Page:Hoffmann's Strange Stories - Hoffman - 1855.djvu/400

 thousand ducats, or your Angela," said the colonel, half turning towards him as he handed the cards to him to cut.

"You are mad!" exclaimed the chevalier, who had meanwhile recovered his coolness, and perceived that the colonel was losing incessantly.

"I will play twenty thousand ducats against Angela," said the colonel again in a low voice to the chevalier, stopping a moment whilst shuffling the cards. The chevalier was silent; the colonel commenced the game, and nearly all the cards were against him. "Agreed!" said the chevalier in the colonel's ear as he began a new deal; and he laid the queen on the gaming table.

At the first play the queen lost. The chevalier stepped back, gnashed. his teeth, and went to the window, against which he leaned, despair and death painted upon his face.—The play was over. The colonel approached the chevalier and said in a mocking manner:—"Well! what is the matter with you?"

"Ah!" exclaimed the chevalier, distractedly, "you have reduced me to beggary; but you must be mad to suppose that you could win my wife. Is a woman a slave to be disposed of by a master, who in a moment of infamous blindness has been capable of selling her or staking her against a sum of money at a gaming table? But, as you would have had to pay twenty thousand ducats had the queen won, it is just. Come then and have the disappointment of being repulsed with horror by her.

"Despair yourself, chevalier," replied the colonel in a Satanic tone; "despair yourself when you see her joyfully throw herself into my arms,—when you learn the consecration of our union and the happiness which must crown our most cherished desires!—You call me a madman, chevalier, I only wished to win the right to claim her from you! Your wife's consent belongs to me already; for know that she has long loved me. Learn that I am Duvernet, the son of Vertua's neighbor, brought up with Angela, united to her by an