The Gambler

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

• Publisher: Jovian Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781537808130
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Classics
• Index: Literature

In this dark and compelling short novel, Fyodor Dostoevsky tells the story of Alexey Ivanovitch, a young tutor working in the household of an imperious Russian general. Alexey tries to break through the wall of the established order in Russia, but instead becomes mired in the endless downward spiral of betting and loss. His intense and inescapable addiction is accentuated by his affair with the General's cruel yet seductive niece, Polina...

XII

~

THE GRANDMOTHER WAS IN AN impatient, irritable frame of mind. Without doubt the roulette had turned her head, for she appeared to be indifferent to everything else, and, in general, seemed much distraught. For instance, she asked me no questions about objects en route, except that, when a sumptuous barouche passed us and raised a cloud of dust, she lifted her hand for a moment, and inquired, “What was that?” Yet even then she did not appear to hear my reply, although at times her abstraction was interrupted by sallies and fits of sharp, impatient fidgeting. Again, when I pointed out to her the Baron and Baroness Burmergelm walking to the Casino, she merely looked at them in an absent-minded sort of way, and said with complete indifference, “Ah!” Then, turning sharply to Potapitch and Martha, who were walking behind us, she rapped out:

“Why have YOU attached yourselves to the party? We are not going to take you with us every time. Go home at once.” Then, when the servants had pulled hasty bows and departed, she added to me: “You are all the escort I need.”

At the Casino the Grandmother seemed to be expected, for no time was lost in procuring her former place beside the croupier. It is my opinion that though croupiers seem such ordinary, humdrum officials—men who care nothing whether the bank wins or loses—they are, in reality, anything but indifferent to the bank’s losing, and are given instructions to attract players, and to keep a watch over the bank’s interests; as also, that for such services, these officials are awarded prizes and premiums. At all events, the croupiers of Roulettenberg seemed to look upon the Grandmother as their lawful prey—whereafter there befell what our party had foretold.

It happened thus:

As soon as ever we arrived the Grandmother ordered me to stake twelve ten-gulden pieces in succession upon zero. Once, twice, and thrice I did so, yet zero never turned up.

“Stake again,” said the old lady with an impatient nudge of my elbow, and I obeyed.

“How many times have we lost?” she inquired—actually grinding her teeth in her excitement.

“We have lost 144 ten-gulden pieces,” I replied. “I tell you, Madame, that zero may not turn up until nightfall.”

“Never mind,” she interrupted. “Keep on staking upon zero, and also stake a thousand gulden upon rouge. Here is a banknote with which to do so.”

The red turned up, but zero missed again, and we only got our thousand gulden back.

“But you see, you see,” whispered the old lady. “We have now recovered almost all that we staked. Try zero again. Let us do so another ten times, and then leave off.”

By the fifth round, however, the Grandmother was weary of the scheme.

“To the devil with that zero!” she exclaimed. “Stake four thousand gulden upon the red.”

“But, Madame, that will be so much to venture!” I remonstrated. “Suppose the red should not turn up?” The Grandmother almost struck me in her excitement. Her agitation was rapidly making her quarrelsome. Consequently, there was nothing for it but to stake the whole four thousand gulden as she had directed.

The wheel revolved while the Grandmother sat as bolt upright, and with as proud and quiet a mien, as though she had not the least doubt of winning.

“Zero!” cried the croupier.

At first the old lady failed to understand the situation; but, as soon as she saw the croupier raking in her four thousand gulden, together with everything else that happened to be lying on the table, and recognised that the zero which had been so long turning up, and on which we had lost nearly two hundred ten-gulden pieces, had at length, as though of set purpose, made a sudden reappearance—why, the poor old lady fell to cursing it, and to throwing herself about, and wailing and gesticulating at the company at large. Indeed, some people in our vicinity actually burst out laughing.

“To think that that accursed zero should have turned up NOW!” she sobbed. “The accursed, accursed thing! And, it is all YOUR fault,” she added, rounding upon me in a frenzy. “It was you who persuaded me to cease staking upon it.”

“But, Madame, I only explained the game to you. How am I to answer for every mischance which may occur in it?”

“You and your mischances!” she whispered threateningly. “Go! Away at once!”

“Farewell, then, Madame.” And I turned to depart.

“No—stay,” she put in hastily. “Where are you going to? Why should you leave me? You fool! No, no... stay here. It is I who was the fool. Tell me what I ought to do.”

“I cannot take it upon myself to advise you, for you will only blame me if I do so. Play at your own discretion. Say exactly what you wish staked, and I will stake it.”

“Very well. Stake another four thousand gulden upon the red. Take this banknote to do it with. I have still got twenty thousand roubles in actual cash.”

“But,” I whispered, “such a quantity of money—”

“Never mind. I cannot rest until I have won back my losses. Stake!”

I staked, and we lost.

“Stake again, stake again—eight thousand at a stroke!”

“I cannot, Madame. The largest stake allowed is four thousand gulden.”

“Well, then; stake four thousand.”

This time we won, and the Grandmother recovered herself a little.

“You see, you see!” she exclaimed as she nudged me. “Stake another four thousand.”

I did so, and lost. Again, and yet again, we lost. “Madame, your twelve thousand gulden are now gone,” at length I reported.

“I see they are,” she replied with, as it were, the calmness of despair. “I see they are,” she muttered again as she gazed straight in front of her, like a person lost in thought. “Ah well, I do not mean to rest until I have staked another four thousand.”

“But you have no money with which to do it, Madame. In this satchel I can see only a few five percent bonds and some transfers—no actual cash.”

“And in the purse?”

“A mere trifle.”

“But there is a money-changer’s office here, is there not? They told me I should be able to get any sort of paper security changed!”

“Quite so; to any amount you please. But you will lose on the transaction what would frighten even a Jew.”

“Rubbish! I am DETERMINED to retrieve my losses. Take me away, and call those fools of bearers.”

I wheeled the chair out of the throng, and, the bearers making their appearance, we left the Casino.

“Hurry, hurry!” commanded the Grandmother. “Show me the nearest way to the money-changer’s. Is it far?”

“A couple of steps, Madame.”

At the turning from the square into the Avenue we came face to face with the whole of our party—the General, De Griers, Mlle. Blanche, and her mother. Only Polina and Mr. Astley were absent.

“Well, well, well!” exclaimed the Grandmother. “But we have no time to stop. What do you want? I can’t talk to you here.”

I dropped behind a little, and immediately was pounced upon by De Griers.

“She has lost this morning’s winnings,” I whispered, “and also twelve thousand gulden of her original money. At the present moment we are going to get some bonds changed.”

De Griers stamped his foot with vexation, and hastened to communicate the tidings to the General. Meanwhile we continued to wheel the old lady along.

“Stop her, stop her,” whispered the General in consternation.

“You had better try and stop her yourself,” I returned—also in a whisper.

“My good mother,” he said as he approached her, “—my good mother, pray let, let—” (his voice was beginning to tremble and sink) “—let us hire a carriage, and go for a drive. Near here there is an enchanting view to be obtained. We-we-we were just coming to invite you to go and see it.”

“Begone with you and your views!” said the Grandmother angrily as she waved him away.

“And there are trees there, and we could have tea under them,” continued the General—now in utter despair.

“Nous boirons du lait, sur l’herbe fraiche,” added De Griers with the snarl almost of a wild beast.

“Du lait, de l’herbe fraiche"—the idyll, the ideal of the Parisian bourgeois—his whole outlook upon “la nature et la verite”!

“Have done with you and your milk!” cried the old lady. “Go and stuff YOURSELF as much as you like, but my stomach simply recoils from the idea. What are you stopping for? I have nothing to say to you.”

“Here we are, Madame,” I announced. “Here is the moneychanger’s office.”

I entered to get the securities changed, while the Grandmother remained outside in the porch, and the rest waited at a little distance, in doubt as to their best course of action. At length the old lady turned such an angry stare upon them that they departed along the road towards the Casino.

The process of changing involved complicated calculations which soon necessitated my return to the Grandmother for instructions.

“The thieves!” she exclaimed as she clapped her hands together. “Never mind, though. Get the documents cashed—No; send the banker out to me,” she added as an afterthought.

“Would one of the clerks do, Madame?”

“Yes, one of the clerks. The thieves!”

The clerk consented to come out when he perceived that he was being asked for by an old lady who was too infirm to walk; after which the Grandmother began to upbraid him at length, and with great vehemence, for his alleged usuriousness, and to bargain with him in a mixture of Russian, French, and German—I acting as interpreter. Meanwhile, the grave-faced official eyed us both, and silently nodded his head. At the Grandmother, in particular, he gazed with a curiosity which almost bordered upon rudeness. At length, too, he smiled.

“Pray recollect yourself!” cried the old lady. “And may my money choke you! Alexis Ivanovitch, tell him that we can easily repair to someone else.”

“The clerk says that others will give you even less than he.”

Of what the ultimate calculations consisted I do not exactly remember, but at all events they were alarming. Receiving twelve thousand florins in gold, I took also the statement of accounts, and carried it out to the Grandmother.

“Well, well,” she said, “I am no accountant. Let us hurry away, hurry away.” And she waved the paper aside.

“Neither upon that accursed zero, however, nor upon that equally accursed red do I mean to stake a cent,” I muttered to myself as I entered the Casino.

This time I did all I could to persuade the old lady to stake as little as possible—saying that a turn would come in the chances when she would be at liberty to stake more. But she was so impatient that, though at first she agreed to do as I suggested, nothing could stop her when once she had begun. By way of prelude she won stakes of a hundred and two hundred gulden.

“There you are!” she said as she nudged me. “See what we have won! Surely it would be worth our while to stake four thousand instead of a hundred, for we might win another four thousand, and then—! Oh, it was YOUR fault before—all your fault!”

I felt greatly put out as I watched her play, but I decided to hold my tongue, and to give her no more advice.

Suddenly De Griers appeared on the scene. It seemed that all this while he and his companions had been standing beside us—though I noticed that Mlle. Blanche had withdrawn a little from the rest, and was engaged in flirting with the Prince. Clearly the General was greatly put out at this. Indeed, he was in a perfect agony of vexation. But Mlle. was careful never to look his way, though he did his best to attract her notice. Poor General! By turns his face blanched and reddened, and he was trembling to such an extent that he could scarcely follow the old lady’s play. At length Mlle. and the Prince took their departure, and the General follow...

Table of contents

• I
• II
• III
• IV
• V
• VI
• VII
• VIII
• IX
• X
• XI
• XII
• XIII
• XIV
• XV
• XVI
• XVII