Volume I Part 32 (1/2)
But I only laughed at these absurd superst.i.tions,--as though it were the spot, and not myself, that Fortune loved to caress! As if to resent the foolish credulity, I threw a heavy bet on the table, and lost it! Again and again I did the same, with the like result; and now a murmur ran through the room that luck had turned with me. I had given up my winning seat, and was losing at every turn of the cards.
”Let _me_ have a peep at him,” I beard one whisper to his friend behind.
”I 'd like to see how he bears it!”
”He loses remarkably well,” muttered the other.
”Admirably!” said another. ”He seems neither confident nor impatient; I like the way he stands it.”
”Egad, his hand trembles, though! He tore that banknote in trying to get it out of his fingers!”
”His hand is hot, too,--see how the Louis stick to it!”
”They 'll not do so very long, depend on 't,” said a close-shaved, well-whiskered fellow, with a knowing eye; and the remark met an approving smile from the bystanders.
”I have just added up his last fifteen bets,” said a young man to a lady on his arm, ”and what do you think he has lost? Forty-eight thousand francs,--close on two thousand pounds!”
”Quite enough for one evening!” said I, with a smile towards him, which made both himself and his friend blush deeply at being overheard; and with this I shut up my pocket-book, and strolled away from the tables into another room, where there were chess and whist players. I took a chair, and affected to watch the game with interest, my heart at the moment throbbing as though it would burst through my chest. Don't mistake, Bob, and fancy it was the accursed thirst for gold that enthralled me. I swear to you that mere gain, mere wealth, never entered into my thought at that moment. It was the gambler's l.u.s.t--to be the victor, not to be beaten--that was the terrible pa.s.sion that now struggled and stormed within me! I 'd like to have staked a limb--honor--happiness--life itself--on the issue of a chance; for I felt as though it were a duel with destiny, and I could not quit the ground till one of us should succ.u.mb!
How poor and unsatisfying seemed the slow combinations of skill, as I watched the chess-players! What miserable minuteness, what petty plottings for small results!--nothing grand, great, or decisive! It was like being bled to death from some wretched trickling vessel, instead of meeting one's fate gloriously, amidst the roar of artillery and the crash of squadrons!
I lounged into the _salons_ where they dance; it was a very brilliant and a very beautiful a.s.sembly. There were faces and figures there that might have proved attractive to eyes more critical than my own. My sudden appearance amongst them, too, was rapturously welcomed. I was already a celebrity; and I felt that amidst the soft glances and beaming smiles around me, I had but to choose out her whom I would distinguish by my attentions. My mother and the girls came to me with pressing entreaties to take out the beautiful Countess de B., or to be presented to the charming Marchioness of N. There was a dowager archd.u.c.h.ess who vouchsafed to know me. Miss Somebody, with I forget how many millions in the funds, told Mary Anne she might introduce me. Already the master of the ceremonies came to know if I preferred a mazurka or a waltz. The world was, so to say, at my feet; and, as is usual at such moments, I kicked it for being there. In plain English, Bob, I saw nothing in all that bright and brilliant crowd but scheming mammas and designing daughters; a universal distrust, an utter disbelief in everything and everybody, had got bold of me. Whatever I could n't explain, I discredited. The ringlets might be false; the carnation might be rouge; the gentle timidity of manner might be the cat-like slyness of the tiger; the artless gayety of heart, the practised coquetry of a flirt,--ay, the very symmetry that seemed perfection, might it not be the staymaker's! Play had utterly corrupted me, and there was not one healthy feeling, one manly thought, or one generous impulse left within me! I left the room a few minutes after I entered it. I neither danced nor got presented to any one; but after one lounging stroll through the _salons_ I quitted the place, as though there was not one to know, not one to speak to! I have more than once witnessed the performance of this polite process by another. I have watched a fellow making the tour of a company, with a gla.s.s stuck in his eye, and his hand thrust in his pocket. I have tracked him as he pa.s.sed on from group to group, examining the guests with the same coolness he bestowed on the china, and smiling his little sardonic appreciation of whatever struck him as droll or ridiculous; and when he has retired, it has been all I could do not to follow him out, and kick him down the stairs at his departure.
I have no doubt that my conduct on this occasion must have inspired similar sentiments; nor have I any hesitation in avowing that they were well merited.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 388]
When I reached the open air I felt a delicious sense of relief. It was so still, so calm, so tranquil! a bright starlit summer's night, with here and there a murmuring of low voices, a gentle laugh, beard amongst the trees, and the rustling sounds of silk drapery brus.h.i.+ng through the alleys,--all those little suggestive tokens that bring up one's reminiscences of
”Those odorous boon In jasmine bowers, Or under the linden tree!”
But they only came for a second, Bob, and they left not a trace behind them. The monotonous rubric of the croupier rang ever through my brain,--”Fates votre jeu, Messieurs! ”--”Messieurs, fates votre jeu!”
The table, the lights, the glittering gold, the clank of the rake, were all before me, and I set off at full speed to the hotel, to fetch more money, and resume my play.
I 'll not weary you with a detail, at every step of which I know that your condemnation tracks me. I re-entered the play-room, secretly and cautiously; I approached the table stealthily; I hoped to escape all observation,--at least, for a time; and with this object I betted small sums, and attracted no notice. My luck varied,--now inclining on this side, now to that. Fortune seemed as though in a half-capricious mood, and as it were undetermined how to treat me. ”This comes of my own miserable timidity,” thought I; ”when I was bold and courageous, she favored me. It is the same in everything. To win, one must venture.”
There was a vacant place in front of me; a young Hungarian had just quitted it, having lost his last ”Louis.” I immediately took it. The card on which he had been marking the chances of the game still lay there. I took it up, and saw that he had been playing most rashly; that no luck could possibly have carried a man safely through such a system as he had followed.
I must let you into a little secret of this game, Bob, and do not be incredulous of my theory, because my own case is a sorry ill.u.s.tration of it. Where all men fail at Rouge-et-Noir, is from temper. The loser makes tremendous efforts to repair his losses; the winner grows cautious with success, and diminishes his stake. Now the wise course is, play low when you see Fate against you, and back your luck to the very limit of the bank. You ask, perhaps, ”How are you to ascertain either of these facts?
What evidence have you that Fortune is with or against you?” As you are not a gambler, I cannot explain this to you. It is part of the masonry of the play-table, and every one who risks heavily on a chance knows well what are the instincts that guide him.
I own to you, that though well aware of these facts, and thoroughly convinced that they form the only rules of play, I soon forgot them in the excitement of the game, and betted on, as caprice, or rather as pa.s.sion, dictated. We Irish are bad stuff for gamblers. We have the bull-dog resistance of the Englishman,--his stern resolve not to be beaten,--but we have none of his caution or reserve. We are as impa.s.sioned as the men of the South, but we are dest.i.tute of that intense selfishness that never suffers an Italian to peril his all. In fact, as an old Belgian said to me one night, we make bad winners and worse losers,--too lavish in one case, too reckless in the other.
I am not seeking excuses for my failure in my nationality. I accept the whole blame on my own shoulders. With common prudence I might have arisen that night a large winner; as it was, I left the table with a loss of nigh three thousand pounds. Just fancy it, Bob,--five thousand pounds poorer than when I strolled out after luncheon. A sum sufficient to have started me splendidly in some career,--the army, for instance,--gone without enjoyment, even without credit; for already the critics were busily employed in a.n.a.lyzing my ”play,” which they unanimously p.r.o.nounced ”badly reasoned and contemptible.” There remained to me still--at home in the hotel, fortunately--about eight hundred pounds of my former winnings, and I pa.s.sed the night canva.s.sing with myself what I should do with these. Three or four weeks back I had never given a second thought to the matter,--indeed, it would never have entered my head to risk such a sum at play; but now the habit of winning and losing heavy wages, the alternations of affluence and want, had totally mastered all the calmer properties of reason, and I could entertain the notion without an effort. I 'll not tire you with my reasonings on this subject. Probably you would scarcely dignify them with the name. They all resolved themselves into this: ”If I did not play, I 'd never win back what I lost; if I did, I _might_.” My mind once made up to this, I began to plot how I should proceed to execute it I resolved to enter the room next day just as the table opened, at twelve o'clock. The players who frequented the room at that hour were a few straggling, poor-looking people, who usually combined together to make up the solitary crown-piece they wished to venture. Of course I had no acquaintances amongst them, and therefore should be free from all the embarra.s.sing restraints of observation by my intimates. My judgment would be calmer, my head cooler, and, in fact, I could devote myself to the game with all my energies uncramped and unimpeded.
Sharp to the moment of the clock striking twelve, I entered the room.
One of the croupiers was talking to a peasant-girl at the window. The other, seated on a table, was reading the newspaper. They both looked astonished at seeing me, but bowed respectfully, not, however, making any motion to a.s.sume their accustomed places, since it never occurred to them that I could have come to play at such an hour of the morning. A little group, of the very ”seediest” exterior, was waiting respectfully for when it might be the croupiers' pleasure to begin, but the functionaries never deigned to notice them.
”At what hour are the tables opened?” asked I, as if for information.