Page:The London Magazine, volume 8 (July–December 1823).djvu/143

 the steps of the waltzers were still audible, appeared to present a fair opportunity. Thither he repaired; but not without some anxiety, lest some of the noises in his own lodgings should have reached the houses over the way. He was happy to find this fear unfounded. Every thing appeared as if calculated only for his senses: for when he inquired with assumed carelessness what great explosion that was which occurred about midnight, nobody acknowledged to having heard it.

The dice also, he was happy to find, answered his expectations. He found a company engaged at play: and by the break of day he had met with so much luck, that he was immediately able to travel back to the baths, and to redeem his child and his word of honour.

In the baths he now made as many new acquaintances as the losses were important which he had lately sustained. He was reputed one of the wealthiest cavaliers in the place; and many who had designs upon him in consequence of this reputed wealth, willingly lost money to him to favour their own schemes: so that in a single month he gained sums which would have established him as a man of fortune. Under countenance of this repute, and as a widower, no doubt he might now have made successful advances to the young lady whom he had formerly pursued: for her father had an exclusive regard to property; and would have overlooked morals and respectability of that sort in any candidate for his daughter’s hand. But with the largest offers of money, he could not purchase his freedom from the contract made with his landlord’s daughter—a woman of very disreputable character. In fact, six months after the death of his first wife, he was married to her.

By the unlimited profusion of money with which his second wife sought to wash out the stains upon her honour, Rudolph’s new raised property was as speedily squandered. To part from her was one of the wishes which lay nearest his heart: he had however never ventured to express it a second time before his father-in-law: for on the single occasion when he had hinted at such an intention, that person had immediately broken out into the most dreadful threats. The murder of his first wife was the chain which bound him to his second. The boy, whom his first wife had left him, closely as he resembled her in features and in the bad traits of her character, was his only comfort—if indeed his gloomy and perturbed mind would allow him at any time to taste of comfort.

To preserve this boy from the evil influences of the many bad examples about him, he had already made an agreement with a man of distinguished abilities, who was to have superintended his education in his own family. But all was frustrated. Madame Von Schrollshausen, whose love of pomp and display led her eagerly to catch at every pretext for creating a fête, had invited a party on the evening before the young boy’s intended departure. The time which was not occupied in the eating-room, was spent at the gaming-table, and dedicated to the dice, of whose extraordinary powers the owner was at this time availing himself with more zeal than usual—having just invested all his disposable money in the purchase of a landed estate. One of the guests having lost very considerable sums in an uninterrupted train of ill-luck, threw the dice, in his vexation, with such force upon the table, that one of them fell down. The attendants searched for it on the floor; and the child also crept about in quest of it: not finding it, he rose; and in rising stepped upon it, lost his balance, and fell with such violence against the edge of the stove—that he died in a few hours of the injury inflicted on the head.

This accident made the most powerful impression upon the father. He recapitulated the whole of his life from the first trial he had made of the dice. From them had arisen all his misfortunes. In what way could he liberate himself from their accursed influence?—Revolving this point, and in the deepest distress of mind, Schroll wandered out towards nightfall and strolled through the town. Coming to a solitary bridge in the outskirts, he looked down from the battlements upon the gloomy depths of the waters below, which seemed to regard him with looks of sympathy and strong fascination. “So be it then!” he exclaimed, and sprang