The Gambler

on a chestnut. In the morning he had said that his legs hurt, but he sat his horse well. And at that moment the thought suddenly occurred to me that this was a completely lost man. Moreover, this is all none of my business, and I had the honor of meeting Miss Polina only recently. However,” Mr. Astley suddenly caught himself, “I’ve already told you that I cannot acknowledge your right to certain questions, though I sincerely like you…”

“Enough,” I said, getting up. “It’s clear as day to me now that Miss Polina also knows all about Mlle Blanche, but she can’t part with her Frenchman, and therefore ventures to stroll with Mlle Blanche. Believe me, no other influence would induce her to stroll with Mlle Blanche and beg me in a note not to touch the baron. Here there must be precisely that influence before which everything bows! And yet it was she who loosed me on the baron! Devil take it, nothing can be sorted out here!”

“You forget, first, that this Mlle de Cominges is the general’s fiancee, and, second, that Miss Polina, the general’s step-daughter, has a little brother and sister, the general’s own children, totally abandoned by this crazy man and, it seems, robbed as well.”

“Yes, yes, that’s so! Leaving the children means abandoning them completely, staying means protecting their interests, and maybe saving shreds of the estate as well. Yes, yes, that’s all true! But still, still! Oh, I understand why they’re all now so interested in baboulinka!”

“In whom?” asked Mr. Astley.

“In that old witch in Moscow who won’t die and about whom they’re expecting a telegram that she’s dead.”

“Well, yes, of course, the whole interest converges in her. The whole point lies in the inheritance! When the inheritance is announced, the general will get married; Miss Polina will be unbound, and des Grieux…”

“Well, and des Grieux?”

“Des Grieux will be paid his money; that’s all he’s waiting for here.”

“All! You think that’s all he’s waiting for?”

“I know nothing more.” Mr. Astley fell stubbornly silent.

“But I know, I know!” I repeated in a rage. “He’s also waiting for the inheritance, because Polina will get a dowry, and once she gets the money, she’ll immediately throw herself on his neck. Women are all like that! And the proudest of them come out as the most banal slaves! Polina is capable only of loving passionately and nothing more! That’s my opinion of her! Look at her, especially when she’s sitting alone, deep in thought: it’s something predestined, foredoomed, accursed! She’s capable of all the horrors of life and passion…she…she…but who’s that calling me?” I suddenly exclaimed. “Who’s shouting? I heard somebody shout ‘Alexei Ivanovich!’ in Russian. A woman’s voice, listen, listen!”

At that moment we were approaching our hotel. We had left the cafe long ago, almost without noticing it.

“I heard a woman shout, but I don’t know who she’s calling; it was in Russian. Now I can see where it’s coming from,” Mr. Astley was pointing, “it’s that woman shouting, the one sitting in a big armchair and who has just been carried up to the porch by so many footmen. They’re carrying her suitcases behind her; that means the train has just arrived.”

“But why is she calling me? She’s shouting again; look, she’s waving to us.”

“I see that she’s waving,” said Mr. Astley.

“Alexei Ivanovich! Alexei Ivanovich! Ah, Lord, what a dolt!” desperate cries came from the porch of the hotel.

We almost ran to the entrance. I reached the landing and…my arms dropped in amazement, and my feet became rooted to the stone.

CHAPTER IX

ON THE UPPER LANDING of the wide hotel porch, carried up the steps in a chair and surrounded by manservants and maidservants and the numerous, obsequious hotel staff, in the presence of the manager himself, who had come out to meet the exalted guest arriving with so much flurry and noise, with her own servants and with so many suitcases and valises, sat—grandmother! Yes, it was she herself, formidable and rich, seventy-five years old, Antonida Vassilyevna Tarassevichev, a landowner and a Moscow grande dame, la baboulinka, about whom telegrams were sent and received, who was dying and did not die, and who suddenly, herself, in person, appeared like fresh snow on our heads. She appeared, though she couldn’t walk, carried in an armchair as she had always been for the last five years, but, as was her custom, brisk, perky, self-satisfied, straight-backed, shouting loudly and commandingly, scolding everybody—well, exactly as I had had the honor of seeing her twice since the time I was taken into the general’s household as a tutor. Naturally, I stood before her dumbstruck with amazement. But she had made me out with her lynx eyes from a hundred paces away, as they carried her up in her chair, had recognized me and called me by my name and patronymic—which, as was her custom, she had also memorized once and for all. “And she’s the one they expected to see in a coffin, buried, and having left an inheritance,” flitted through my mind, “yet she’ll outlive us all and the whole hotel! But, God, what will become of all our people now, what will become of the general! She’ll stand the whole hotel on its ear!”

“Well, what are you doing, dearie, standing in front of me with your eyes popping out!” grandmother went on yelling at me. “You don’t know how to bow and greet a body, eh? Or you’ve grown proud and don’t want to? Or maybe you don’t recognize me? You hear, Potapych,” she turned to a gray-haired old man in a tailcoat and white tie and with a pink bald spot, her butler, who had accompanied her on her journey, “you hear, he doesn’t recognize me! They’ve got me buried! They send one telegram after another: is she dead or not? I know everything! And here, you see, I’m as alive as can be!”

“Good heavens, Antonida Vassilyevna, why would I wish you ill?” I answered cheerfully, coming to my senses. “I was only surprised…And how not marvel at such an unexpected…”

“But what’s so surprising for you? I got on the train and came. It’s a quiet ride, no jolts. You’ve been for a walk, have you?”

“Yes, I strolled to the vauxhall.”

“It’s nice here,” said grandmother, looking around, “warm, and there’s a wealth of trees. I like that. Are our people at home? The general?”

“Oh, yes! at this hour they’re probably all at home.”

“So they’ve established a schedule here and all the ceremonies? Setting the tone. I’ve heard they keep a carriage, les seigneurs russes![22] Blew all their money and went abroad! Is Praskovya^{9} with him?”

“Yes, Polina Alexandrovna, too.”

“And the little Frenchman? Well, I’ll see them all for myself, Alexei Ivanovich, show me the way straight to him. Do you find it nice here?”

“So so, Antonida Vassilyevna.”

“And you, Potapych, tell that dolt of a manager to give me comfortable quarters, nice ones, not too high up, and carry my things there at once. Why is everybody in a rush to carry me? Why are they getting at me? Eh, what slaves! Who’s that with you?” she turned to me again.

“This is Mr. Astley,” I replied.

“Who is this Mr. Astley?”

“A traveler, my good acquaintance; he also knows the general.”

“An Englishman. That’s why he’s staring at me and doesn’t unclench his teeth. I like Englishmen, though. Well, drag me upstairs, straight to their place; where are they?”

Grandmother was carried; I walked ahead up the wide hotel stairway. Our procession was very impressive. Everyone who came our way stopped and looked at us all eyes. Our hotel was considered the best, the most expensive, and the most aristocratic at the spa. On the stairs and in the corridors one always met magnificent ladies and important Englishmen. Many made inquiries downstairs of the manager, who, for his own part, was deeply impressed. He, of course, replied to all who asked that this was an important foreign lady, une russe, une comtesse, grande dame, and that she would occupy the same suite which a week before