I saw that things were coming along between them, but kept silent as usual. Blanche was the first to announce it to me: this was exactly a week before we parted. “Il a de la chance,”[83] she rattled out to me, “babouchka is really sick now and will certainly die. Mr. Astley sent a telegram. You must admit that he is her heir after all. And even if he’s not, he won’t hinder anything. First, he has his pension, and second, he’ll live in the side room and be perfectly happy. I’ll be ‘madame la générale.’ I’ll get into a good circle” (Blanche constantly dreamed of that), “later on I’ll become a Russian landowner, j’auraiunchâteau, des moujiks, et puis j’aurai toujours mon million.”[84]
“Well, but if he begins to get jealous, demands…God knows what—you understand?”
“Oh, no, non, non, non! he won’t dare! I’ve taken measures, don’t worry. I’ve already made him sign several promissory notes in Albert’s name. One slip—and he’ll be punished at once; but he won’t dare!”
“Well, so marry him…”
The wedding was quiet and familial, with no great pomp. Among those invited were Albert and a few close acquaintances. Hortense, Cléopatre, and the rest were decidedly excluded. The groom was exceedingly concerned with his position. Blanche herself tied his necktie, pomaded him, and in his tailcoat and white waistcoat he looked très comme il faut.
“Il est pourtant très comme il faut,’[85] Blanche herself announced to me, coming out of the general’s room, as if the idea that the general was très comme il faut struck even her. I entered so little into the details, taking part in it all in the capacity of such a lazy spectator, that I’ve forgotten much that went on. I only remember that Blanche turned out not to be de Cominges at all, just as her mother was not la veuve Cominges at all, but du Placet. Why they were both de Cominges up to then, I don’t know. But the general remained pleased with that as well, and liked du Placet even more than de Cominges. The morning of the wedding, already fully dressed, he kept pacing the reception room, repeating to himself with an extremely grave and important air: “Mlle Blanche du Placet! Blanche du Placet! Du Placet! Miss Blanca du Placet!…” And a certain self-satisfaction shone in his face. In church, at the mayor’s, and at home over the hors d’oeuvres, he was not only joyful and content, but even proud. Something happened with the two of them. Blanche also acquired an air of some special dignity.
“I must behave quite differently now,” she said to me with extreme seriousness, “mais vois-tu, I haven’t thought about this one nasty thing: imagine, I still can’t learn my new last name: Zagoryansky, Zagoziansky, madame la générale de Sago-Sago, ces diables des noms russe, enfin madame la générale à quatorze consonnes! Comme c’est agréable, n’est-ce pas?”[86]
Finally we parted, and Blanche, that silly Blanche, even became tearful, saying good-bye to me. “Tu étais bon enfant,” she said, snuffling. “Je te croyais bête et tu en avais l’air,[87] but it suits you.” And, already pressing my hand for the last time, she suddenly exclaimed: “Attends! ”, rushed to her boudoir and a moment later brought me out two thousand-franc banknotes. I would never have believed it! “This may come in handy. You may be a very learned outchitel, but you’re a very stupid man. I won’t give you more than two thousand, because you’ll gamble it away in any case. Well, good-bye! Nous serons toujours bons amis, and if you win again, be sure to come to me, et tu seras heureux! ”[88]
I still have about five hundred francs left; besides, I have a magnificent watch worth a thousand francs, diamond cuff links and the like, so I may still last a rather long time without worrying about anything. I’ve purposely lodged myself in this little town in order to pull myself together, but I’m mainly waiting for Mr. Astley. I’ve learned for certain that he’ll be passing through and will stop here for a day on business. I’ll find out about everything…and then—then go straight to Homburg. I won’t go to Roulettenburg, or not until next year. Indeed, they say it bodes ill to try your luck twice in a row at one and the same table, and Homburg is also where the real gambling is.
CHAPTER XVII
IT’S A YEAR AND eight months since I’ve looked at these notes, and only now, out of anguish and grief, has it occurred to me to divert myself and by chance read through them. So I left off then on the point of going to Homburg. God! with what a—comparatively speaking—light heart I wrote those last lines then! That is, not really with a light heart—but with what self-assurance, with what unshakable hopes! Did I at least have some doubts of myself? And here over a year and a half has gone by, and in my opinion I’m much worse than a beggar! What’s a beggar! Spit on beggary! I’ve simply ruined myself! However, there’s hardly anything that compares to it, and there’s no point in reading moral lessons to myself! Nothing could be more absurd than moral lessons at such a moment! Oh, self-satisfied people: with what proud self-satisfaction such babblers are ready to utter their pronouncements! If they only knew to what degree I myself understand all the loathsomeness of my present condition, they wouldn’t have the heart to teach me. Well, what, what new thing can they say to me that I don’t know myself? And is that the point? The point here is that—one turn of the wheel, and everything changes, and these same moralizers will be the first (I’m sure of it) to come with friendly jokes to congratulate me. And they won’t all turn away from me as they do now. Spit on them all! What am I now? Zéro. What may I be tomorrow? Tomorrow I may rise from the dead and begin to live anew! I may find the man in me before he’s lost!
I actually went to Homburg then, but…later I was in Roulettenburg again, I was in Spa as well, I was even in Baden, where I went as the valet of the councillor Hintze, a scoundrel and my former master here. Yes, I was also a lackey, for five whole months! That happened right after prison. (I got to prison in Roulettenburg for a debt I incurred here. An unknown person bought me out—who was it? Mr. Astley? Polina? I don’t know, but the debt was paid, two hundred thalers in all, and I was released.) Where was I to go? I went to work for this Hintze. He’s a young and flighty man, likes to be lazy, and I can speak and write in three languages. I began working for him as some sort of secretary, for thirty guldens a month; but I ended in real lackeydom with him: he didn’t have the means to keep a secretary, and he lowered my salary; since I had nowhere to go, I stayed—and thus turned myself into a lackey. I ate little and drank little while with him, and that way I saved seventy guldens in five months. One evening in Baden, I announced to him that I wished to part with him; that same evening I went to play roulette. Oh, how my heart throbbed! No, it wasn’t money that was dear to me! My only wish then was that the next day all those Hintzes, all those hotel managers, all those magnificent Baden ladies—that they would all be talking about me, telling my story, astonished at me, praising me, and bowing before my new winnings. That was all childish dreams and concerns, but…who knows, maybe I’d meet Polina, too, and tell her, and she’d see that I was above all these absurd jolts of fate…Oh, it’s not money that’s dear to me! I’m sure I would have frittered it all away on some Blanche again and driven around Paris for three weeks with my own pair of horses worth sixteen thousand francs. I know for certain that I’m not stingy: I even think I’m a spendthrift—and yet, even so, with what trepidation, with what a sinking heart I listen to the cry of the croupier: trente-et-un, rouge, impaire et passe, or quatre, noir, pair et manque! With what greed I look at the gaming table, scattered with louis d’or, friedrichs d’or, and thalers, at the stacks of gold, when the croupier’s rake breaks it up into piles, burning like fire, or the two-foot stacks of silver lying around the wheel. Already as I approach the gaming room, from two rooms away, the moment I hear the clink of spilling money—I almost go into convulsions.