Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/388

 "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