The Gambler

“Lies, lies; I’ll bet they can’t drag you away; it’s all lies! I’m going to have a look at what this roulette is right today. You, Praskovya, tell me what there is to be seen here, and Alexei Ivanovich will show me, and you, Potapych, write down all the places to go. What’s there to see here?” she suddenly turned to Polina again.

“There are the ruins of a castle nearby, then there’s the Schlangenberg.”

“What is this Schlangenberg? A woods, or what?”

“No, not a woods, it’s a mountain; there’s a point…”

“What sort of point?”

“The highest part of the mountain, an enclosed place. The view from there is magnificent.”

“That means dragging the armchair up the mountain. Can it be done, or not?”

“Oh, it should be possible to find porters,” I replied.

At that moment, Fedosya, the nanny, came up to greet grandmother, bringing the general’s children.

“Well, there’s no need for smooching! I don’t like to kiss children, they’re all snotty! How are you getting on here, Fedosya?”

“It’s vur-ry, vur-ry nice here, Antonida Vassilyevna, ma’am,” Fedosya replied. “And how have you been, ma’am? We’ve been grieving over you so.”

“I know, you’re a simple soul. What have you got here, all guests, or something?” she turned to Polina again. “This runty one in the spectacles?”

“That’s Prince Nilsky, grandmother,” Polina whispered to her.

“A Russian? And I thought he wouldn’t understand! Maybe he didn’t hear! I’ve already seen Mr. Astley. Here he is again,” grandmother caught sight of him again. “Hello!” she suddenly addressed him.

Mr. Astley silently bowed to her.

“Well, do you have something nice to say to me? Say something! Translate for him, Polina.”

Polina translated.

“That I am looking at you with great pleasure and rejoicing that you are in good health,” Mr. Astley replied gravely, but with great readiness. It was translated for grandmother, and she obviously liked it.

“Englishmen always answer well,” she observed. “For some reason I’ve always liked Englishmen, no comparison with these little Frenchmen! Call on me,” she turned to Mr. Astley again. “I’ll try not to bother you too much. Translate it for him and tell him that I’m downstairs here, downstairs here—you hear, downstairs, downstairs,” she repeated to Mr. Astley, pointing down with her finger.

Mr. Astley was extremely pleased with the invitation.

Grandmother looked Polina over from head to foot with an attentive and satisfied gaze.

“I could love you, Praskovya,” she said suddenly, “you’re a nice girl, better than all of them, but what a little character you’ve got—oof! Well, yes, I have my character, too; turn around; that’s not a hairpiece, is it?”

“No, grandmother, it’s my own.”

“Hm, I don’t like this stupid modern fashion. You’re a very pretty girl. I’d fall in love with you if I were a young man. How is it you don’t get married? However, it’s time I was off. I want to go outside, it’s been nothing but the train, the train…Well, what’s with you, still angry?” she turned to the general.

“Come now, auntie, for pity’s sake!” the happy general roused himself. “I understand, at your age…”

“Cette vieille est tombee en enfance,”[25] des Grieux whispered to me.

“I want to have a look at everything here. Will you lend me Alexei Ivanovich?” grandmother continued to the general.

“Oh, for as long as you like, but I myself…and Polina, and M. des Grieux…we’ll all consider it a pleasure to accompany you…”

“Mais, madame, cela sera un plaisir,”[26] des Grieux popped up with a charming smile.

“Hm, plaisir. I find you ridiculous, dearie. By the way, I won’t give you any money,” she suddenly added to the general. “Well, now to my suite: I must look the rooms over, and then we’ll set out for all those places. Well, lift me up.”

Grandmother was lifted up again, and the whole crowd of us set out, following the armchair down the stairs. The general walked as if stunned by the blow of a bludgeon on the head. Des Grieux was mulling something over. Mlle Blanche made as if to stay, but then for some reason decided to go with everybody else. The prince at once set out after her, and only the German and Mme la veuve Cominges stayed upstairs in the general’s suite.

CHAPTER X

AT SPAS—AND, IT SEEMS, all over Europe—hotel administrators and managers, when assigning rooms to their guests, are guided not so much by their demands and wishes as by their own personal view of them; and, it must be noted, they are rarely mistaken. But grandmother, God knows why, was given such rich quarters that they even overdid it: four magnificently decorated rooms, with a bathroom, servants’ quarters, a special room for the maid, and so on, and so forth. Indeed, a week earlier some grande duchesse had stayed in these rooms, which fact, of course, was at once announced to the new guests, to raise the price of the suite. Grandmother was carried, or rather rolled, through all the rooms, and she examined them attentively and sternly. The manager, an older man with a bald head, respectfully accompanied her on this first inspection.

I don’t know who they took grandmother for, but it seems they thought her an extremely important and, above all, a very rich personage. They at once entered in the register: “Madame la generale princesse de Tarassevitchev,” though grandmother had never been a princess. Her prestige probably began with her having her own servants, a separate compartment on the train, the endless number of unnecessary valises, suitcases, and even trunks that arrived with her; and the chair, grandmother’s brusque tone and voice, her eccentric questions, asked with a most unabashed air and brooking no objections, in short, grandmother’s whole figure— erect, brusque, imperious—rounded out the universal awe in which she was held. During the inspection, grandmother sometimes ordered them to stop the chair, pointed at some piece of furniture, and addressed unexpected questions to the respectfully smiling manager, who was already beginning to turn coward. Grandmother put her questions in French, which she spoke, however, quite poorly, so that I usually translated. The manager’s answers were for the most part not to her liking and seemed unsatisfactory. Besides, she somehow kept asking not about essentials, but about God knows what. For instance, she suddenly stopped before a painting—a rather weak copy of some famous original on a mythological subject.

“Whose portrait is that?”

The manager declared that it was probably some countess.

“How is it you don’t know? You live here and you don’t know? What’s it doing here? Why is she cross- eyed?”

The manager was unable to give satisfactory answers to all these questions and was even at a loss.

“What a blockhead!” grandmother retorted in Russian.

They carried her further on. The same story was repeated with a Saxony statuette, which grandmother inspected for a long time and then ordered to be removed, no one knew why. She finally badgered the manager about the cost of the bedroom carpets and where they had been made. The manager promised to find out.

“What asses!” grandmother grumbled and turned all her attention to the bed.

“Such a magnificent canopy! Unmake it.”

The bed was unmade.

“Go on, go on, unmake it all. Take away the pillows, the pillowcases, lift up the feather bed.”

Everything was turned upside down. Grandmother inspected it all attentively.

“A good thing they don’t have bedbugs. Take off all the linen! Remake it with my linen and my pillows. Anyhow, it’s all much too magnificent, an old woman like me doesn’t need such a suite: I’ll be bored by myself. Alexei Ivanovich, come and see me often, when you’re done teaching the children.”

“Since yesterday I no longer work for the general,” I replied, “and I’m living in the hotel completely on my own.”