Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/399

 effect favorable to the chevalier during the first deals. But blinded by the excess of his luck, and having exclaimed:—"I will break the bank!" he lost at one deal a considerable sum of money. The colonel, ordinarily immovable in good as well as in bad fortune, took up the chevalier's money with evident manifestations of excessive joy.

From that moment the chevalier's star set to rise no more. Every night he played, and every night he lost, until he had nothing left except two thousand ducats in bills of exchange. He had run about all day to realize this paper, and had returned home at a very late hour. When night came, he prepared to go out provided with his last resources, when Angela, who suspected the truth, stopped him in the way, threw herself at his feet, and with her eyes bathed in tears, supplicated him to renounce his fatal resolution, and refrain from bringing misery upon himself. The chevalier raised her from the ground, embraced her with painful emotion, and said to her in a husky voice:—"Angela, my dear Angela, I must follow my destiny wherever it leads me! But, to-morrow,—to-morrow all thy trials shall be at an end; for, I swear it, I play to-night for the last time! Calm thyself, my sweet friend; sleep, dream of peaceful days, dream of a happy life which thou shalt soon enjoy—that will bring me luck!" Saying these words the chevalier kissed his wife and precipitately fled. He played and lost all. He stood still near the colonel, and fixed his eyes on the gaming table with a sad and stupid look.

"You no longer bet, chevalier?" said the colonel, shuffling the cards for a new deal.

"I am nothing but a beggar," murmured the chevalier in a voice tremulous with fury and despair, and he still kept his eyes fixed upon the table, without seeing that the players were winning more and more from the banker.

The colonel quietly continued the game. "But you have a pretty wife," said he in a low voice, without looking at the chevalier, and shuffling the cards for another deal.—"What is that you say?" exclaimed the chevalier in a rage.—"Ten