Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Gambler

WHAT SHALL I SAY about Paris? It was all, of course, both delirium and foolery. I lived in Paris for only a little more than three weeks, and in that time my hundred thousand francs were completely finished. I’m speaking of only a hundred thousand; the remaining hundred thousand I gave to Mlle Blanche in straight cash—fifty thousand in Frankfurt, and three days later in Paris I handed her the other fifty thousand francs in a promissory note, for which, however, she took the money from me a week later, “ et les cent mille francs qui nous restent, tu les mangeras avec moi, mon outchitel. ” [73] And the hundred thousand francs we have left, you’ll eat up with me, my outchitel. She always called me outchitel . It’s hard to imagine anything in the world more calculating, mean, and stingy than the category of beings like Mlle Blanche. But that’s with regard to her own money. As for my hundred thousand francs, she later declared to me straight out that she needed it in order to establish herself initially in Paris. “So that now I’m standing on a decent footing once and for all, and it will be a long time before anybody throws me off, so at least I’ve arranged things,” she added. However, I scarcely saw that hundred thousand; she kept the money herself all the while, and my purse, which she visited every day, never held more than a hundred francs, and almost always less.

“What do you need money for?” she said occasionally with a most artless look, and I didn’t argue with her. Instead, she decorated her apartment very, very nicely on this money, and later when she moved me to the new place, she said, as she was showing me the rooms: “See what can be done, with calculation and taste, on the scantiest means.” This scantiness added up, however, to exactly fifty thousand francs. The other fifty thousand she spent on a carriage and horses, and besides that we threw two balls, that is, two evening parties, to which Hortense, and Lisette, and Cléopatre came—women remarkable in many, many respects, and even far from bad. At these two parties I was forced to play the utterly stupid role of host, to meet and entertain some rich and extremely dull merchants, impossibly ignorant and shameless army lieutenants of various sorts, and pathetic little authors and magazine midges, who arrived in fashionable tailcoats, straw-colored gloves, and with a vanity and conceit of dimensions inconceivable even in Petersburg—which is saying a lot. They even ventured to make fun of me, but I got drunk on champagne and lay about in the back room. All this was loathsome to me in the highest degree. “ C’est un outchitel, ” Blanche said of me, “ il a gagné deux cent mille francs , [74] He won two hundred thousand francs. and without me he wouldn’t know how to spend it. And afterwards he’ll become an outchitel again—does anyone know of a post? We must do something for him.” I began resorting to champagne quite often, because I was very sad and extremely bored all the time. I lived in the most bourgeois, in the most mercantile milieu, where every sou was counted and measured out. For the first two weeks, Blanche disliked me very much, I noticed that; true, she got me smartly dressed and tied my necktie every day, but in her heart she sincerely despised me. I didn’t pay the slightest attention to that. Bored and despondent, I got into the habit of going to the Château des Fleurs, {16} 16 The Château des Fleurs was a dance hall near the Champs-Elysées in Paris, which flourished under the reign of Louis Philippe and closed its doors in 1866. where regularly, every evening, I got drunk and practiced the cancan (which they dance most vilely there) and later on even achieved some celebrity in that line. Finally, Blanche got to the bottom of me: she had somehow formed an idea for herself beforehand that during our cohabitation, I would walk behind her with a pencil and paper in my hand and keep an account of how much she spent, how much she stole, how much she was going to spend, and how much more she was going to steal, and, of course, she was sure that we would have battles over every ten francs. To each of my assaults, which she imagined beforehand, she had prepared timely objections; but seeing no assaults from me, at first she herself started to object. Sometimes she would begin very hotly, but seeing that I kept silent—most often lying on the sofa and staring fixedly at the ceiling—she would finally even become astonished. At first she thought I was simply stupid, an outchitel , and simply broke off her objections, probably thinking to herself: “He’s stupid; there’s no point in suggesting anything, if he doesn’t understand for himself.” She would leave, but about ten minutes later would come back again (this happened during the time of her most furious spending, spending completely beyond our means: for instance, she changed horses and bought a pair for sixteen thousand francs).

“Well, so, Bibi, you’re not angry?” she came up to me.

“No-o-o! How bo-o-oring!” I said, moving her away with my hand, but this made her so curious that she at once sat down beside me:

“You see, if I decided to pay so much, it’s because they were a good deal. They can be sold again for twenty thousand francs.”

“I believe you, I believe you; they’re splendid horses; and now you’ve got a nice turnout; it will be useful; well, and enough.”

“So you’re not angry?”

“At what? It’s smart of you to stock up on a few things you need. It will all be of use later. I see you really have to put yourself on such a footing, otherwise you’ll never make a million. Here our hundred thousand francs is only a beginning, a drop in the ocean.”

Blanche, who least of all expected such talk from me (instead of shouts and reproaches!), looked as if she’d fallen from the sky.

“So you…so that’s how you are! Mais tu as l’esprit pour comprendre! Sais-tu, mon garçon , [75] Why, you have the wits to understand. You know, my boy… you’re an outchitel , but you should have been born a prince! So you’re not sorry our money’s going so quickly?”

“Who cares, the quicker the better!”

“ Mais…sais-tu…mais dis donc , are you rich? Mais sais-tu , you really despise money too much. Qu’est-ce que tu feras après, dis donc? ” [76] But…you know…but tell me…But you know…What will you do afterwards, tell me?

“ Après , I’ll go to Homburg and win another hundred thousand francs.”

“ Oui, oui, c’est ça, c’est magnifique! [77] Yes, yes, that’s it, that’s magnificent! And I know you’ll certainly win and bring it all here. Dis donc , you’ll make it so that I really fall in love with you! Eh bien , since that’s the way you are, I’ll love you all the while and won’t be unfaithful even once. You see, all this while, though I didn’t love you, parce que je croyais que tu n’est qu’un outchitel (quelque chose comme un laquais, n’estce pas?) , but even so I was faithful to you, parce que je suis bonne fille .” [78] Because I thought you were just an outchitel (something like a lackey, isn’t it?)…because I’m a good girl.

“No, lies! And with Albert, that swarthy little officer—as if I didn’t see it last time?”

“ Oh, oh, mais tu es… ”

“No, lies, lies; and what do you think, that I’m angry? I spit on it; il faut que jeunesse se passe . [79] Youth must pass. You can’t chase him away, if he was there before me and you love him. Only don’t give him any money, you hear?”