Volume I Part 31 (2/2)
”Come, Jim, be a good fellow, and back me this time; I 'm certain to win if you do,” whispers a young lord, with fifteen thousand a year.
”Which side is Dodd on?” asked an old peer, with his purse in his hand.
”How I should like to win eighty Louis, and buy that roan Arab,”
whispers Lady Mary to her sister.
”I 'd rather spend the money on that opal brooch,” murmurs the other.
”Egad! if I win this time, I 'll start for my regiment to-night,”
mutters a pale-looking sub., with a red spot in one cheek, and eyes l.u.s.trous as if on fire.
Fancy the power of him who can accomplish these, and a hundred like longings, without a particle of sacrifice on his own part! Imagine, my dear Bob, the conscious rule and sway thus suggested, and ask yourself what ecstasy ever equalled it! I possessed all that Peter Schlemihl did, and had n't to give even my ”shadow” in return. During these three glorious weeks, I gave dinners, concerts, and suppers, commanded plays, bespoke operas, patronized humbugs of all kinds, and headed charities without number. As to presents of jewelry, I almost fancied myself a kind of distributing agent for Storr and Mortimer.
The hotel stables were filled with animals of all kinds belonging to me,--dogs, donkeys, horses, Spanish mules, and a bear; while every shape and description of equipage crammed the coach-houses and the courtyard.
One of these, with a single wheel in front, and great facilities for upsetting behind, was invented by a Baden artist, and most flatteringly and felicitously called ”Le Dod.” Wasn't that fame for you, my boy?
Think of going down to posterity on noiseless wheels and patent axles! Fancy being transmitted to remote ages on C springs and elastic cus.h.i.+ons! Such was the rage for my patronage that an ingenious cutler had dubbed a newly invented forceps by my name, and I was introduced into the world of surgery as a torture.
Now for the obverse of the medal. It was on that un-luckiest of all days--a Friday--that fortune changed with me. I had lain all the morning abed, after being up the whole night previous, and only went down to ”the Rooms” in the evening. As usual, I was accompanied by my train of followers, lords, baronets, M. P.s, foreign counts and chevaliers,--for I went to the field like a general, with his full staff around him! You 'll scarcely believe me when I tell you, Bob, but I say it in all truth and seriousness, that so long as my star was in the ascendant, so long as my counsels were what Homer would call ”wealth-bestowing words,”
there was not an opinion of mine upon any subject, no matter how great my ignorance of it might have been, that was not listened to with deference and repeated with approval. ”Dodd said so yesterday,” ”I hear Dodd thinks highly of it,” ”Dodd's opinion is unfavorable,” and so on, were phrases that rang around me from every group I pa.s.sed, and from the ”odds on the Derby” to the ”division on the Budget,” there was a profound impression that my sentiments were worth hearing.
The pleasantest talkers in Europe, the wittiest conversera that ever convulsed a dinner-party with laughter, would have been deserted and forsaken to hear _me_ hold forth, whether the theme was art, literature, law and politics, or the drama, or any other you please to mention, and of which my ignorance was profound. My luck was unfailing. ”Dodd never loses,” ”Dodd has only to back it,”--these were the gifts which all could acknowledge and profit by, and these no man undervalued or denied.
”Bena.s.set”--this was the proprietor of the tables--”has been employing his time profitably, Dodd, during your absence. He has made a great morning of it,--cleared out the old Elector, and sent the Margraf of Ragatz penniless to his dominions.” This was the speech that met me as I entered the door, and a general all hail followed it.
”Now you 'll see some smart play,” whispered one to his newly come friend. ”Here 's young Dodd; we shall have some fun presently.” Amid these and similar murmurings I approached the tables, at which a place for me was speedily made, for my coming was regarded by the company as a good augury.
I could dwell long upon the sensations that then thronged my brain; they were certainly upon the whole highly pleasurable, but not unmixed with some sadness; for I already was beginning to feel a kind of contempt for my wors.h.i.+ppers, and for myself too, as the unworthy object of their devotion. This scorn had not much leisure granted for its indulgence, for the cards were now presented to me for ”the cut,” and the game began.
As usual, my luck was unbroken. If I had doubled my stake, or by caprice withdrew it altogether, it was the same. Fortune seemed to wait upon my orders. Revelling in a kind of absolutism over fate, I played a thousand pranks with luck, and won,--won on, as if to lose was an impossibility.
What strange fancies crossed my mind as I sat there,--vague fears, shadowy terrors of the oddest kind, wild, dreamy, and undefined! Visions of joy and misery; orgies, mad and furious with mirth, and agonizing sights of misery, thoughts of men who had made compacts with the Fiend, and the terrors that beset them in the midst of their voluptuous abandonment; Belshazzar at his feast; Faust on the Brocken,--rose to my mind, and I almost started up and fled from the table at one moment, so impressed was I by these images! Would that I had! Would that I had listened to that warning whisper of my good genius that was then admonis.h.i.+ng me!
My revery had become such at last that I really never saw nor heard what went on about me. You can picture my condition to yourself when I say that I was only recalled to self-possession by loud and incessant laughter, that rang out on every side of me. ”What 's the matter,--what has happened?” cried I, in amazement. ”Don't you perceive, sir,” said a bystander, ”that you have broken the bank, and they are waiting for a remittance to continue the play?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: 384]
So it was, Bob; I had actually won their last Napoleon, and there I sat pus.h.i.+ng my stake mechanically into the middle of the table, and raking it up again, playing an imaginary game, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of that motley crowd, who looked on at me with screams of laughter. I laughed, too, when I came to myself. It was such a relief to me to join, even for a moment, in any feeling that others experienced!
The money came at last. Two strongly clasped, heavily ironed coffers were borne into the room by four powerful men. I watched them with interest as they unlocked and poured forth their s.h.i.+ning stores; for in imagination they were already my own. I believe at that moment, if any one had offered to a.s.sure me the winning of them ”for fifty Naps.,” that I should have rejected the proposal with disdain, so impossible did it seem to me that luck could desert me! Do you know, Bob, that what most interested me at the time was the varied expressions displayed by the company at sight of the gorgeous treasure before them? It was strange to mark how little all their good breeding and fine manners availed to repress vulgarity of thought and feeling, for there was greed or envy or hatred, or some inordinate pa.s.sion or other, on every face around; looks of mild and gentle meaning became dashed with a half ferocity; venerable old age grew fretful and impatient; youth lost its frank and careless bearing; and, in fact, gain, and the l.u.s.t of gain, was the predominant and overbearing thought of every mind, and wish of every heart! I pledge you my word, there was more animal savagery in the expressions on all sides than ever I saw on a pack of yelping fox-hounds when the huntsman held up the fox in the midst of them. It was the comparison that came to my mind at the moment, and I repeat it, with the reservation that the dogs behaved best.
There was an old careworn, meanly dressed man, with a faded blue ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole, seated in the place I usually occupied, and he arose to give it to me with that mingled air of reluctance and respect which it is so bard to resist. His manner seemed to say, ”I am too poor and too humble to contest the matter, but I 'd remain here if I could.”
”So you shall, then,” said I to myself, and pushed him gently down upon the seat again.
”By Jove! the old fellow has got the lucky place,” cried one in the crowd behind me.
”Hang we, if Dodd has n't given up his old chair!” said another.
”I 'd rather have had _that_ seat,” exclaimed a third, ”than one at the India Board.”
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