Hoffmann's Strange Stories/Chapter 9
THE PHARO BANK.
CHAPTER I.
Prymont, during the summer of 18–, was frequented more than ever by foreign visitors, who have gold in abundance, and the time to spend it. It was a good year for speculators of all kinds who seek their fortunes in the pockets of others. The bankers at games of chance, to better attract the new guests whom they counted upon plucking, had secretly raised their batteries, and the green cloths were astonished at the piles of ducats which sparkled in the light of the wax candles to tempt the cupidity of barons of all countries. The bathing season adds new activity every year to the gambling houses, a power of attraction which is irresistible. There are some people who, during the whole year have not touched a card, and who pass hours and days there around the table like professed gamblers. The fashion requires besides this that all the people who follow it should know how to lose a few pieces of gold gracefully every evening. Nevertheless, this irresistible charm had not been able to seduce a young gentleman baron whom we shall call Siegfried. Instead of following the general rule, our friend preferred long evening walks amid the picturesque views of the country; often he remained shut up in his room, occupying his melancholy leisure with reading or meditations which it would have been difficult for the most cunning to guess the secret of.
Our hero was young, handsome and well put together, rich and of romantic stock, as are nearly all the heroes of romance. There was related concerning him a thousand gallant adventures from which he came off crowned with honor: and the old people who had known him from his birth were never tired of repeating, amongst others, the following story:
Siegfried, before arriving at an age when the law gave him full disposition of his property, found himself once on a time, travelling over hills and through valleys, like a son of noble family, but with such lack of funds, that, to pay his bill at the inn, he was forced to try and sell his gold watch garnished with precious stones. But, instead of having to make this bargain with some thieving and miserly Jew, he met a young lord, who having long desired to possess a watch of this description, bought it without hesitation. One year afterwards, Siegfried read in a gazette of a watch to be put up in a lottery; he took a ticket and won; this watch was the one that he had sold. A little while afterwards he exchanged it for a ring that he fancied. Shortly after this he entered the service of Prince G, as private secretary, and the first present that his highness offered him was again the same watch set with precious stones, and accompanied, this time, by a chain which greatly enhanced its value. I know not how it was that in relating this anecdote the strong dislike that Siegfried manifested towards all games of chance was always spoken of, and many concluded from this that the fine nobleman was miserly to the last degree. There was in this calumny sufficient show of reason to pique his self-esteem. So to give a forcible denial to this slander, he went into the pharo bank, with the determination to play and lose all his money. But fortune was in his favor, and continued so obstinately faithful to him, that in spite of the boldest risks, with the least calculation, he won considerable sums; and at each stake that he pocketed, great was the surprise of the players at seeing the spite which he appeared to feel towards his great luck. The result of this was, that all those who had at first proclaimed him a miser agreed in saying that he was mad. The inexplicable continuance of his luck made him contract the habit, and soon after the passion for play. He became in a short time infatuated.
One evening, as the banker had just finished dealing, Seigfried, on raising his eyes, saw a middle aged man opposite, who fixed upon him a cold and serious look; the impression of this look became stronger every time our hero ceased to follow the game; the eye of the unknown was always there, wild and penetrating as a dagger.
This strange personage did not leave his place to go out of the room, until all of the gold on the table had disappeared.
The following day he came and seated himself in the same place, and fixed the same look upon Seigfried. It was a diabolical fascination from which the young baron could not free himself. Finally, tired of this persistance, he arose and said to him:—"Sir, I beg that you will choose some other place or cease to look at me; you interrupt my play." The unknown smiled sadly, saluted Siegfried, and went out of the room without answering.
But the following night, Siegfried found him again opposite, standing in the same attitude that he ordinarily took; this time his eye had in it something more penetrating.
Siegfried felt the color come into his face; the pertinacity of a man whom he did not know, and with whom he did not care to become acquainted, appeared insulting to him.
"Sir," said he to him in such a manner as to be heard by all present, "if it pleases you to look at me thus, it is not pleasant for me to suffer it any longer."
And, saying this, by an imperious gesture, he pointed to the door of the saloon, as if to intimate to his unknown enemy the order to go out.
The stranger smiled sadly as at first, saluted him without saying a word, and retired.
The excitement produced by the play and the winnings, added to several warm libations, made Siegfried unable to sleep. Towards daylight, as he was moving about on his couch without being able to repose, it suddenly seemed to him that he saw the shadow of the mysterious unknown appear before him. It was the same face wrinkled by grief; it was the same deep and devouring look. His poor habiliments showed, nevertheless, the style of a gentleman, who must have seen better days; and Siegfried remembered with regret that he had treated him thus cavalierly. He finally persuaded himself that the physiognomical expression of the unknown betrayed the anguish of a secret misery augmented by the aspect of a man still rich and whom fortune amused herself by goring with gold at a green covered table. He resolved to go and seek the stranger, cordially ask pardon for his rudeness, and offer him his assistance as delicately as possible.
It chanced that the first person that Siegfried met the next morning on the bather's promenade was this very stranger.
"Sir," said he to him, "I was one or two days ago rude and impolite towards you. I beg that you will allow me apologize." The stranger answered that Siegfried owed him no reparation; that all the wrong, if there were any, was on his part.
Baron Siegfried, piqued by the cool deportment of the gentleman, commenced, for the purpose of sounding him, talking about certain embarrassments in life which render the character hard, and cause the involuntary forgetfulness of what is due to courtesy. He tried to make the stranger understand, with all the skilfulness in such a case, that he should be happy to place at his service the sum he had won, if his luck at play could be transferred.
"Sir," answered the stranger, "you take me for a poor devil, and you are doing an act of liberality; but I am not yet deprived of all resources, for I have so few wants that it is easy for me to satisfy them at a trifling expense. If you think that you have offended me, it is not money that can sooth the pain that you have occasioned me."
"I think that I understand you," replied the baron, calmly, "and I am at your disposal for any satisfaction that you are pleased to require."
"Good heaven, my dear sir," continued the unknown, "the chances of a duel between us would be very unequal. A duel besides appears to me, in general, but a poor game, in which children hurt themselves. But there are certain circumstances in life in which the earth becomes too narrow for two men, and when even one of these men lived on Caucasus and the other on the banks of the Tiber, one of them must be effaced from among the living to allow the other to breathe at ease. In these very rare cases a duel, but a duel without mercy, may become useful, indispensable. As for ourselves, I do not think that we are reduced to this experiment. A single combat would be madness. If I killed you, I should put an end perhaps to days, rich in hope and expectation; if I should fall, you would have put an end to a deplorable existence. You therefore see that the chances would never be equal. Besides, to put an end to this discussion, I assure you that I do not consider myself insulted. You desired me to leave the room, and—I yielded to your wishes—that is all."
The stranger's accent in uttering these words revealed, in spite of his efforts to conceal it, an innate suffering against which he tried in vain to struggle. Siegfried renewed more urgently his frank protestations, accounting for his anger by attributing it to the painful impression produced upon him by the singularly sad look of the stranger.
"May then this look," exclaimed the old man, "remain forever graven upon your memory to preserve you from the dangers which threaten your future. Distrust the uncertainty of gaming before it is too late to throw off the fascination which it already exercises upon you: for in less time than you would believe, I see you ruined and your honor lost!"
The baron could not refrain from repulsing this fatal threat; "all that he should lose amounted," he said, "to two hundred louis d'or; and his pertinacity in playing only proceeded from a formal vow he had taken to triumph over his luck at play, which was tiresome to him beyond all expression."
"Ah!" exclaimed the stranger, "it is precisely that accursed luck which loads you towards destruction. The interest of curiosity which you take in it will change into a delirium of avarice, into a madness for betting, as soon as you shall once have seen your money disappear under the banker's rake or into the pockets of your neighbors. Your manner of doing and acting at the pharo table recalled to me, the bygone days, the unfortunate destiny of a young man who started in this fatal career under the same auspices as yourself. That is the reason, my dear sir, why I contemplated you the other day with so earnest a look; I remembered a life crushed in its flower by the most atrocious passion which has ever ravaged the heart of man. Stay, since we have become acquainted, allow me to relate you this story, not to offer you a lesson, but to give you the advice of a friend, illustrated by an example."
He then seated himself upon a stone bench shaded by elm trees which bordered the promenade; Baron Siegfried took a place by his side, and here is what was related to him:—"Chevalier Menars possessed like yourself, baron, the most distinguished qualities of mind and heart. Nature, in creating him to succeed, had only treated him without liberality as far as the gifts of fortune are concerned. His situation was near to want, and it was only by force of economy that he could meet the expenses required by his rank. But if he could not allow himself the pleasure of gaming, at least he was sheltered from the attacks of this dangerous passion. Living thus, without sacrifices and position, he could very nearly pass for a happy man.
A certain night some friends succeeded in leading him to a gaming house. The game was going on before his eyes, but he followed the chances of it with an impassibility which would have done honor to the gods; he saw, without frowning piles of ducats roll on the table, then disappear under the banker's rake, "Zounds!" suddenly exclaimed an old colonel, "there is the chevalier Menars, a lucky man if there be such. If he would bet for me, I would break the bank immediately."
It was in vain that the chevalier refused, he was obliged to yield to the wishes of the colonel, and take his place at the green table. Unspeakable chance guided his play, so that in a short time he had won a considerable sum for the colonel. But instead of taking pleasure himself in the emotions of the game, he felt his antipathy for this diversion increase from day to day, and he took the resolution never to set foot in any gaming house again. The colonel, who was always unlucky, made useless efforts to induce him to return to his assistance; and it was necessary, to put an end to the importunities of this mad gamester, that the chevalier Menars should formally announce that he would rather fight a thousand duels than to touch another card during his life.
A year from that time the arrival of the miserable sum of money which provided poorly for the subsistence of poor Menars, having been retarded by some accident, he fell into the most cruel penury, and, in spite of the stragglings of self-esteem, he found himself obliged to call upon a friend's purse, who, at least on this occasion, did not hesitate to assist him, only reproaching him with not knowing how to use the resources that his luck at play might create for him. This remark, made by chance, and at a time when poverty so closely pressed upon him, made chevalier Menars reflect; and every night he heard buzzed in his ears the accursed words used in gaming houses, and especially in the pharo banks. The sound of gold pieces vibrated about him everywhere; it was a diabolical temptation. Honest Menars reasoned with himself;—"One single night," said he to himself, "might withdraw me from misery and make the fortune of my whole life; instead of depending upon my friends, I could myself sometimes come to their aid; and then I should be considered, respected, honored! For all this it is only necessary to abandon myself to destiny, to chance."
The lending friend, who heard him speak in this manner took him at his word, and slipped into his pocket twenty golden louis to lead him to the pharo bank. Menars played and won a thousand golden louis without study, and without combination of the cards. He played blind man's buff with fortune; she allowed herself to be caught with exceeding good will.
When the chevalier awoke, the morning after this feverish night, in his own room, his first glance fell upon the piles of louis ranged with care upon his dressing table. He thought at first that he was dreaming; he stretched out his arm to draw the table nearer; then his hand caressed the seductive little pieces which shone coquettishly in the first rays of the rising sun.—The sensation that he then felt decided the course of his life. The poison of avarice penetrated his veins: Menars became suddenly an unbridled gamester, and waited with gnawing impatience the hour for the opening of the gambling houses every evening. Luck was faithful to him, and in a few weeks he had won enormous sums. From this time the chevalier thought no one worthy of risking a few ducats against his heaps of gold. He wanted a broader stage of action; he opened a bank, which became in a short time the richest in Paris. The gamesters flocked to it, and the fortune of Menars took up its abode there. But the gambler's irregular life wore away day by day the heart and soul of the poor man. And there soon remained in him but little of the gentleman; he was now nothing more than a sordid, avaricious gambler. It happened one night that his luck began to turn against him. A little dried up old man, badly dressed, approached the green table, and timidly threw down on a card a well worn louis.—He lost, made his bet again, and lost again; it lasted thus for some time, until the old man, who, in spite of his losses, always doubled his bets, finally lost at a single deal five hundred golden louis.
"Good God! Signor Vertua," exclaimed one of the players; "go on, I beg of you; for, at the game you are playing so well, a chance will come for you, you will break the bank!"
The old man threw a wild look at the man who spoke thus, then he disappeared for a time; but he was soon seen again, upright in his place, and well provided with fresh pieces of gold, which successively went to join the first.
At the end of the play, chevalier Menars stopped the player who had laughed at the old man, and reproached him with compromising the calmness and dignity which ought to reign in the house.
"What!" answered the gamester, "you do not yet know old Francesco Vertua; otherwise you would have found our jests quite natural; know, my dear friend, that this old man Vertua, born at Naples, but who for fifteen years has worried the streets of Paris, is the most rascally usurer on the face of the earth, and I know a thousand individuals whose substance he has swallowed up. It is but just that in his turn he should know by experience what the misery is to which he has reduced so many families. his is the first time that this individual pushes himself into a gambling house; but as the followers of Satan doubt nothing, the idea has come into his head to break your bank, and, without counting chances, he has persisted in losing his last piece of money. This time, at least, I hope that he will not be seen again, and that he will seek in some other place the means of repairing his fortune."
Nevertheless, the following night, Vertua reappeared, played, and lost more than he had the night before. This new reverse of fortune did not diminish his immovability; a smile of bitter irony only curled his lip. Each of the following nights still saw him at his post, and he lost unceasingly; it was calculated that at the end of the week he had passed over to the banker thirty thousand louis. Several days then elapsed without his being seen; but one evening he came, pale and in disorder; he watched the game for some time without speaking, but with sparkling eyes, Then, at the moment when Menars was about to make a new deal, Vertua made his way to his side, and whispered these words hoarsely in his ear:—"Sir, I possess in Rue St. Honoré, a richly furnished house; I have gold plate and jewels to the amount of eighty thousand dollars. Will you take the stake?"
"Let it be so," answered Menars, without turning his head, and he continued the deal. "The queen!" exclaimed the usurer. The queen loses. Vertua staggered like a drunken man, and leaned against the wall, cold and immovable as a statue. Nobody paid any farther attention to him. When the hour for closing the gambling room had arrived, Vertua revived, and dragging himself with faltering footsteps towards the banker, "Mr. Menars," said he to him, "I have a word more to say to you."
"Do it quickly, I am in a hurry," answered Menars in a disdainful tone, drawing the key from his safe and putting it in his pocket. "Sir," continued the old man, "my whole fortune has passed into your hands; I have nothing left; I do not know where I shall lay my head to-morrow, nor how I shall procure a morsel of bread. Well, it is to you that I have recourse. Lend me the tenth part of the sum which you have won from me this last week, so that I can be able to begin business again and try and earn my poor living."
"Are you mad?" interrupted Menars. "Do you imagine that a banker ever lends money to gamblers whom he has broken?"
"You are right," replied the old man; "but the money that I ask of you is not for the purpose of playing against you."
"What matters it!" said Menars, "I do not lend."
"Well then, my worthy sir," continued the old man, whose paleness became more livid, "well then do not lend to me; give me alms."
"Alms! go and ask of those whom your infamous usury has reduced to misery and want."
At these words old Vertua hid his face in his hands, and fell on his knees weeping bitterly. Chevalier Menars had his safe in which was secured his golden gains, carried to his carriage, he then said coldly to the usurer:—"When do you intend, signer Vertua, to give me possession of your house, your plate and jewels?"
"This very moment," exclaimed Vertua, regaining, as if by the aid of a spring, his firmness. "Come, sir, follow me!"
"In that case," continued Menars, "my carriage can take us both there, and I will give you until to-morrow to vacate."
On the road they both kept a mournful silence. When they had arrived, Vertua rang the bell softly; an old woman opened the door.
"Jesus be thanked!" exclaimed she, "you have come at last! my poor young lady Angela is in great anxiety."
"Silence!" said Vertua in a whisper. "May it be that she has not heard the bell; Angela must be ignorant of my return."
When he was alone with the chevalier, in an out of the way room,—"I have a daughter, sir," said he to him; "this is all that remains to me of an existence which might have been happy, if I had not become a victim of the passion for gambling. I formerly travelled over half of Europe, opening pharo banks everywhere, and winning, as you have done, enormous sums. God only knows how many fortunes I have reduced to nothing, as pitilessly as you have swallowed up mine to-day.—Heaven is just, I am well punished. It is not for myself that I regret fortune, but it is for Angela, for my daughter, the last object of my affection, whom I have just condemned to a frightful indigence; she is innocent of my faults, and ought not to have borne the punishment of my passions.—Alas! sir, will you not allow my daughter to carry away her clothing, her ornaments?"
"In no manner do I oppose it," answered the chevalier; "you can carry away the household utensils that are indispensible to you. I do not pretend to exercise my right on anything except upon the real property that you declared to me."
The old man Vertua fixed his moistened eyes upon the chevalier without speaking a single word. Finally, overcome by emotion, he burst out into weeping and moaning, and,
"Ah! decidedly," replied the chevalier, "this comedy is tiresome and annoying—let us end it!"
At this moment the door is opened; a young girl, in tears, half dressed, threw herself into the room where this scene was passing. "My father! my father!" exclaimed she, "I have heard everything. You have then lost all? all? And your Angela, you forgot her! You did not think then that the day you became unfortunate you would have a daughter left to love you and take care of you in your old age! I will work for your support, my father; come, let us quit this house, let us fly from the sight of this cruel man who gloats over your despair; we shall find some home where, with my labor, and the assistance of God, I shall be able to place you at your ease."
Before this picture of angelic filial piety, chevalier Menars felt the sting of remorse penetrate his soul. It seemed to him that he saw in this beautiful young girl the angel chosen by heaven to condemn his hardness of heart. He could not bear the energetic look of Angela, who treated him thus scornfully. She was so admirably beautiful, that it was impossible to see her thus without feeling the ardor of extreme love. Chevalier Menars remained as if fascinated by the magnetism of this apparition; and pointing with his finger to a casket that a servant had just brought into the room, he exclaimed:—"Take back this accursed money; I did not win it; I cannot keep it, I will give you even more. Take it, take it"
But Angela proudly repulsed this concession;—"It is not," said she, "either gold or fortune that assures the happiness of God's nobly endowed creatures; carry off those vile riches for which you sacrifice without shame all that men hold sacred. Go, and may they surround you with a curse that nothing shall efface."
"Yes," then exclaimed chevalier Menars, beside himself; "yes, I am accursed, I know it; but can you really pronounce a curse without hope! Oh, Angela, the sight of you alone has caused an inexpressible change in me; but you cannot and will not understand me; bet yet it imports, to me, death or life. For I love you, Angela, I feel it and I cannot refrain from it. I can renounce, for your sake, my gambler's life. I can, with the gold that I possess, expiate my past life by benefiting all around me. But if I do not succeed in gaining your good opinion, you will soon see me fall dead at your feet!" and, under the influence of this fiery exaltation, chevalier Menars sprang out of the room like a madman. Old Vertua, who first thought of the necessity of regaining his fortune, wished to try this opportunity, and pressed Angela to become the chevalier's guardian angel.—But the noble young girl forcibly rejected this proposition.—Nevertheless, whilst the gambler Menars only appeared to her worthy of contempt, fate, which so victoriously plays with our wills and feelings, gradually prepared the accomplishment of this long rejected union. Chevalier Menars suddenly decided upon changing his course of life. He shut up his pharo bank, and he was no longer met with in any gambling house. The strangest and most contradictory reports were circulated concerning him; but instead of paying heed to them, he became more and more savage and inaccessible.—Angela was not ignorant of the change that had taken place in him. Her woman's vanity, flattered by such a proof of his passion, became gradually a serious and intimate affection. When, several months after their first interview, she met the chevalier in a walk of Malmaison park, she could not refrain from a shudder. He was so pale, so cast down, appeared to be suffering so much, so unhappy!—Vertua, who did not lose sight of his marriage project, from which he expected to make an excellent speculation, gave him a very friendly salutation, and begged him to come and visit them in his house Rue Saint Honoré.
The chevalier took care not to refuse an invitation so favorable in his passion. His visits became frequent, and his love for the young girl grew day by day; so that finally, persuaded that she really loved chevalier Menars, she consented to give him her hand.
Several days after the betrothal, Angela, whilst looking from her window, saw a fine regiment of cavalry on the march to Spain defile before her. Passing before Vertua's house, one of the soldiers reined in his horse, and, freeing himself from the ranks, made several signs of adieu to the young girl. This soldier was the son of a neighbor of Vertua, named Duvernet. Brought up almost from infancy quite near her, this young man had accustomed himself to loving the young girl, whom he saw every day; and he had only ceased visiting Vertua on learning the object of the attentions of chevalier Menars, and the good reception that he received. Then knowing that his love was hopeless, he had enlisted.
Vertua's daughter could not well hide the impression that she had received, so that her father and the chevalier himself might have guessed that something strange was passing in her heart. But Angela did not allow her secret to escape; the assiduous attentions of the chevalier besides effaced the remembrance of Duvernet from her mind, and marriage, which soon launched her into a new kind of existence, was an aurora of happiness which was only saddened by the sudden death of Vertua. The old gambler died unrepenting the sin of his life. At his last moments his fingers closed as if to shuffle, cut and deal the cards; and the last words which escaped from his lips with his last breath were the banker's cry:—"Loses! wins!"
When Angela saw herself left alone in the world with the chevalier, the remembrance of the last words of her father, and the agonizing crisis which had brought back to him before death his fatal gambler's instinct, came to make her fear that this terrible passion might be in her husband a fire smouldering beneath the ashes which the least spark could reanimate and kindle into a blaze; her sad forebodings were too soon changed into a painful certainty. Whatever terror the manner of death of old Francesco Vertua had occasioned in the mind of the chevalier, the effect of the spectacle was, notwithstanding, such as to awake in him the but too active thoughts of gambling; and, without his being able himself to account for his sensations, he saw himself every night in a dream seated at a bank, gathering again heaps of gold,—his evil star regaining its influence.
The meeting with a perverted man, an old attendant upon the chevalier's bank, ended in convincing him that his conduct was weak and ridiculous; he was astonished at having been able to sacrifice to his love for a woman the pleasures of an existence alone enviable.
Several months after, chevalier Menar's bank was reopened. His luck was true to him, gold rained down upon him; but Angela's happiness had vanished like a beautiful dream. The chevalier now only treated her with indifference, almost with scorn. Weeks, whole months elapsed, and she saw him not; an old servant took care of the house, and the under servants were constantly changed at the caprice of the chevalier; so that Angela, like a stranger in her own house, found no where the least consolation. Often when she heard during her wakeful nights the chevalier's carriage step before the house, and the chevalier's voice in rude tones ordering the heavy cash box to be brought in, and then the door of his distant chamber shut noisily, a torrent of bitter tears ran down her cheeks; a hundred times, in the anguish of her despair, the name of Duvernet escaped from her lips, and she supplicated Providence to put an end to her miserable existence thus poisoned by grief.
It happened that a young man of good family, after having lost all his fortune at the chevalier's bank, blew his brains out with a pistol at the very table on which they were playing. The chevalier alone preserved his coldness, and seeing that every body was leaving, asked if it was the custom to quit play before the usual hour on account of a young madman who did not know how to conduct himself. This accident caused a great sensation. The unexampled conduct of the chevalier disgusted the most hardened gamblers; there was universal disapproval, and the police suppressed Menars' bank. He was accused, besides, of fraudulent practices; his singular luck gave only too much weight to this accusation. He could not defend himself, and the enormous fine that was imposed upon him deprived him of a great part of his riches. He saw himself insulted, shamed;—he then returned to the arms of his wife, who, in spite of his ill treatment, willingly received him in his repentance; for the remembrance of her father, who had thus abjured the irregularity of gaming, allowed her to catch a gleam of hope, and the ripened age of the chevalier was another reason for her to believe his conversion real and durable. They both left Paris and went to Genoa, the birthplace of Angela.
The chevalier lived there at first in a very retired manner; but he could never rëestablish those sweet domestic relations that his evil genius had destroyed. The calm was of short duration. His bad reputation had followed him from Paris to Genoa, and in spite of the almost irresistible temptation which he felt to open a bank, he was absolutely forbidden to do so.
At this time the richest bank in Genoa was kept by a French colonel, who had been forced by serious wounds to quit the service. The chevalier presented himself at this bank with mixed feelings of envy and hatred, but with the idea that his habitual luck would soon enable him to ruin his rival. At the sight of the chevalier, the colonel, with a gaiety which contrasted strongly with his usually serious manners, said that from that moment alone, gambling received for him a real attraction, when it became necessary to struggle against the luck of chevalier Menars. The cards were in effect favorable to the chevalier during the first deals. But blinded by the excess of his luck, and having exclaimed:—"I will break the bank!" he lost at one deal a considerable sum of money. The colonel, ordinarily immovable in good as well as in bad fortune, took up the chevalier's money with evident manifestations of excessive joy.
From that moment the chevalier's star set to rise no more. Every night he played, and every night he lost, until he had nothing left except two thousand ducats in bills of exchange. He had run about all day to realize this paper, and had returned home at a very late hour. When night came, he prepared to go out provided with his last resources, when Angela, who suspected the truth, stopped him in the way, threw herself at his feet, and with her eyes bathed in tears, supplicated him to renounce his fatal resolution, and refrain from bringing misery upon himself. The chevalier raised her from the ground, embraced her with painful emotion, and said to her in a husky voice:—"Angela, my dear Angela, I must follow my destiny wherever it leads me! But, to-morrow,—to-morrow all thy trials shall be at an end; for, I swear it, I play to-night for the last time! Calm thyself, my sweet friend; sleep, dream of peaceful days, dream of a happy life which thou shalt soon enjoy—that will bring me luck!" Saying these words the chevalier kissed his wife and precipitately fled. He played and lost all. He stood still near the colonel, and fixed his eyes on the gaming table with a sad and stupid look.
"You no longer bet, chevalier?" said the colonel, shuffling the cards for a new deal.
"I am nothing but a beggar," murmured the chevalier in a voice tremulous with fury and despair, and he still kept his eyes fixed upon the table, without seeing that the players were winning more and more from the banker.
The colonel quietly continued the game. "But you have a pretty wife," said he in a low voice, without looking at the chevalier, and shuffling the cards for another deal.—"What is that you say?" exclaimed the chevalier in a rage.—"Ten thousand ducats, or your Angela," said the colonel, half turning towards him as he handed the cards to him to cut.
"You are mad!" exclaimed the chevalier, who had meanwhile recovered his coolness, and perceived that the colonel was losing incessantly.
"I will play twenty thousand ducats against Angela," said the colonel again in a low voice to the chevalier, stopping a moment whilst shuffling the cards. The chevalier was silent; the colonel commenced the game, and nearly all the cards were against him. "Agreed!" said the chevalier in the colonel's ear as he began a new deal; and he laid the queen on the gaming table.
At the first play the queen lost. The chevalier stepped back, gnashed. his teeth, and went to the window, against which he leaned, despair and death painted upon his face.—The play was over. The colonel approached the chevalier and said in a mocking manner:—"Well! what is the matter with you?"
"Ah!" exclaimed the chevalier, distractedly, "you have reduced me to beggary; but you must be mad to suppose that you could win my wife. Is a woman a slave to be disposed of by a master, who in a moment of infamous blindness has been capable of selling her or staking her against a sum of money at a gaming table? But, as you would have had to pay twenty thousand ducats had the queen won, it is just. Come then and have the disappointment of being repulsed with horror by her.
"Despair yourself, chevalier," replied the colonel in a Satanic tone; "despair yourself when you see her joyfully throw herself into my arms,—when you learn the consecration of our union and the happiness which must crown our most cherished desires!—You call me a madman, chevalier, I only wished to win the right to claim her from you! Your wife's consent belongs to me already; for know that she has long loved me. Learn that I am Duvernet, the son of Vertua's neighbor, brought up with Angela, united to her by an ardent love, and separated from her by your Satanic seductions. It was only, alas! at my departure for the army that Angela knew the sympathy which existed between us; I have learned all, it was too late! A hellish inspiration told me that I should succeed in ruining you at play, that is why I gave myself up to it. I followed you to Genoa and I succeeded! Now let us go and look for your wife!"
The chevalier was annihilated. A thousand poignards pierced his heart. This fatal secret was at last revealed to him; he now understood to what excess of suffering poor Angela had been subjected. He mechanically followed the colonel, who walked rapidly on. When they arrived, and as the colonel had already placed his hand on Angela's chamber door, the chevalier drew him back quickly, exclaiming:—"My wife is sleeping, you will only trouble her repose!" "Nonsense," replied the colonel, "do you think that she has ever enjoyed a moment of peaceful slumber since you have devoted her to such miserable anguish?" And the colonel, pushing him firmly aside, was about to enter, when Menars threw himself at his feet, exclaiming in frightful despair:—"For pity's sake! for heaven's sake! after having reduced me to beggary, leave, leave me my wife!"
"It was thus that old Vertua was before you, without being able to soften your stony heart. Suffer then heaven's vengeance!" Saying this, he again approached Angela's chamber. The chevalier sprang with a bound, violently pushed open the door, ran to the bed, crying out:—"Angela! Angela!" He bent over her, took her hand
Then stopping suddenly and trembling convulsively, he stretched himself up to his full height and cried out in a loud voice:—"Look! you have won the body of my wife!"
The colonel shudderingly approached the bed.
Angela lay cold and pale. She was dead! grief had destroyed her. At the sight colonel Duvernet uttered a lamentable cry and ran madly out of this house of mourning.—He was never seen more.