Complete Works of Emile Zola (66 page)

Marius cast a bewildered look over the place on entering. He was suffocating, like a man who had just fallen into the water. Anyone, to look at him, might have thought that he had just come into a cavern where wild beasts were about to devour him. His heart was beating rapidly and his brow covered with perspiration. A sort of timidity mingled with repugnance kept him motionless, awkward, and gave him an embarrassed appearance.

There was hardly anyone in the room. A few men were drinking. Two women were conversing excitedly in a low tone in the corner. The gaming-table remained dark and unoccupied in the background, for the gas burners which descended in the centre of the green cloth had not vet been lit.

Marius regained his assurance little by little; but the fever continued raging in his veins.

“What will you take?” inquired Sauvaire.

“Whatever you like,” answered the young man, in an off-hand way, staring at the table with curiosity and alarm.

The master-stevedore ordered beer. He extended himself full length on a divan and lit a cigar.

“Ah! There is Clairon, along with her friend Isnarde,” he all at once exclaimed, perceiving the two girls talking in a corner. “Look what pearls of women they are! Eh! what say you? They are the sort of little creatures you require to drive away your troubles.”

Marius looked at the girls. Clairon wore an old black velvet gown stained and frayed; she was short, dark, faded; her face, which was pale and covered with yellow spots, wore an air of weariness which was painful to look at. Isnarde, who was tall and thin, appeared still older and more worn out; it seemed as if her angular limbs would pierce through her faded silk gown at the shoulders. Marius was at a loss to understand Sauvaire’s passionate admiration for these creatures. He turned away his head with an expression of disgust; Fine’s healthy countenance had just appeared to him, and he felt ashamed at being in such a place.

The high key of Sauvaire’s voice had made the two girls turn their heads and they began to laugh.

“Oh! they are buxom lasses,” murmured the master-stevedore, “there’s no mourning in their society. If you like we’ll take them off with us tonight?”

“Aren’t we going to play?” inquired Marius, sharply, interrupting his companion.

“Good heavens! What a hurry you are in!” answered Sauvaire, who stretched himself out still more to attract the girls’ attention. “Of course we are going to play, we’ll play until tomorrow morning if you like. But dash it, there’s time enough for that. Just observe how Clairon and Isnarde are looking at me.”

The frequenters of the place gradually came in. A waiter lit the gas, and several players went and seated themselves at the gaming-table. The two girls began to move about the room, smiling on the men they knew; they ended by seating themselves near the banker who held the cards, hoping, no doubt, to glean a few twenty-franc pieces. Sauvaire then consented to approach the players.

Marius stayed for a moment standing, studying the game. He leant over to his companion and said:

“Kindly explain to me how I must act.”

The master-stevedore was very much amused at the young man’s naïvete.

“But, my good fellow,” he answered, “nothing is easier. Where have you come from? Everyone knows baccara. Come here, sit down. Place your stake on this side or that, in one of these squares surrounded by a red band. You see the banker makes use of two packs of cards of different coloured backs and of fifty-two cards each; he deals two cards on each side and two to himself. The tens and picture cards do not count; the highest point is nine and it is necessary to get as near that as possible. If you have more than the banker, you win; if less, you lose. That’s all.”

“But,” said Marius, “I see some of the players ask for a card.”

“Yes,” answered Sauvaire, “you are allowed to draw a card to arrange your hand. You often disarrange it. I advise you to always stand at six; it’s a nice point.”

Marius sat down at the table.

“Don’t you play?” he inquired of Sauvaire.

“Faith, no,” answered the master-stevedore. “I prefer having a laugh with Clairon.”

And he got up and went hanging round the little brunette. The truth was that he was afraid of losing his cash. He found gambling ran away with such a lot of money. The excitement of winning and losing was too rapid for him: he wanted solid, lasting enjoyment.

The banker shuffled the cards.

“Make your game, gentlemen,” he said.

Marius placed fifty francs on the cloth with a shudder. He had decided that he would play his hundred francs in two stakes.

Red light passed before his eyes; he heard a sort of growling within him which made him feel giddy; his ears tinkled and his sight was troubled. The sensation he experienced was so violent that his heart almost ceased beating. “Nothing more goes!” said the banker.

And he dealt the cards. It was Marius’ turn to take them. He picked them up and looked at them in a stupid way. He had five. He asked for cards and remained with four. The hands were thrown down. The banker had three. A murmur of astonishment passed round the table. Marius had won.

From that moment the young man was beside himself. He lived in a sort of dream. He remained there for more than five hours, downcast, overcome, sent half asleep by the monotony of the game, winning always, losing only to win still more. He played with an audacity that made the other gamblers tremble, and won contrary to every probability, clearing out the bankers one after the other.

Beside him was an elderly man who watched him with a stupefied and envious look. This person at length bent towards him and asked him in a low tone of voice:

“Sir, would you be so good as to tell me what your mascotte is?”

Marius did not hear him. A mascotte in the slang of Provençal gamblers, is a sort of talisman which shields the person who possesses it against ill-luck. All gamblers are more or less superstitious and each of them invents a little protecting divinity as a means of ensuring fortune.

The old gentleman seemed wounded at Marius’ silence.

“I don’t think I have been indiscreet,” he continued; “I should have been curious to know what could possibly have given you such luck. I don’t hide what I do. Here’s my mascotte.”

He took off his hat and displayed an image of the Virgin Mary inside of it. If Marius had been calm, he would have laughed; but he was enervated by several hours’ play, and he made a movement of impatience, and continued to pile up the gold before him without uttering a single word.

Sauvaire, who was astounded at his companion’s luck, had placed himself behind his chair. He preferred to watch the game to playing himself. He enjoyed the sight of large sums of money spread out on the gaming-table when he did not run the risk of losing. Clairon and Isnarde had followed him and leant familiarly on the back of Marius’ seat. They bent over towards the young man, smiled at him, fondled him with their eyes. The odour of gold had made them hasten forward like birds of prey.

Five o’clock struck. The pale daylight was streaming in at the windows. The gamblers went off one by one. Marius ended by finding himself alone. He had ten thousand francs in winnings before him.

The young man would have sat at the gaming-table until evening, until the following day, without being conscious of it, without complaining of the fatigue which was overpowering him. For more than five hours he had been playing mechanically, having but one idea in his head, that of winning, of always winning. He wanted to finish with it at a single stroke, to win the sum he required in one night, and not put his feet in the hell again.

When he found himself alone at the table, stupid, blind, his limbs aching with excitement and weariness, he was in despair, his eyes sought someone to go on playing with. He had just counted the money he had won, and he knew it only amounted to ten thousand francs.

He wanted five thousand francs more. He would have given anything in the world for day-light not to have appeared. Perhaps he might have had time to complete Philippe’s ransom. And he was there, staring at his gold pieces, putting them slowly into his pocket, folding up the bank notes one by one, looking round the room for a belated gambler.

There was a man at a small table near him who had been watching the play all the evening, without risking anything himself. When he had seen Marius winning, he had approached and had not lost sight of him. He seemed to be waiting. He let the other gamblers go away one by one, fixing his eyes on the young man, following the fever that agitated him, lying in wait for him as for a sure prey. When the latter, vexed and shivering, was making up his mind to leave, the stranger rose hurriedly and approached him.

“Sir,” he inquired, “will you have a game at écarté with me?”

Marius was about to accept joyfully, when Sauvaire, who was following him step by step, seized him by the arm, and whispered:

“Don’t play.”

The young man turned round and threw an inquiring look on the master-stevedore.

“Don’t play,” the latter continued, “if you wish to keep the ten thousand francs you’ve got in your pocket. For the love of Providence, refuse and come quickly. You will thank me afterwards.”

Marius had a good mind not to listen to Sauvaire; but the master-stevedore got him little by little near the door, and seeing him hesitate he undertook to speak for him.

“No, no, Monsieur Felix,” he said to the man who was offering to play écarté, “my friend is tired, he can’t stay any longer. Good day, Monsieur Felix.”

M. Felix seemed very much annoyed at this answer. He stared fixedly at Sauvaire as if to say to him: “What the deuce are you meddling with?” Then he turned on his heels, whistled between his teeth and murmured:

“And so I’ve lost my night.”

Sauvaire had not let go of Marius. When they were both in the street, the young man inquired of his companion in an irritated tone:

“Why did you prevent me playing?”

“Ah! Poor innocent,” answered the master-stevedore, “because I took pity on you, because I didn’t want M. Felix to win your ten thousand francs from you.”

“That man’s a rascal then?”

“Oh! no, he remains within the strictest limits of honesty.”

“Then I should have won.”

“No, you would have lost. The calculations of M. Felix are sure. This is how he proceeds. He never plays during the night. Towards morning, when the other players are racked with fever, he addresses one of them and makes him seat himself at an écarté table. It is no longer a question of a game of chance, but of a game in which you need all your intelligence, and all your calm. M. Felix is calm and prudent; he has a head that is fresh and reposed; his adversary is feverish, blind, he does not even see his cards, and in a few deals he is stripped in the most straightforward fashion in the world.”

“I understand and I thank you.”

“M. Felix has already won quite a fortune by putting his system into practice every evening. But I repeat that he plays in a perfectly honourable manner, only he arranges things in such a way that his adversaries always play like perfect jackasses; and that is how clever people succeed. If I were in his place I’d take out a patent.”

Marius remained silent. The two men had stopped in the middle of the deserted street opposite the entrance to the Corneille Club. It was wet, foggy weather, nasty odours hovered over the pavement, and there was a piercing chill in the matinal breeze. Buttoned up to their chins, both shivering, they reeled about like drunkards, their pale countenances and sparkless eyes telling the few passers-by, what sort of night they had just passed.

As Marius was about to go off, he felt an arm slipped in his. He turned and recognised Isnarde. Clairon had just taken Sauvaire’s arm. The two women had not lost sight of these men who smelt of gold; they had followed them, ravenous at the thought of the ten thousand francs that Marius had on him, and determined to have their share of the amount. The young man appeared to them a simpleton whom they could master without difficulty and strip at their ease.

Isnarde burst into a laugh, and said, in a slightly groggy voice:

“Are you going to bed already, gentlemen?”

Marius rapidly withdrew his arm with an air of repugnance which he did not take the trouble to disguise.

“My loves,” answered Sauvaire, “I am willing to stand you a breakfast. Eh! Promise me to be very amusing. Are you coming, Marius?”

“No,” answered the young man, sharply.

“Ah! This gentleman is not coming,” said Clairon, in a drawling voice. “Ah! That’s a pity. He would have stood us champagne. He owes us at least that.”

Marius felt in his pockets, pulled two handfuls of gold out of them and passed them to Clairon and Isnarde. The women pocketed the money without being in the least degree put out.

“Until tonight,” said Marius.

“Until tonight,” answered the master-stevedore.

He took one of the women on each arm and went off in that way, singing and creating a frightful disturbance in the quiet thoroughfare.

Marius watched him move away, and then proceeded to his peaceful little room in the Rue Sainte. It was six o’clock in the morning. He went to bed and slept like a top. He only awoke at two o’clock.

When he opened his eyes he perceived the money he had won. The reddish reflex running over the gold almost frightened him; all at once the night he had passed came back to him with singular distinctiveness, and he felt a formidable choking sensation in the throat. He was afraid of becoming a gambler, for his first thought on awakening was that he would return to the “hell” in the evening and would win again. At this idea a tremor passed through him, he became feverish and enjoyed a moment of voluptuous delight.

And he repeated to himself: “No, it is not true, I cannot be possessed of that horrible passion, I cannot have become a gambler from one day to another; I gamble to deliver Philippe, I don’t play for myself.” He did not dare interrogate himself further.

Then he thought of Fine, and he had to make an effort to restrain his sobs. He said to himself that he already had ten thousand francs and that he could dispense with returning to the gambling-house; assuredly he could easily find five thousand francs; he would not run the risk of losing what he had won.