The Strand Magazine/Volume 2/Issue 8/The Story of a Game
The Story of a Game.
From the French of Albert Delpit.
[Albert Delpit, who was born in 1849, is an American transformed into a Frenchman. His father, a rich tobacco merchant in New Orleans, sent him when a boy to the college of St. Barbe at Paris. His education finished, he was recalled to the United States, to learn his father's business; but a few months were sufficient to convince him that literature had more attractions for him than tobacco. He returned to Paris, where he began to write with much success for various newspapers and magazines. During the Franco-Prussian War, he, like so many other famous men of letters, fought with glory, and was rewarded with the rosette of the Legion of Honour. His poems, plays, and especially his novels, are well known. Short stories he does not greatly cultivate; but the following is an excellent example of his style.]
I.
E were speaking in a club in Paris of the card-sharper who had just been executed, and each was relating his story: our friend Captain I——— alone said nothing.
"Are you going to be the only one who does not furnish his share ?" I asked him.
"Do you really wish it?"
"Certainly!"
"Very well, then. However, I warn you that my story is not in the least like yours, and that my thief is very interesting."
"So much the better! We are listening, my dear fellow."
The Captain lit a cigarette and leaned against the mantelpiece of the salon. We drew up our chairs so as to hear better, with that curious avidity of men, who are, after all, only big children. Outside, a gay May sun was shining through the half-closed shutters.
"The Captain leaned against the mantelpiece."
II.
"Six years ago," said the Captain, "I was commanding a garrison at a wearisome little town in a wearisome little department. Not a distraction; never a theatre; scarcely an atrocious café concert.
"One day, my work being ended, I did not know what to do, and little by little I had taken the habit of going every evening to the Union Club, the only one which the village possessed. It was named thus because they were always disputing there. Generally we played there a little, except during the three large fairs of the year, which lasted each time about eight days.
"One autumn afternoon, towards the commencement of one of these fairs, I arrived at the Club in good time.
"There were many people in the Club whom I did not know: rich farmers who only came rarely to the town, or squires from the country who came to advertise their houses.
"'A good party to-day,' said an habitué to me; it will be curious.'
"I turned towards the table where they were playing, and checked a gesture of surprise. The banker was quite a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three years of age, whom I knew by sight. He interested me, for his father had died very bravely at Magenta, and had left him a small fortune, and a name difficult to equal. He only came rarely to the Club, and did not play. I was therefore very much astonished to see him holding a bank, and a large bank, too, for the notes and coins were piled up before him.
"'How much each time?' asked someone.
"'Oh!' said a fat farmer, laughing, 'M. de Mertens has all the luck; he is able to hold an open bank.'
"The young man was very pale; there was a kind of wildness in his eyes.
"'Open bank!' he stammered.
"This was a signal for his ill-luck. Ten times in succession the unfortunate Mertens lost. In a quarter of an hour the bank had broken.
"Another player took his place, and the play proceeded, so animated, so passionate, that I even allowed myself to be fascinated, and began to play with the others.
"There was no more room round the table, and so I played standing, holding in my hand my hat, into which I nervously threw my gains, which grew larger and larger every minute.
"I instantly seized a hand which held a note."
"The party was more impassioned than ever, when someone cried out to me—
"'Captain, you are being robbed!' "I turned round at once, and instantly seized a hand, the hand of M. de Mertens, which held a note for a thousand francs, which he was taking from me.
"The face of the unfortunate man was convulsed.
"I exchanged a look with him, one only, and I saw something pass in his eyes, now enlarged by fright.
"'M. de Mertens is quite right,' I said, quite coolly, 'and I am surprised that anyone has dared to bring such an accusation against such a man as he; we are associates, and he has taken money for which he has need, that is all.'
"The explanations were brief. It was the first time that the individual who cried out had come to the Club, and he was not acquainted with M. de Mertens. The players, who were standing, were rather anxious; the new comer had seen a hand slip in the hat, and, believing that someone was stealing from me, had cried out. He made profuse apologies to M. de Mertens, whom all sympathised with on the deplorable incident caused by the foolishness of the impolitic individual.
"We then continued playing, and M. de Mertens went out.
"Three days passed, and I received no news from the young man. That he was not wishful to see me was quite natural. In saving him I had saved the posthumous honour of a brave soldier; but still I thought it strange that he should not have found some way of testifying his appreciation of my service.
"A lady was waiting."
"One evening I was just setting out to make some visits, when my orderly told me that a lady was waiting in the salon.
"She was a lady of about forty-five, a face calm and proud, with an honest look.
"'I am Madame de Mertens,' she said. 'My son has told me all, and I have come to thank you for having kept unsullied the honour of our name.'
"'Madame!'
"'My son was foolishly enamoured of a woman, who was always demanding money, and he has ruined himself for her; he has played, he has lost. You know the rest.'
"I was very sorry, for the trouble of this noble woman touched me deeply; she was standing before me, and the tears glistened in her dark eyes.
"'A folly of youth, Madame,' I stammered. 'I will see your son and talk to him.'
"She quietly shook her head.
"'You will not see him, Captain; he is engaged in the Infantry of Marines, and l came when he had departed."
III.
We had listened to Captain I——— without interruption; when he stopped there was a short silence.
"And the end, Captain? What has become of M. de Mertens?"
"He is dead, gentlemen. A few years ago I received a letter, which came from Kélung; a poor little letter, written with pale ink, on paper already yellow. It contained these lines:—
'I am seriously wounded . . . . Admiral Courbet has just brought me the cross . . . . But I am going to die . . . . I send it you, my poor cross, to you who saved me, and I shall be happy if you will wear it.'
"That is the reason, gentlemen, that in place of fastening to my uniform the decoration which the Chancellor of the Légion d'Honneur gave me, I carry the cross of the sergeant of the Marine Infantry, who, after being caught as a thief, died at Kélung like a hero."
