s there in Russia that Orthodox people buy out their own. So I thought it might have been some odd Englishman, out of eccentricity.”
Mr. Astley listened to me with some astonishment. It seems he expected to find me crestfallen and crushed.
“However, I’m very glad to see you have completely preserved all your independence of mind and even your gaiety,” he said with a rather unpleasant look.
“That is, you’re inwardly gnashing your teeth in vexation because I’m not crushed and humiliated,” I said, laughing.
He didn’t understand at once, but when he did, he smiled.
“I like your observations. I recognize in those words my former intelligent, rapturous, and at the same time cynical friend. Russians alone are able to combine so many opposites in themselves at one and the same time.
Actually, man likes seeing his best friend humiliated before him; friendship is mostly based on humiliation; and that is an old truth known to all intelligent people. But in the present case, I assure you, I am sincerely glad that you are not crestfallen. Tell me, do you intend to give up gambling?”
“Oh, devil take it! I’ll give it up at once, as soon as…”
“As soon as you win? So I thought. Don’t finish—I know you said it inadvertently, and therefore spoke the truth…Tell me, besides gambling, is there nothing that occupies you?”
“No, nothing…”
He began testing me. I knew nothing, I hardly ever looked at the newspapers, and in all that time I had positively not opened a single book.
“You’ve turned to wood,” he observed, “you’ve not only renounced life, your own interests and society’s, your duty as a citizen and a human being, your friends (all the same you did have them), you’ve not only renounced any goal whatsoever apart from winning, but you’ve even renounced your memories.
I remember you in an ardent and strong moment of your life; but I’m sure you’ve forgotten all your best impressions then; your dreams, your most essential desires at present don’t go beyond pair and impair, rouge, noir, the twelve middle numbers, and so on, and so forth—I’m sure of it!”
“Enough, Mr. Astley, please, please don’t remind me,” I cried in vexation, all but in anger. “Know that I’ve forgotten precisely nothing; but I’ve driven it all out of my head for a time, even the memories—until I’ve radically improved my circumstances. Then…then you’ll see, I’ll rise from the dead!”
“You’ll still be here ten years from now,” he said. “I’ll make you a bet that I’ll remind you of it, if I live, right here on this bench.”
“Well, enough,” I interrupted him impatiently, “and to prove to you that I’m not so forgetful of the past, allow me to ask: where is Miss Polina now? If it wasn’t you who bought me out, then it must have been her. Since that time I’ve had no news of her.”
“No, oh, no! I don’t think she bought you out. She’s in Switzerland now, and you will give me great pleasure if you stop asking me about Miss Polina,” he said resolutely and even crossly.
“That means she’s wounded you badly as well!” I laughed involuntarily.
“Miss Polina is the best being of all beings most worthy of respect, but, I repeat, you will give me great pleasure if you stop asking me about Miss Polina. You never knew her, and I consider her name on your lips an insult to my moral sense.”
“So that’s how it is! You’re wrong, however; and, just think, what else am I to talk to you about except that? That’s all our memories
