At six o’clock Philippe had won twenty-five thousand francs, and at the end of ten minutes kept his word to himself and went away. In the evening, at ten, he had won seventy-five thousand francs. After the supper, which was splendid, Philippe, drunk and confident, returned to the tables at about midnight. Then, against the rule he had made, he played for an hour and doubled his winnings. The bank, from whom his mode of play had wrung a hundred and fifty thousand francs, watched him with curiosity.
“Will he go away or will he stay?” the men asked each other by a glance. “If he stays, he is done for.”
Philippe believed that luck was with him, and stayed. At three in the morning the hundred and fifty thousand francs had returned to the cashbox.
The Colonel, who had drunk a good deal of grog while playing, went out in a state of intoxication, which the nipping cold aggravated to the utmost; but a waiter followed him, picked him up, and carried him to one of the horrible places where, inscribed on a lamp, the notice may be read, “Beds by the night.” The waiter paid for the ruined gambler, who was laid on a bed in his clothes, and remained there till Christmas night. The managers of the gambling-houses treated regular customers and high players with respect.
Philippe did not wake till seven that evening, his mouth furred, his face swelled, and racked with nervous fever. His strong constitution enabled him to get on foot to his mother’s home, whither he had unwittingly brought sorrow, despair, ruin, and death.
The day before, when dinner was ready, Madame Descoings and Agathe waited two hours for Philippe. They did not sit down till seven o’clock. Agathe almost always went to her room at ten; but as she wished to attend midnight mass, she went to lie down directly after dinner. The old aunt and Joseph remained together in the little sitting-room which now served all purposes, and she begged him to work out the sum of her much-talked-of stake, her monster stake on the famous ternion. She meant to go for the double numbers and first drawings, so as to combine all the chances. After smacking her lips over the poetry of this masterstroke, and pouring out both cornucopias at the feet of her adopted favorite; after telling him all her dreams, proving that she could not fail to win, wondering only how she should endure such good fortune, or wait for it from midnight till ten next morning, Joseph, who did not see where the four hundred francs were to come from, mentioned the matter. The old woman smiled and led him into the old drawing-room, now her bedroom.
“You will see!” said she.
Madame Descoings hastily stripped her bed, and went for her scissors to unstitch the mattress; she put on her spectacles, looked at the ticking, and found it unsewn. On hearing the old woman heave a sigh that came from the depths of her bosom, and seemed choked by the blood rushing to her heart, Joseph instinctively held out his arms to the poor old lottery-gambler, and laid her senseless on a chair, calling to his mother to come. Agathe sprang up, put on her dressing-gown, and hurried in; by the light of a tallow candle she applied every common remedy for a fainting fit—eau de cologne on her aunt’s temples, cold water on her forehead, burnt feathers under her nose; at last she saw her revive.
“They were there this morning; he has taken them—that wretch!”
“What?” asked Joseph.
“I had twenty louis in my mattress, my savings for two years. Only Philippe can have taken them …”
“But when?” cried the mother, quite crushed; “he has not been in since breakfast.”
“I should be glad to be mistaken,” said the old woman. “But this morning, in Joseph’s studio, when I spoke of my stake in the lottery I had a warning. I was wrong not to go down and take out my little lucky-penny and put it into the lottery at once. I meant to do it, and I forget what hindered me.—Good God! And I went to buy cigars for him!”
“But,” said Joseph, “our front-door was locked. Besides, it is so vile that I will not believe it. Philippe watched you out, unsewed your mattress, premeditated—! No.”
“I felt them there this morning when I made my bed after breakfast,” said Madame Descoings.
Agathe, quite horror-stricken, went downstairs to ask whether her son had come in during the day, and the doorkeeper told her Philippe’s fable. The mother, struck to the heart, came up again completely altered. As white as her cotton shift, she walked as we fancy ghosts may walk, noiselessly, slowly, as if by the impulse of a superhuman power, and yet almost mechanically. She held a candle in her hand, which lighted up her face and her eyes fixed in despair. Without knowing it, she had pushed her hair over her brow with her hands, and this detail made her so beautiful in her horror that Joseph stood riveted by this image of anguish, this vision of a statue of terror and dejection.
“Aunt,” said she, “take my spoons and forks; I have six sets, that will make up the sum, for it was I who took it for Philippe; I thought I could replace it before you should find it out. Oh! I have suffered!”
She sat down. Her dry fixed gaze wavered a little then.
“It is he who has done the trick,” said Madame Descoings in an undertone to Joseph.
“No, no,” repeated Agathe. “Take the silver, sell it; it is of no use to me; we can use yours.”
She went into her room, took up the plate-box, found it very light, opened it, and saw a pawn ticket. The poor mother gave a
