“Quelle victoire!” exclaimed De Griers.
“Mais, Madame, c’etait du feu!” added Mlle. Blanche with an elusive smile.
“Yes, I have won twelve thousand florins,” replied the old lady. “And then there is all this gold. With it the total ought to come to nearly thirteen thousand. How much is that in Russian money? Six thousand roubles, I think?”
However, I calculated that the sum would exceed seven thousand roubles — or, at the present rate of exchange, even eight thousand.
“Eight thousand roubles! What a splendid thing! And to think of you simpletons sitting there and doing nothing! Potapitch! Martha! See what I have won!”
“How DID you do it, Madame?” Martha exclaimed ecstatically. “Eight thousand roubles!”
“And I am going to give you fifty gulden apiece. There they are.”
Potapitch and Martha rushed towards her to kiss her hand.
“And to each bearer also I will give a ten-gulden piece. Let them have it out of the gold, Alexis Ivanovitch. But why is this footman bowing to me, and that other man as well? Are they congratulating me? Well, let them have ten gulden apiece.”
“Madame la princesse — Un pauvre expatrie — Malheur continuel — Les princes russes sont si genereux!” said a man who for some time past had been hanging around the old lady’s chair — a personage who, dressed in a shabby frockcoat and coloured waistcoat, kept taking off his cap, and smiling pathetically.
“Give him ten gulden,” said the Grandmother. “No, give him twenty. Now, enough of that, or I shall never get done with you all. Take a moment’s rest, and then carry me away. Prascovia, I mean to buy a new dress for you tomorrow. Yes, and for you too, Mlle. Blanche. Please translate, Prascovia.”
“Merci, Madame,” replied Mlle. Blanche gratefully as she twisted her face into the mocking smile which usually she kept only for the benefit of De Griers and the General. The latter looked confused, and seemed greatly relieved when we reached the Avenue.
“How surprised Theodosia too will be!” went on the Grandmother (thinking of the General’s nursemaid). “She, like yourselves, shall have the price of a new gown. Here, Alexis Ivanovitch! Give that beggar something” (a crooked-backed ragamuffin had approached to stare at us).
“But perhaps he is NOT a beggar — only a rascal,” I replied.
“Never mind, never mind. Give him a gulden.”
I approached the beggar in question, and handed him the coin. Looking at me in great astonishment, he silently accepted the gulden, while from his person there proceeded a strong smell of liquor.
“Have you never tried your luck, Alexis Ivanovitch?”
“No, Madame.”
“Yet just now I could see that you were burning to do so?”
“I do mean to try my luck presently.”
“Then stake everything upon zero. You have seen how it ought to be done? How much capital do you possess?”
“Two hundred gulden, Madame.”
“Not very much. See here; I will lend you five hundred if you wish. Take this purse of mine.” With that she added sharply to the General: “But YOU need not expect to receive any.”
This seemed to upset him, but he said nothing, and De Griers contented himself by scowling.
“Que diable!” he whispered to the General. “C’est une terrible vieille.”
“Look! Another beggar, another beggar!” exclaimed the grandmother. “Alexis Ivanovitch, go and give him a gulden.”
As she spoke I saw approaching us a grey-headed old man with a wooden leg — a man who was dressed in a blue frockcoat and carrying a staff. He looked like an old soldier. As soon as I tendered him the coin he fell back a step or two, and eyed me threateningly.
“Was ist der Teufel!” he cried, and appended thereto a round dozen of oaths.
“The man is a perfect fool!” exclaimed the Grandmother, waving her hand. “Move on now, for I am simply famished. When we have lunched we will return to that place.”
“What?” cried I. “You are going to play again?”
“What else do you suppose?” she retorted. “Are you going only to sit here, and grow sour, and let me look at you?”
“Madame,” said De Griers confidentially, “les chances peuvent tourner. Une seule mauvaise chance, et vous perdrez tout — surtout avec votre jeu. C’etait terrible!”
“Oui; vous perdrez absolument,” put in Mlle. Blanche.
“What has that got to do with YOU?” retorted the old lady. “It is not YOUR money that I am going to lose; it is my own. And where is that Mr. Astley of yours?” she added to myself.
“He stayed behind in the Casino.”
“What a pity! He is such a nice sort of man!”
Arriving home, and meeting the landlord on the staircase, the Grandmother called him to her side, and boasted to him of her winnings — thereafter doing the same to Theodosia, and conferring upon her thirty gulden; after which she bid her serve luncheon. The meal over, Theodosia and Martha broke into a joint flood of ecstasy.
“I was watching you all the time, Madame,” quavered Martha, “and I asked Potapitch what mistress was trying to do. And, my word! the heaps and heaps of money that were lying upon the table! Never in my life have I seen so much money. And there were gentlefolk around it, and other gentlefolk sitting down. So, I asked Potapitch where all these gentry had come from; for, thought I, maybe the Holy Mother of God will help our mistress among them. Yes, I prayed for you, Madame, and my heart died within me, so that I kept trembling and trembling. The Lord be with her, I thought to myself; and in answer to my prayer He has now sent you what He has done! Even yet I tremble — I tremble to think of it all.”
“Alexis Ivanovitch,” said the old lady, “after luncheon, — that is to say, about four o’clock — get ready to go out with me again. But in the meanwhile, goodbye. Do not forget to call a doctor, for I must take the waters. Now go and get rested a little.”
I left the Grandmother’s presence in a state of bewilderment.
Vainly I endeavoured to imagine what would become of our party, or what turn the affair would next take. I could perceive that none of the party had yet recovered their presence of mind — least of all the General. The factor of the Grandmother’s appearance in place of the hourly expected telegram to announce her death (with, of course, resultant legacies) had so upset the whole scheme of intentions and projects that it was with a decided feeling of apprehension and growing paralysis that the conspirators viewed any future performances of the old lady at roulette. Yet this second factor was not quite so important as the first, since, though the Grandmother had twice declared that she did not intend to give the General any money, that declaration was not a complete ground for the abandonment of hope. Certainly De Griers, who, with the General, was up to the neck in the affair, had not wholly lost courage; and I felt sure that Mlle. Blanche also — Mlle. Blanche who was not only as deeply involved as the other two, but also expectant of becoming Madame General and an important legatee — would not lightly surrender the position, but would use her every resource of coquetry upon the old lady, in order to afford a contrast to the impetuous Polina, who was difficult to understand, and lacked the art of pleasing.
Yet now, when the Grandmother had just performed an astonishing