Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/273

Charles Dickens] which make six louis, and nearly another louis in single florins, nearly seven louis profit. Nearly the sixth of our rent. O, Heaven is good—too good to me. I do not deserve such bounty; for only think what it would have been had I lost all that! What would have been my state of agony and despair! Safe, rescued, restored, I have done with them now for ever, for ever. Ministers of Mephistopheles, you did your best with me, but you have come out of the fight rather the worse, I think. You had nearly been successful, but you will not find us all victims. Some of us are your match. I feel so well and happy, I shall feast royally, that is, treat myself to a little bottle of Hockheimer. I have been so low, I want it.

To-day has quite an air of a festival. I see the singing Diva. The little lady with the marble face and projecting chin is singing, and I think after my victories two or three florins' worth of sweet music will be welcome. I so love music, though not this opera. I had wished for the melodious Traviata, often promised and denied by this tricky administration. To-night it is Crispino, a sparkling little comic opera, full of pretty tunes, and well suited to the tricks and caprices of the little lady whom we call a Diva, for the lack of a better one. I must say I am a little dazzled by what the administration have done in the way of a theatre. A more gorgeous and elegant little temple of its size it would not be possible to frame. Well filled, charming dresses, and elegant people. I see near me, in the stalls, a little party whom I have noticed often; a young girl, so strangely like my Dora at home, that it makes me start; the same rich dark hair, the same refined turn in the face, the same look of sparkling gaiety and enjoyment which was Dora's attraction, with large heavy Italian earrings that seemed almost Indian in shape. A dull Englishman beside her talked and whispered the whole time, and prevented her attending to the music—I dare say thought he was recommending himself vastly. I could wish she had snubbed him as he deserved. I am in such spirits and shall go out now, have a cup of coffee and chocolate, and then walk about the gardens in the balmy night air, looking up at the illuminated terrace. I have grown quite fond of that pacing up and down in these gardens so late. Such dreams and speculations have floated before me there as I look up to the calm and placid sky over the trees!

I can almost smile at myself and my awful state yesterday. I am far too sensitive, and I am sure if any of these good and proper people here—had they lost money even that did not belong to them—would take it quietly enough. Their withers would not be wrung on such provocation, and they would make some complacent excuses to themselves. Some would say I was scrupulous, too scrupulous; which would be according to their imperfect lights. How can they tell, or what can they know? I pierce deeper, and can tell them it was another matter, some thousand miles away, I was thinking of. It was my Dora and home that was present to me—her dear letter and distresses. "A dark cloud," she wrote, in her graphic style, "which will pass away." This was what was overshadowing me. This unselfish motive, as indeed, without vanity, I may call it. I was not thinking of a trumpery loss, and of such poor contemptible enemies, whose game is in my hands, and who are almost children to me at their own weapons and machinery, which take in a few fools, and them only. And, by the way, how curious the analogy here, even to morals and virtue. What a testimony to the great and good advice, which so often goes in at one ear and out at the other, not to be dispirited at a reverse, but "bide your time." Even to their debasing chicanery that golden rule applies. Valuable lesson, indeed; though I had a distinct idea there could be no doubt about it. There is a uniformity in all these dispensations which applies universally; and thus, à la Jaques, we find good in everything.

What a thing the sense of power is! Poor "huckaback" minds of the common cheap pattern, never can look beyond the immediate moment. Defeat or repulse for a time is with them defeat for ever. They cannot understand the masterly policy of retreat preparatory to an advance—the "reculer pour mieux sauter." The timid and ignorant dabbler in the funds sells on a fall; the spirited speculator holds and buys more. So with your common vulgar players, who fly disheartened by a loss. The rascals who hold the tables know this well. They thought I would have done the same. I am tempted to try and give them a lesson once and for ever. It would be a bit of triumph to show them my skill fairly, and I do not see that I am bound to show them any quarter. They would have shown me none yesterday. Our government gives the criminal no quarter, and takes his spoil from him. I dare say when I