Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

Clairvoyant: Let us go back, then, before we go forward. Have you ever won, at any time? Think, now.

Countess: Many times. Oh, many times. But I didn’t stop soon enough, that was the only trouble. I went on playing too long, after I should have stopped, and—

Clairvoyant: There is no ‘too soon’ there is no ‘too long’. There is only one terminal point in this, and that is the point at which you did stop. Now let me repeat: when you stopped, had you won?

Countess (In a low, hopeless voice): Never.

Clairvoyant: Judge by that then. The past is the future that lies behind us. The future is the past that lies before us. They are one and the same. Only fools think they can divide them down the middle. You have never won. You never will win. Not tonight, not a week from now, not a year from now. There is something about your personality, your being, let us call it your aura, that attracts only bad luck at the gambling-table. I have seen it in these cards here. The money cards, the diamond suite, have all consistently avoided your own card, which is this one here.

Countess (skeptically): Are they infallible?

Clairvoyant: Ask yourself that, not me. Have you ever won? Then they are infallible. It is something about you, it is inexplicable, but there it is.

Countess: But what am I to do? I know that I’ll go back there again. I can’t stay away.

Clairvoyant: Have somebody else place your bets for you. But remember one thing, the selection must be theirs, not yours. It won’t help any if you tell them which plays to make. That is still you playing, then.

Countess: I couldn’t! I couldn’t do it! Not play myself? Just watch while somebody else plays for me? It’s the excitement, the urge, to play myself that drives me on. If I am thirsty, and you give the water to someone else, will that quench my thirst?

Clairvoyant (spreading her hands resignedly): Well, there you have it. That’s all I can tell you.

Countess: You say it’s my aura, my personality. Couldn’t I alter it in some way, hide it, disguise it, and so change my luck?

Clairvoyant: You mean tamper with your own destiny? For that is actually what you would be doing. That can be dangerous, madame.

Countess: Let it be. Anything at all would be better than this.

Clairvoyant: You could try. But I guarantee nothing.

Countess: I ask no guarantee. I wouldn’t bet on a sure thing even if I could, for then it would have no attraction for me. It’s the risk I like. All I ask is the outside chance.

Clairvoyant (laughing ruefully): Even in this you bet. You not only bet on the game itself, but you bet on the betting on the game.

Countess: And is this all you can do for me?

Clairvoyant: No. Since the consultation is not gratis, I can amplify it, I can dress it up. All you wish. Very well, let’s garnish it, then. Everything about you must be different. That goes much deeper than just the clothes you wear, the way you wear your hair, or the perfume you use. Inside yourself is where the real change must be. And can you do that, madame?

Countess: I can try.

Clairvoyant: Your thoughts must be the thoughts of someone else. The way you move, the very way you breathe, must be the way of somebody else. In your own mind you must be somebody else, you must believe you are somebody else. You must not even think of your own name or tell yourself what it is. It is no longer your name, it is the name of a stranger, who has nothing to do with you. Those whom the old-you knew, no matter how closely, the new-you no longer knows. Those whom the new-you knows, if any, will be those whom the old-you did not know. And — all this is impossible to accomplish. Humanly impossible. No, it cannot be done. And if it could, it might be better not to. You might damage yourself, destroy yourself in some way.

Countess (growing more excited): I can try! I can try!

Clairvoyant (drily): Let me wish you luck, madame. Bonne chance .

Countess (fervently): I will do it! I will! I don’t know how, yet, but I will accomplish it.

Clairvoyant (dubiously): Let us hope.

(She rises to her feet. The countess follows suit. The latter opens her handbag, brings out a handful of currency, places it on the table.)

Countess: With your permission.

Clairvoyant (shrugging matter-of-factly, as she ushers her visitor to the door, opens it for her): One’s time was given up, granted.

Countess (suddenly seizing the other’s hand and kissing it with gratitude): You don’t know how you’ve helped me! You don’t know how!

Clairvoyant (inscrutably): Have I...?

(The base of the Rochier de la Vierge, a rocky promontory jutting out high over the ocean at Biarritz. Around the base runs an iron guard-rail, and flanking this a paved walk. Along this walk slowly moves the countess. Her aspect is that of a woman in despair, who does not notice where she is going and does not care. She has evidently been gambling again, and with the usual result. The direction she comes from is that of the casino, and she is again wearing the spreading white dress. She stops and rests her back against the waist-high rail, one arm akimbo against it. She remains motionless thus for some time...)

(Suddenly some sort of a cloth, a garment, light-colored, drifts down from above, dangles over the rail for a moment, finally settles down to the ground near her. She notices it, stares. She steps over to it, picks it up, holds it extended at arms’ width. It is a woman’s cheap dress, plain, ordinary. Another garment floats down. Something in the nature of an undergarment, this time. Still holding the first one, she goes toward this, then stops and looks upward, to the top of the rock. On it, pale against the dark night-sky, is the undraped figure of a woman, hair streaming in the wind, who is about to throw herself into the churning, rock-spraying water far below.

(Horror and incredulity are stamped on the upturned face of the countess. A scream is heard, long-drawn and gradually fading away, as when someone falls from a great height. The top of the rock is empty now... The countess, still holding the original garment she picked up, finally lowers her head and folds her arm in front of it, as if to wipe out what she has just seen.)

Countess (to herself): That is what I should do, but I haven’t her courage.

(She removes her arm from before her face at last, goes to the remaining garments which have fallen and picks them up, one at a time.)

Countess: Be someone else, she said to me. (Looks at the garments) What better way?

(She follows the path around the turn of the rock, and off camera. When she returns, she is in the clothing of the unknown woman who has just taken her life. She stops against the rail a moment, face to camera.)

Countess: I can go back there now. I can go back and win. Win back everything I lost earlier tonight. That, and perhaps more. (Passes her hands slowly down her sides) Now I’m someone else. In clothes still warm from someone else s body. Still reeking with her thoughts, her hopes, her fears.

Almost, I can still feel her blood coursing within these clothes, her heart beating. (Shields her eyes a moment) I must not think who I am, what my name is. Was. ( Uncovers them again) I must keep thinking, I am she. ( Slowly ) I am she. ( More slowly still) I am she. ( Moves away from railing ) I must go back there now. I must go back— Where? I’ve forgotten. There was somewhere I wanted to go. But I’ve forgotten — where.

(Her head droops, as if she were dozing on her feet. Suddenly she lifts it, as if recalling.)

Countess: Oh, yes, I must go— Home. Home to him. He’s waiting. Waiting for me to come home.