hand, and on that of the others my stakes were insignificant, but each time that I touched the cards my luck was so marvelous that at first a deep silence prevailed about me, succeeded, when I threw down, by something like a thrill of admiration. If it had not been for that admiration, perhaps I might have had the courage to quit. Alas! I have always had the self-esteem of Satan himself, and it has got me into a hundred scrapes, and will get me into many another before I die. I know it, I confess it, but there is no use talking; when the gallery has its eyes on me, I can't endure to have people say: 'He has backed down.' To be like that when the scene is laid upon the bridge of Arcola is sublime, but at a baccarat table, while awaiting the turn of a card, it is idiotic, and yet it was owing to nothing in the world but that childish vanity that, after having cut such a dash with my good luck, I was unwilling to submit to the bad when I saw it coming my way. For I did see it; there came a moment when I understood that I was going to lose, and the sort of clear-sightedness of victory that had made me take up my cards with absolute confidence all at once grew dim. It was written that in the course of one sitting I was to become acquainted with all the emotions that gambling affords its devotees, for after having known the intoxicating delight of winning I had the cold, cutting intoxication of losing. Ah! it is all the same. You know the celebrated mot: 'At cards, after the pleasure of winning comes the pleasure of losing.' I know of no other expression that so well depicts that morbid eagerness, that mixture of hope and despair, of cool calculation and rash daring. We look to vanquish
