"Really? No, I didn't stand under the window; but I was waiting in the corridor and walking round."
"But she must be looked after, Mr. Astley."
"Oh, yes, I've sent for the doctor, smd, if she dies, you will answer to me for her death."
I was amazed.
"Upon my word, Mr. Astley, what do you want?"
"And is it true liat you won two hundred thousand thalers yesterday?"
"Only a hundred thouscind florins."
"Weil, do you see, you had better go off to Paris this morning!"
"What for?"
"All Russians who have money go to Paris," Mr. Astley explained, in a tone of voice as though he had read this in a book.
"What could I do now in Paris, in the summer? I love her, Mr. Astley, you know it yourself."
"Really? I am convinced you don't. If you remain here you will certainly lose all you have won and you will have nothing left to go to Paris with. But, good-bye, I am perfectly certain you will go to Paris to-day."
"Vety well, good-bye, only I shan't go to Paris. Think, Mr. Astley, what will be happening here? The General . . . and now this adventure with Miss Polina—why, that will be all over the town."
"Yes, all over the town; I believe the General is not thinking about that: he has no thoughts to spare for that. Besides, Miss Polina has a perfect right to live where she likes. In regard to that family, one may say quite correctly that the family no longer exists."
I walked away laughing at this Englishman's strange conviction that I was going to Paris. "He wants to shoot me in a duel, though," I thought, "if Mile. Polina dies—what a complication 1" I swear I was sorry for Polina, but, strange to say, from the very moment when I reached the gambling tables the previous evening and began winning a pile of money, my love had retreated, so to speak, into the background. I say this now; but at the time I did not reaHse all this clearly. Can I really be a gambler? Can I really . . . have loved Polina so , strangely? No, I love her to this day. God is my witness! , And then, when I left Mr. Astley and went home, I was * genuinely miserable and blaming myself. But ... at this point a very strange and silly thing happened to me.
I was hurrying to see the General, when suddenly, not far from his rooms, a door was opened and someone called me. It was Madame la veuve Cominges, and she called me at the bidding of Mile. Blanche. I went in to see Mile. Blanche.
They had a small suite of apartments, consisting of two rooms. I could hear Mile. Blanche laugh and call out from the bedroom.
She was getting up.
"A, c'est ltd! Viens done, bete! Is it true, que tu as gagne une montagne d'or et d'atrgent? J'aimerais mieux Vor."
"Yes, I did win," I answered, laughing.
"How much?"
"A hundred thousand florins."
"Bihi, comme tu es bete. Why, come in here. I can't hear anything. Nous ferans bombcmce, n'est ce pas?"
I went in to her. She was lying under a pink satin quilt, above which her robust, swarthy, wonderfully swarthy, shoulders were visible, shoulders such as one only sees in one's dreams, covered to some extent by a batiste nightgown bordered with white lace which was wonderfully becoming to her dark skin.
"Mon fits, as-tu dm coew?" she cried, seeing me, and burst out laughing. She laughed very good-humouredly, and sometimes quite genuinely.
"Tout autre," I began, paraphrasing Comeille.
"Here you see, vots-ki," she began babbling; "to begin with, find my stockings, help me to put them on; and then, si tu n'es pas trop bete, je te prends d, Paris. You know I am just going."
"Just going?"
"In half an hour."
All her things were indeed packed. All her portmanteaux and things were ready. Coffee had been served some time before.
"Eh bient, if you like, Ut verras Paris. Dis dcmc qu'est ce que c'est qu'tm outchitel? Tu ettds bien bete, qtumd tu etcds outchitel. Where are my stockings? Put them on for me!"
She thrust out some positively fascinating feet, little dark-skinned feet, not in the least misshapen, as feet that look so small in shoes always are. I laughed and began drawing her silk stockings on for her. Meanwhile Mile. Blanche sat up in bed, pratthng away.
"Eh bien, que feras-tu, si je te prends avec? To begin with, I want fifty thousand francs. You'll give them to me at Frankfurt. Nous allons a Paris: there we'll play together: et je te jerai voir des etoiles en plein jour. You will see women such as you have never seen before. Listen ..."
"Wait a minute—if I give you fifty thousand francs, what will be left for me?"
"Et cent cunqumde mille francs, you have forgotten: and what's more, I consent to live with you a month, two months: qiie scns-je! In those two months we shall certainly get through tiiat hundred and fifty thousand francs, you see, je suis botme enfant, and I tell you beforehand, mais tu verras des etoiles."
"What! all in two months!"
"Why! does that horrify you? Ah, vil esclave! But, do you know? one month of such a life is worth your whole existence. One month— et apres le deluge! Mais tu ne peux comprendre; va! Go along, go along, you are not worth it! Aie, que fads tu?"
At that moment I was putting a stocking on the other leg, but could not resist kissing it. She pulled it away and began hitting me on the head with the tip of her foot. At last, she turned me out altogether.
"Et bien! nwn outchitel, je f attends, si tu veux; I am starting in a quarter of an hour!" she called after me.
On returning home I felt as though my head were going round. Well, it was not my fault that Mile. Polina had thrown the whole pile of money in my face, and had even yesterday
preferred Mr. Astley to me. Some of the banknotes that had been scattered about were still lying on the floor; I picked them up. At that moment the door opened and the ober-keU^ter himself made his appearance (he had never deigned to look into my room before) with a suggestion that I might like to move downstairs to a magnificent suite of apartments which had just been vacated by Count V.
I stood still and thought a little.
"My bill—I am just leaving, in ten minutes," I cried. "If it's to be Paris, let it be Paris," I thought to myself; "it seems it was fated at my birth!"
A quarter of an hour later we were actually sitting in a reserved compartment. Mile. Blanche, Madame la veuve Cominges and I. Mile. Blanche, looking at me, laughed till she was almost hysterical. Madame de Cominges followed suit; I cannot say that I felt cheerful. My life had broken in two, but since the previous day I had grown used to staking everything on a card. Perhaps it is reaJly the truth that my sudden wealth was too much for me and had turned my head. Peut-etre, je ne demmidcds pas mieux. It seemed to me for a time— but only for a time, the scenes were shifted. "But in a month I shall be here, and then . . . and then we will try our strength, Mr. Astley!" No, as I recall it now, I was awfully sad then, though I did laugh as loudly as that idiot, Blanche.
"But what is the matter with you? How silly you are! Oh! how silly you are!" Blanche kept exclaiming, interrupting her laughter to scold me in earnest. "Oh well, oh well, we'U spend your two hundred thousand francs: but in exchange mcds t<u> seras heweux comme im petit foi; I will tie your cravat myself and introduce you to Hortense. And when we have spent all our money, you will come back here cind break the Ixmk again. What did the Jews tell you? The great thing is— boldness, and you have it, and you will bring me money to Paris more than once again. Qunmt a moi, je veux cmqwmte miUe francs de rentes 06 aHws . . ."
"And the General?" I asked her.
"Why, the General, as you know, comes to see me every day with a bouquet. This time I purposely asked him to get me some very rare flowers. The poor fellow will come back and will find the bird has flown. He'll fly after us, you will see. Ha-ha-ha! I shall be awfully pleased to see him. He'll be of use to me in Paris; Mr. Astley will pay his bill here. . . ."