Fyodor Dostoevsky - The Gambler

“What, should I look to our Russians? They sit here, don’t dare peep, and are ready, perhaps, to renounce the fact that they’re Russians. At any rate in my hotel in Paris they began to treat me with much greater attention when I told everybody about my fight with the abbé. The fat Polish pan , [5] Gentleman. the man most hostile to me at the table d’hôte , faded into the background. The Frenchmen even put up with it when I told them that about two years ago I saw a man whom a French chasseur had shot in the year twelve {4} 4 The year of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. —simply so as to fire off his gun. The man was a ten-year-old child then, and his family hadn’t managed to leave Moscow.”

“That cannot be,” the little Frenchman seethed, “a French soldier would not shoot a child!”

“Yet so it was,” I replied. “It was told to me by a respectable retired captain, and I myself saw the scar from the bullet on his cheek.”

The Frenchman began talking much and quickly. The general tried to support him, but I recommended that he read, for instance, bits from the Notes of General Perovsky, {5} 5 V. A. Perovsky (1795–1857), general and aide-de-camp, participated in the war against Napoleon in 1812 and was later made military governor of Orenburg. who was taken prisoner by the French in the year twelve. Finally, Marya Filippovna started talking about something, so as to disrupt the discussion. The general was very displeased with me, because the Frenchman and I had almost begun to shout. But it seemed that Mr. Astley liked my argument with the Frenchman very much; getting up from the table, he suggested that he and I drink a glass of wine. In the evening, I duly managed to have a fifteen-minute talk with Polina Alexandrovna. Our talk took place during a stroll. Everybody went to the park near the vauxhall. Polina sat down on a bench opposite the fountain and sent Nadenka to play not far away with some children. I also let Misha play by the fountain, and we were finally alone.

At first we began, naturally, with business. Polina simply became angry when I gave her only seven hundred guldens in all. She was sure I’d bring her from Paris, in pawn for her diamonds, at least two thousand guldens or even more.

“I need money at all costs,” she said, “and I must get it; otherwise I’m simply lost.”

I started asking about what had happened in my absence.

“Nothing, except that we received two pieces of news from Petersburg, first, that grandmother was very unwell, and, two days later, that it seemed she had died. This was news from Timofei Petrovich,” Polina added, “and he’s a precise man. We’re waiting for the final, definitive news.”

“So everyone here is in expectation?” I asked.

“Of course: everyone and everything; for the whole six months that’s the only thing they’ve hoped for.”

“And you’re hoping, too?” I asked.

“Why, I’m not related to her at all, I’m only the general’s stepdaughter. But I know for certain that she’ll remember me in her will.”

“It seems to me you’ll get a lot,” I said affirmatively.

“Yes, she loved me; but why does it seem so to you ?”

“Tell me,” I answered with a question, “our marquis, it seems, is also initiated into all the family secrets?”

“And why are you interested in that?” asked Polina, giving me a stern and dry look.

“Why not? If I’m not mistaken, the general has already managed to borrow money from him.”

“You’ve guessed quite correctly.”

“Well, would he lend him money if he didn’t know about grandma? Did you notice, at dinner: three times or so, speaking about grandmother, he called her ‘grandma’—‘ la baboulinka .’ Such close and friendly relations!”

“Yes, you’re right. As soon as he learns that I’m also getting something in the will, he’ll immediately propose to me. Is that what you wanted to find out?”

“Only then? I thought he proposed a long time ago.”

“You know perfectly well he hasn’t!” Polina said testily. “Where did you meet this Englishman?” she asked after a moment’s silence.

“I just knew you’d ask about him right away.”

I told her about my previous meetings with Mr. Astley during my trip. “He’s shy and amorous and, of course, already in love with you?”

“Yes, he’s in love with me,” Polina replied.

“And he’s certainly ten times richer than the Frenchman. What, does the Frenchman really have anything? Isn’t that open to doubt?”

“No, it’s not. He has some sort of château. The general told me that yesterday. Well, so, is that enough for you?”

“In your place, I’d certainly marry the Englishman.”

“Why?” asked Polina.

“The Frenchman’s handsomer, but he’s meaner; and the Englishman, on top of being honest, is also ten times richer,” I snapped.

“Yes, but then the Frenchman is a marquis and more intelligent,” she replied with the greatest possible equanimity.

“Is that true?” I went on in the same way.

“Perfectly.”

Polina terribly disliked my questions, and I saw that she wanted to make me angry with her tone and the wildness of her answer. I told her so at once.

“Why, it does indeed amuse me to see you in a fury. You ought to pay for the fact alone that I allow you to put such questions and make such surmises.”

“I do indeed consider it my right to put all sorts of questions to you,” I replied calmly, “precisely because I’m prepared to pay for them however you like, and my own life I now count for nothing.”

Polina burst out laughing:

“Last time, on the Schlangenberg, you told me you were ready at my first word to throw yourself down headfirst, and I believe it’s a thousand-foot drop. One day I’ll speak that word, solely to see how you’re going to pay, and you may be sure I’ll stand firm. You are hateful to me—precisely because I’ve allowed you so much, and more hateful still, because I need you so much. But for the time being I do need you—I must take good care of you.”

She went to get up. She had spoken with irritation. Lately she has always finished a conversation with me with spite and irritation, with real spite.

“Allow me to ask you, what is this Mlle Blanche?” I asked, not wanting to let her go without an explanation.

“You know yourself what Mlle Blanche is. Nothing more has been added. Mlle Blanche will probably become Madame la Générale—naturally, if the rumor of grandmother’s death is confirmed, because Mlle Blanche, and her mother, and her second cousin, the marquis, all know very well that we are ruined.”

“And the general is definitively in love?”

“That’s not the point now. Listen and remember: take these seven hundred florins and go gambling, win me as much as you can at roulette; I need money now at all costs.”

Having said this, she called Nadenka and went to the vauxhall, where she joined our whole company. I, however, turned into the first path to the left, pondering and astonished. It was as if I’d been hit on the head, after the order to go and play roulette. Strange thing: I had enough to ponder, and yet I immersed myself wholly in an analysis of my feelings for Polina. Really, it had been easier for me during those two weeks of absence than now, on the day of my return, though on the way I had longed for her like a madman, had thrashed about like a man in a frenzy, and even in sleep had seen her before me every moment. Once (this was in Switzerland), I had fallen asleep on the train, and it seems I began talking aloud with Polina, which made all my fellow travelers laugh. And now once more I asked myself the question: do I love her? And once more I was unable to answer it, that is, better to say, I answered myself again, for the hundredth time, that I hated her. Yes, she was hateful to me. There were moments (and precisely each time at the end of our conversations) when I would have given half my life to strangle her! I swear, if it had been possible to sink a sharp knife slowly into her breast, it seems to me I’d have snatched at it with delight. And yet, I swear by all that’s holy, if on the Schlangenberg, on the fashionable point , [6] Overlook. she had actually said to me: “Throw yourself down,” I would have thrown myself down at once, and even with delight. I knew that. One way or another this has to be resolved. She understands all this astonishingly well, and the thought that I have a fully correct and distinct awareness of all her inaccessibility to me, all the impossibility of the fulfillment of my fantasies—this thought, I’m sure, affords her extraordinary pleasure; otherwise how could someone so prudent and intelligent be on such intimate and frank terms with me? It seems to me that she has looked at me so far like that ancient empress who began to undress in front of her slave, not regarding him as a human being. Yes, many times she has not regarded me as a human being…