Wolfgang’s hand descended upon the green cloth!
Seventeen counters lay on the number seventeen.
The croupier gave him a swift side glance and smiled slightly. Calling to the players for the last time to make their stakes, he seized the knob, the wheel began to turn, the ball rolled.…
His game began—the game of Wolfgang Pagel, at the time without occupation, ex-lover of a girl named Petra Ledig—that game for which he had been waiting a year, no, a lifetime, for which he had, in fact, become what he had become; for whose sake he had quarreled with his mother; for whose sake he had taken to himself a girl who had shortened for him the period of waiting, and who had gone when the time was right. We have staked on seventeen, seventeen counters on number seventeen …
Attention, we are playing! Seventeen brings a win of thirty-six to one—the ball rolls ceaselessly, rattling, rattling.… We still have time to reckon out in millions and milliards what we shall win when seventeen turns up … If the ball were made of bone we could say that the bones of the dead in their crypts rattle like it. But we are alive, and playing.
“Seventeen!” called the croupier.
There, is he not calling it out? It is the hour of judgment. The black sheep will be shorn but the just—they shall be crowned! There is a rattling down of counters, a rain, a flood, a deluge. Into my pockets with them! Wait. I also want to stake. Isn’t there a chair free for a player like me? What am I staking on? I must be calm, reflect … I shall stake on red. Red is correct, I once reckoned it out, a long, long time ago. Look, there’s a chair!
“Here, my son, here are ten dollars, good American dollars. Do you remember how you wanted to hit me on the jaw before? Ha-ha-ha!”
I mustn’t make so much noise? I disturb the others? The others can go to the devil! What do I care about the others with their measly stakes. They play to win, to hoard filthy paper money. I play for the sake of the game, for the sake of life … I am King!
Red!
He sat there and stared, suddenly morose, mistrustful. Were those enough counters? He piled them up before him in heaps of ten and, his hands trembling with excitement immediately, pushed them over again. They all wanted to cheat him here, rob him. After all, he was only the Pari Panther, a nobody in a shabby tunic. That dog, the croupier, had always treated him like a thief—he would pay him back for it!
And he staked again and won again, and Fortune returned to him. Blissful ecstasy never before experienced, like a cloud in the summer sky, and underneath the heavy dark earth with its vulgar people and their heavy distorted faces. Fly away, heavenly clouds and heavenly gods—O happiness!
What fell there? What’s gushing? What’s falling?
Like a brook the counters fell merrily splashing through his arms onto the floor, for he could no longer gather them together. Let them fall, Fortune is smiling on me! Let others bend down for them … We have enough, and we shall get still more!
How morose the croupier looks, how his beard bristles! Yes, we’re going to fleece you today, my son. You shall slink back to your hole as bare as a rat—soon you’ll have no counters left and you’ll have to bring out your paper money; today we’re taking everything!
What does the Rittmeister want? He has lost everything? Yes, you must know how to play. Do it like me, Rittmeister; after all, I’ve shown you how. Here you have paper money, American dollars, 250 dollars. No, ten were given to Curly Willi—240 then! Yes, tomorrow morning we’ll settle it up, but in half an hour this money too will come back to me by way of the croupier.
The game is turning? The ball no longer rolls as he wants it to?
Yes, it is a fact: one shouldn’t give away money in the middle of a game; it brings bad luck.
He sat there gloomily, he tried the pari chances again, the three-to-one chances. He played cautiously, with calculation. But the counters between his arms dwindled, the ranks became thin. Again and again the army of the defeated rattled away beneath the croupier’s rake. The croupier smiled again.
And the players no longer looked at Pagel; they took no more notice of him. They boldly went on placing their stakes over his shoulder again. He was no longer a favored player; he was a player like the rest. Luck smiled on him once, then forgot him again; he was the plaything of fortune, not its bed-fellow.
What had he been doing the whole time? How long had he been sitting here?
Already he was fishing in his pockets, the stream had dried up. Had he immediately forgotten the lesson Fate had taught him? He must back seventeen—seventeen counters on seventeen—that’s what it was.
Seventeen!
And the rattle of the counters!
The ecstasy returned, remoteness from the world, and sun. He sat there, his head bent slightly forward, a lost smile on his lips. He could stake as he liked, the stream now gushed again. And then happened what he had been expecting: the counters gave out. Now notes were coming to him, more and more. They crackled, they looked up at him with dull colors—ridiculous paper marks, valuable pound notes, exquisite dollars, fat contented gulden, substantial Danish kronen—booty from the wallets of fifty or sixty visitors. It all streamed to him.
The croupier looked as gloomy as death, as if he had been seized by a sickness and was suffering intolerable pains. He could hardly control himself. Curly Willi had already run twice into the anteroom for fresh money, the day’s takings had to be brought. Soon you’ll have to use your wallet, croupier!
Croupier murmured something about closing down, but the players protested, threatened.… Hardly any of them were playing now; they were watching the duel between croupier and Pagel. They trembled for the young man. Would luck remain true to him? He was one of them, the born gambler; he was revenging all their losses on the wicked old vulture, the croupier. This young man didn’t love money as did the croupier—he loved the game! He was no exploiter.
And young Pagel sat there, ever more smiling, ever more calm. With excitement the Rittmeister whispered at his shoulder. Pagel merely shook his head with a smile.
The Rittmeister shouted: “Pagel, man, stop now. You’ve got a fortune!”
No, the Rittmeister was no longer embarrassed to shout in this room, but Pagel smiled unheedingly. He was here and yet was far away. He wanted this to go on forever, endlessly through the eternities. That’s what we live for! The wave of Fortune bears us on. Inexpressible feeling of joy in existence. This is how a tree must feel which, after days of tormented rising of its sap, unfolds all its blossoms in an hour. What is the croupier? What is money? What is the game itself? Roll on, little ball, roll. Did I ever think that the bones of the dead rattled like that?
Glory of heaven! Red? Of course red, and once more red. And red again. But now we’ll take black—otherwise life has no savor. Without a slight mingling of black, life has no savor. Still more bank notes. Where shall I put them all? I should have brought a suitcase with me—but who could anticipate a thing like this?
What does Studmann want again? What’s the shouting? Police? What does he mean by police—what does he want police for? Where are they all running to? Stop, let the ball finish rolling! I win once more, I win again, always again! I am the eternal winner …
Here are the police! Now all the players are standing as silent as their own ghosts. What does the funny man with the bowler hat want? He is saying something to me. All gambling money is confiscated. All money? But, of course, it’s all gambling money—money for gambling—otherwise it would have no sense. What else is it for?
We are to get ready and come along? Of course we are coming along; if there’s to be no more playing we might as well come. Why is the Rittmeister arguing with the man in blue? There’s no sense in that. If we can’t play, nothing matters!
“Come along, Herr Rittmeister, be calm. Look, Studmann is also going along, and he hasn’t played once. So let’s go.”
How deathly pale the croupier looks! Yes, for him it is bad. He was losing—I, however, I won as I’ve never won in my life! It was wonderful beyond words. Good night!
At last I can sleep peacefully, I have achieved what I longed for; as far as I’m concerned, I can sleep forever. Good night!
X
In a little courtroom in Police Headquarters at Alexanderplatz a wretched old incandescent lamp cast its reddish light on the faces of those arrested in the gambling club, some scowling, some silent and depressed, others sleepy or eagerly chatting. Only the croupier and his two assistants had been led off separately—all the rest had
