The Gambler

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,”[28] 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,[29] 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 zero? Why did this croupier, the head one, the curly one, cry zero 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 zero, grandmother, the bank’s profit. If the ball lands on zero, 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 zero beforehand, and it comes up zero, 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 zero.”

“Grandmother, zero just came up,” I said, “that means it won’t come up for a long time now. You’ll lose heavily; wait awhile at least.”

“Eh, lies, go on, stake!”

“As you wish, but it may not come up till evening, you’ll lose as much as a thousand, such things happen.”

“Eh, nonsense, nonsense! Nothing ventured, nothing gained. What? you lost? Stake again!”

We lost the second friedrich d’or; staked a third. Grandmother could barely sit still, she simply fastened her burning eyes on the ball bouncing over the grooves of the turning wheel. We lost the third as well. Grandmother was beside herself, she simply couldn’t sit still, she even banged her fist on the table when the croupier announced trente-six[30] instead of the hoped-for zero.

“Drat it!” grandmother said angrily, “won’t that cursed little zero come up sometime soon? I’ll wait for it even if it’s the death of me! It’s all this cursed curly croupier’s doing, he never gets it to come up! Alexei Ivanovich, stake two gold pieces at once! If we stake so little, then, even if zero does come up, there won’t be any gain.”

“Grandmother!”

“Stake them, stake them! They’re not yours.”

I staked two friedrichs d’or. The ball rolled around the wheel for a while, then began bouncing over the grooves. Grandmother froze and squeezed my hand, and suddenly—plop!

“Zero,” announced the croupier.

“You see, you see!” grandmother quickly turned to me, beaming all over and very pleased. “I told you, I told you! The Lord himself put it into my head to stake two gold pieces. Well, how much will I get now? Why don’t they give it to me? Potapych, Marfa, where are they? Where have all our people gone? Potapych, Potapych!”

“Later, grandmother,” I whispered. “Potapych is by the door, they won’t let him in here. Look, grandmother, they’re giving you your money, take it!” They tossed her a heavy roll of fifty friedrichs d’or sealed in dark blue paper and counted out another twenty unsealed friedrichs d’or. I raked it all towards grandmother.

“Faites le jeu, messieurs! Faites le jeu, messieurs! Rien ne va plus?”[31] proclaimed the croupier, inviting the stakes and preparing to spin the