“No, Mr. Astley, after all that’s been said now…”
“Ta-a-ake it!” he cried. “I’m convinced that you are still a noble person, and I’m giving it to you as a friend can give to a true friend. If I could be certain that you would give up gambling right now, leave Homburg, and go to your own country—I would be ready to give you a thousand pounds immediately to start a new career. But I precisely do not give you a thousand pounds, but give you only ten louis d’or, because whether it’s a thousand pounds or ten louis d’or at the present time is perfectly one and the same to you; all the same—you’ll gamble it away. Take it, and farewell.”
“I’ll take it, if you’ll allow me to embrace you in farewell.”
“Oh, with pleasure!”
We embraced sincerely, and Mr. Astley left.
No, he’s wrong! If I was sharp and stupid about Polina and des Grieux, he is sharp and hasty about Russians. I’m not talking about myself. However…however, meanwhile that’s all not it. It’s all words, words, words, and we want deeds! The main thing now is Switzerland! Tomorrow—oh, if only I could set out tomorrow! To be born anew, to resurrect. I must prove to them…Let Polina know that I can still be a human being. All it takes…now it’s late, though—but tomorrow…Oh, I have a presentiment, and it cannot be otherwise! I have fifteen louis d’or now, and I began once with only fifteen guldens! If you begin cautiously…—and can I possibly, can I possibly be such a little child? Can I possibly not understand myself that I’m a lost man? But—why can’t I resurrect? Yes! it only takes being calculating and patient at least once in your life and—that’s all! It only takes being steadfast at least once, and in an hour I can change my whole destiny! The main thing is character. Only remember what happened to me of this sort seven months ago in Roulettenburg, before I lost definitively. Oh, it was a remarkable case of determination: I lost everything then, everything…I walk out of the vauxhall, I look—one last gulden is stirring in my waistcoat pocket: “Ah, so I’ll have money for dinner!” I thought, but after going a hundred steps, I changed my mind and went back. I staked that gulden on manque (that time it was manque), and, truly, there’s something peculiar in the feeling when, alone, in a foreign land, far from your own country and your friends, and not knowing what you’re going to eat that day, you stake your last gulden, your very, very last! I won, and twenty minutes later left the vauxhall with a hundred and seventy guldens in my pocket. That’s a fact, sirs! There’s what your last gulden can sometimes mean! And what if I had lost heart then, what if I hadn’t dared to venture?…
Tomorrow, tomorrow it will all be over!