Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/274

264 go home and tell my story, I shall have to meet reproaches, and even a wounded surprise from Dora. "If you could do all this I think a few pounds for our pressing necessities could have been no great sin." No great sin! Certainly not, my pet; and your gentle soul is scarcely trained enough to appreciate these niceties. The example is something; but you would hardly follow me if I said that by way of punishment to them it would be no such harm.

With light heart I went in again. I saw a ruefulness and distrust in the pinched face of M. B. He knew that I knew him and his ways. He knew, too—for these men note the most trifling incidents of the day—that I had got back from them everything they had tricked me out of, and more. I could see the mortification in his eyes. Studying the game more carefully, it is amazing what fresh lights and instincts break in on me. If I had but time I could develop the whole into a science, whose certainty and accuracy would be assured. But your pedant, even if he knew its rules, would infallibly break down; because, like the skilful general, there are moments when you must fling away rule and trust to instinct—a glorious instinct, quite as infallible. I felt it all to-day, and scarcely ever was at fault. The strangest "power" I see is that of Zero, and there is one man present, who I admit, has some of this instinct with a true knowledge of the laws and seasons that relate to this Zero. I see too plainly the most amazing results could be obtained. . . .. I am half provoked with myself for not obeying the silent supernatural invitations I received a dozen times to-day—it is like flinging away the blessings of nature, ever bountiful. If they challenge me in this way so persistently—well, before I go, a few minutes—as an experiment—— Midnight.—O wretched, miserable, weak fool, I deserve it all, every bit of it! It was blind, cursed folly, and madness! O, what is to become of me now? All gone! All this money—I don't know how much, and what does it matter now? O, I must hold my very heart—I cannot breathe. O wicked, wicked, vile scoundrel! What am I to do? Nothing left—all gone—and I cannot fly from this place! O den of thieves and worse than murderers, you have undone me at last! Let me see, now, let me turn out these pockets. Yes, five, six florins, and three wretched kreutzers; and one—yes, and another—just two napoleons left. O you fool, you base, mean, pitiful scoundrel! What is to become of me now? Their devilish seduction—letting me win at first, then a little loss, and that desperate doubling to get all back! My brains, my wits, all fled, and I saw nothing but the cursed green board. If I had had a hundred more it must have followed, for it was a necessity I should get it back. O, it will never come back, and I am ruined and disgraced for ever. Let me die. I cannot show my face.

Thus the whole of that day went by—I, with a sort of restless demon locked up in me, which would not allow me to remain quiet three minutes in one position. If I sit for a few minutes, flutter, flutter, begins every nerve in my whole system. My heart throbs as if from machinery, and the only thing, it seems, that can save me, is to leap up and walk—walk furiously, in any direction. Passing by objects swiftly,—trees, men, and women—that gives me a relief, that headlong motion disturbs the beat of the pendulum, and whirling wheels. I have not time to think from the physical action. Oh, such a long, long day! O the leaden wings of the hours dragging on like the foreshadowed eternity! . .. I dared not go near that terrible red-stone palace. I shrank from it as from a burning furnace, whose glow spread for half a mile round—from itself, from its gardens, from the very look, seen so far off. I was carrying the raging glowing embers of a stove within me. Oh, the miles I paced up and down and round those streets, something drawing me, and I struggling against the influence, to the red sandstone palace.

But at last the noon was past—the evening came; and then I knew the lamps had been brought in there, and the true business begun. The brigands and ruffians who had stopped me and pillaged me, had other prey now. Oh, those hours!—then the night! . ..

 

