The Gambler

on red,” she ordered.

“Grandmother! it’s too much, what if red doesn’t come up?” I implored; but grandmother nearly hit me. (However, she nudged me so hard that one could almost call it beating.) There was nothing to be done, I staked all the four thousand guldens we had won earlier on red. The wheel spun. Grandmother sat calmly and proudly erect, not doubting the certainty of winning.

“Zero,” announced the croupier.

At first grandmother didn’t understand, but when she saw the croupier rake in her four thousand guldens along with everything that was on the table, and learned that the zero which had taken so long to come up, and on which we had lost almost two hundred friedrichs d’or, had popped up, as if on purpose, just when grandmother denounced it and dropped it, she cried “Ah!” and clasped her hands for the whole hall to see. People around her even laughed.

“Saints alive! The cursed thing had to pop up just now!” grandmother yelled. “What a fiendish, fiendish thing! It’s you! It’s all you!” she fell upon me ferociously, shoving me. “You talked me out of it.”

“Grandmother, I talked sense to you, how can I be responsible for all the chances?”

“I’ll give you your chances!” she whispered threateningly. “Get out of here!”

“Good-bye, grandmother,” I turned to leave.

“Alexei Ivanovich, Alexei Ivanovich, stay! Where are you going? Well, what is it? what is it? Look, he’s angry! Fool! Stay, stay awhile, don’t be angry, I’m a fool myself! Well, tell me, what am I to do now?”

“I won’t venture to tell you, grandmother, because you’re going to accuse me. Play on your own; order me, and I’ll stake.”

“Well, well! so stake another four thousand guldens on red! Here’s my wallet, take it.” She took the wallet from her pocket and gave it to me. “Well, take it quickly, there’s twenty thousand roubles in cash here.”

“Grandmother,” I whispered, “such amounts…”

“I’ll win it back if it kills me. Stake!” We staked and lost.

“Stake, stake, stake the whole eight thousand!”

“I can’t, grandmother, the biggest stake is four!…”

“Stake four then!”

This time we won. Grandmother took heart. “See, see!” she nudged me. “Stake four again.”

We staked and lost; staked again and lost again.

“Grandmother, the whole twelve thousand is gone,” I reported.

“I see it’s gone,” she said in some sort of calm fury, if I may put it so, “I see, dearie, I see,” she muttered, staring fixedly in front of her and as if pondering. “Eh, even if it kills me, stake another four thousand guldens!”

“But we have no money, grandmother; there are some Russian five percent notes and some postal money orders in the wallet, but no money.”

“And in the purse?”

“Only small change left, grandmother.”

“Do they have exchange bureaus here? I was told I could cash any Russian papers here,” grandmother asked resolutely.

“Oh, as much as you like! But you’ll lose so much on the exchange that…the Jew himself will be horrified.”

“Rubbish! I’ll win it back. Take me. Call those blockheads!”

I rolled the chair away, the porters appeared, and we rolled out of the vauxhall. “Hurry, hurry!” grandmother commanded. “Show the way, Alexei Ivanovich, the shortest…is it far?”

“Two steps away, grandmother.”

But at the turn from the green into the avenue, we met our whole company: the general, des Grieux, and Mlle Blanche with her mama. Polina Alexandrovna was not with them, nor was Mr. Astley.

“Well, well, well! no stopping!” shouted grandmother. “Well, what do you care? I have no time for you!”

I walked behind; des Grieux sprang over to me.

“She lost all she won in the morning and blew twelve thousand guldens of her own. We’re on our way to exchange the five percent notes,” I whispered to him hurriedly.

Des Grieux stamped his foot and dashed to tell the general. We went on rolling grandmother.

“Stop her, stop her!” the general whispered in a frenzy.

“You go and try stopping her,” I whispered to him.

“Auntie!” the general approached, “auntie…we’re just…we’re just…” his voice trembled and faltered, “going to hire horses and drive out of town…A most delightful view…a point…we were on our way to invite you.”

“Eh, you and your point!” grandmother waved him away irritably.

“There’s a village…we’ll have tea…” the general went on, now in total despair.

“Nous boirons du lait, sur l’herbe fraiche,”[45] des Grieux added with ferocious spite.

Du lait, de l’herbe fraiche—that’s all a Parisian bourgeois has of the ideally idyllic; therein, as everybody knows, lies his view of “la nature et la verite! ”[46] ^{10}

“Eh, you and your milk! Go and guzzle it yourself, it gives me a bellyache. Why are you bothering me?!” cried grandmother. “I tell you, I have no time!”

“Here we are, grandmother!” I cried. “This it it!”

We rolled up to the house where the banker’s office was. I went to exchange the notes; grandmother stayed waiting by the entrance; des Grieux, the general, and Blanche stood to one side, not knowing what to do. Grandmother looked at them wrathfully, and they went off down the road to the vauxhall.

I was offered such terrible terms that I didn’t dare accept and went back to grandmother to ask for instructions.

“Ah, the robbers!” she cried, clasping her hands. “Well! Never mind! Exchange them!” she cried resolutely. “Wait, call the banker to me!”

“Maybe one of the clerks, grandmother?”

“All right, a clerk, it’s all the same. Ah, the robbers!”

The clerk agreed to come out, having learned that he had been asked by a paralyzed old countess who couldn’t walk. Grandmother reproached him for thievery, at length, wrathfully, and loudly, and bargained with him in a mixture of Russian, French, and German, with me helping to translate. The grave clerk kept looking at the two of us and silently wagging his head. He gazed at grandmother even with a much too intent curiosity—which was impolite. Finally, he began to smile.

“Well, away with you!” cried grandmother. “Choke on my money! Exchange with him, Alexei Ivanovich, there’s no time, otherwise we could go elsewhere…”

“The clerk says others will give still less.”

I don’t remember the figures exactly, but it was terrible. I exchanged about twelve thousand florins in gold and notes, took the receipt, and brought it to grandmother.

“Well! well! well! No point in counting it,” she waved her hands, “quick, quick, quick!”

“I’ll never stake on that cursed zero, nor on red either,” she said as we approached the vauxhall.

This time I tried as hard as I could to persuade her to make smaller stakes, insisting that, with a turn of the chances, there would always be a moment for staking a big amount. But she was so impatient that, though she agreed at first, it was impossible to hold her back during the play. As soon as she began to win stakes of ten or twenty friedrichs d’or, “Well, there! Well, there!” she began nudging me, “well, there, we’ve won—if we’d staked four thousand instead of ten, we’d have won four thousand, and what now? It’s all you, all you!”

And vexed as I was, watching her play, I finally decided to keep quiet and give no more advice.

Suddenly des Grieux sprang over. The three of them were nearby; I noticed that Mlle Blanche and her mama were standing to one side, exchanging courtesies with the little prince. The general was obviously out of favor, almost in the doghouse. Blanche didn’t even want to look at him, though he fidgeted about her with all his might. Poor general! He turned pale, red, trembled, and even no longer followed grandmother’s play. Blanche and the little prince finally left; the general ran after them.