Chapter 22

"To the astonishment of all Paris, Chevalier Menars' bank disappeared from the gambling-house; nobody ever saw him again; and hence the most diverse and extraordinary rumours were current, each of them more false than the rest. The Chevalier shunned all society; his love found expression in the deepest and most unconquerable despondency. It happened, however, that old Vertua and his daughter one day suddenly crossed his path in one of the dark and lonely alleys of the garden of Malmaison.5

"Angela, who thought she could never look upon the Chevalier without contempt and abhorrence, felt strangely moved on seeing him so deathly pale, terribly shaken with trouble, hardly daring in his shy respect to raise his eyes. She knew quite well that ever since that ill-omened night he had altogether relinquished gambling and effected a complete revolution in his habits of life. She, she alone had brought all this about, she had saved the Chevalier from ruin--could anything be more flattering to her woman's vanity? Hence it was that, after Vertua had exchanged the usual complimentary remarks with the Chevalier, Angela asked in a tone of gentle and sympathetic pity, 'What is the matter with you, Chevalier Menars? You are looking very ill and full of trouble. I am sure you ought to consult a physician.'

"It is easy to imagine how Angela's words fell like a comforting ray of hope upon the Chevalier's heart. From that moment he was not like the same man. He lifted up his head; he was able to speak in those tones, full of the real inward nature of the man, with which he had formerly won all hearts. Vertua exhorted him to come and take possession of the house he had won.

"'Yes, Signor Vertua,' cried the Chevalier with animation, 'yes, that I will do. I will call upon you tomorrow; but let us carefully weigh and discuss all the conditions of the transfer, even though it should last some months.'

"'Be it so then, Chevalier,' replied Vertua, smiling. 'I fancy that there will arise a good many things to be discussed, of which we at the present moment have no idea.' The Chevalier, being thus comforted at heart, could not fail to develop again all the charms of manner which had once been so peculiarly his own before he was led astray by his insane, pernicious passion for gambling. His visits at old Vertua's grew more and more frequent; Angela conceived a warmer and warmer liking for the man whose safeguarding angel she had been, until finally she thought she loved him with all her heart; and she promised him her hand, to the great joy of old Vertua, who at last felt that the settlement respecting the property he had lost to the Chevalier could now be concluded.

"One day Angela, Chevalier Menars' happy betrothed, sat at her window wrapped up in varied thoughts of the delights and happiness of love, such as young girls when betrothed are wont to dwell upon. A regiment of _chasseurs_ passed by to the merry sound of the trumpet, bound for a campaign in Spain. As Angela was regarding with sympathetic interest the poor men who were doomed to death in the wicked war, a young man wheeled his horse quickly to one side and looked up at her, and she sank back in her chair fainting.

"Oh! the _chasseur_ who was riding to meet a bloody death was none other than young Duvernet, their neighbour's son, with whom she had grown up, who had run in and out of the house nearly every day, and had only kept away since the Chevalier had begun to visit them.

"In the young man's glance, which was charged with reproaches having all the bitterness of death in them, Angela became conscious for the first time, not only that he loved her unspeakably, but also how boundless was the love which she herself felt for him. Hitherto she had not been conscious of it; she had been infatuated, fascinated by the glitter which gathered ever more thickly about the Chevalier. She now understood, and for the first time, the youth's labouring sighs and quiet unpretending homage; and now too she also understood her own embarrassed heart for the first time, knew what had caused the fluttering sensation in her breast when Duvernet had come, and when she had heard his voice.

"'It is too late! I have lost him!' was the voice that spoke in Angela's soul. She had courage enough to beat down the feelings of wretchedness which threatened to distract her heart; and for that reason--namely, that she possessed the courage--she succeeded.

"Nevertheless it did not escape the Chevalier's acute perception that something had happened to powerfully affect Angela; but he possessed sufficient delicacy of feeling not to seek for a solution of the mystery, which it was evident she desired to conceal from him. He contented himself with depriving any dangerous rival of his power by expediting the marriage; and he made all arrangements for its celebration with such fine tact, and such a sympathetic appreciation of his fair bride's situation and sentiments, that she saw in them a new proof of the good and amiable qualities of her husband.

"The Chevalier's behaviour towards Angela showed him attentive to her slightest wish, and exhibited that sincere esteem which springs from the purest affection; hence her memory of Duvernet soon vanished entirely from her mind. The first cloud that dimmed the bright heaven of her happiness was the illness and death of old Vertua.

"Since the night when he had lost all his fortune at the Chevalier's bank he had never touched a card, but during the last moments of his life play seemed to have taken complete possession of his soul. Whilst the priest who had come to administer to him the consolation of the Church ere he died, was speaking to him of heavenly things, he lay with his eyes closed, murmuring between his teeth, '_perd_, _gagne_,' whilst his trembling half-dead hands went through the motions of dealing through a _taille_, of drawing the cards. Both Angela and the Chevalier bent over him and spoke to him in the tenderest manner, but it was of no use; he no longer seemed to know them, nor even to be aware of their presence. With a deep-drawn sigh '_gagne_,' he breathed his last.

"In the midst of her distressing grief Angela could not get rid of an uncomfortable feeling of awe at the way in which the old man had died. She again saw in vivid shape the picture of that terrible night when she had first seen the Chevalier as a most hardened and reprobate gambler; and the fearful thought entered her mind that he might again, in scornful mockery of her, cast aside his mask of goodness and appear in his original fiendish character, and begin to pursue his old course of life once more.

"And only too soon was Angela's dreaded foreboding to become reality. However great the awe which fell upon the Chevalier at old Francesco Vertua's death-scene, when the old man, despising the consolation of the Church, though in the last agonies of death, had not been able to turn his thoughts from his former sinful life--however great was the awe that then fell upon the Chevalier, yet his mind was thereby led, though how he could not explain, to dwell more keenly upon play than ever before, so that every night in his dreams he sat at the faro-bank and heaped up riches anew.

"In proportion as Angela's behaviour became more constrained, in consequence of her recollection of the character in which she had first seen the Chevalier, and as it became more and more impossible for her to continue to meet him upon the old affectionate, confidential footing upon which they had hitherto lived, so exactly in the same degree distrust of Angela crept into the Chevalier's mind, since he ascribed her constraint to the secret which had once disturbed her peace of mind and which had not been revealed to him. From this distrust were born displeasure and unpleasantness, and these he expressed in various ways which hurt Angela's feelings. By a singular cross-action of spiritual influence Angela's recollections of the unhappy Duvemet began to recur to her mind with fresher force, and along with these the intolerable consciousness of her ruined love,--the loveliest blossom that had budded in her youthful heart. The strained relations between the pair continued to increase until things got to such a pitch that the Chevalier grew disgusted with his simple mode of life, thought it dull, and was smitten with a powerful longing to enjoy the life of the world again. His star of ill omen began to acquire the ascendancy. The change which had been inaugurated by displeasure and great unpleasantness was completed by an abandoned wretch who had formerly been croupier in the Chevalier's faro-bank. He succeeded by means of the most artful insinuations and conversations in making the Chevalier look upon his present walk of life as childish and ridiculous. The Chevalier could not understand at last how, for a woman's sake, he ever came to leave a world which appeared to him to contain all that made life of any worth.

"It was not long ere Chevalier Menars' rich bank was flourishing more magnificently than ever. His good-luck had not left him; victim after victim came and fell; he amassed heaps of riches. But Angela's happiness--it was ruined--ruined in fearful fashion; it was to be compared to a short fair dream. The Chevalier treated her with indifference, nay even with contempt. Often, for weeks and months together, she never saw him once; the household arrangements were placed in the hands of a steward; the servants were being constantly changed to suit the Chevalier's whims; so that Angela, a stranger in her own house, knew not where to turn for comfort. Often during her sleepless nights the Chevalier's carriage stopped before the door, the heavy strong-box was carried upstairs, the Chevalier flung out a few harsh monosyllabic words of command, and then the doors of his distant room were sent to with a bang--all this she heard, and a flood of bitter tears started from her eyes. In a state of the most heart- rending anguish she called upon Duvernet time after time, and implored Providence to put an end to her miserable life of trouble and suffering.

"One day a young man of good family, after losing all his fortune at the Chevalier s bank, sent a bullet through his brain in the gambling- house, and in the very same room even in which the bank was established, so that the players were sprinkled by the blood and scattered brains, and started up aghast. The Chevalier alone preserved his indifference; and, as all were preparing to leave the apartment, he asked whether it was in accordance with their rules and custom to leave the bank before the appointed hour on account of a fool who had had no conduct in his play.

"The occurrence created a great sensation. The most experienced and hardened gamblers were indignant at the Chevalier's unexampled behaviour. The voice of the public was raised against him. The bank was closed by the police. He was, moreover, accused of false play; and his unprecedented good-luck tended to establish the truth of the charge. He was unable to clear himself. The fine he was compelled to pay deprived him of a considerable part of his riches. He found himself disgraced and looked upon with contempt; then he went back to the arms of the wife he had ill-used, and she willingly received him, the penitent, since the remembrance of how her own father had turned aside from the demoralising life of a gambler allowed a glimmer of hope to rise, that the Chevalier's conversion might this time, now that he was older, really have some stamina in it.

"The Chevalier left Paris along with his wife, and went to Genoa, Angela's birthplace. Here he led a very retired life at first. But all endeavours to restore the footing of quiet domesticity with Angela, which his evil genius had destroyed, were in vain. It was not long before his deep-rooted discontent awoke anew and drove him out of the house in a state of uneasy, unsettled restlessness. His evil reputation had followed him from Paris to Genoa; he dare not venture to establish a bank, although he was being goaded to do so by a power he could hardly resist.

"At that time the richest bank in Genoa was kept by a French colonel, who had been invalided owing to serious wounds. His heart burning with envy and fierce hatred, the Chevalier appeared at the Colonel's table, expecting that his usual good fortune would stand by him, and that he should soon ruin his rival. The Colonel greeted him in a merry humour, such as was in general not customary with him, and said that now the play would really be worth indulging in since they had got Chevalier Menars and his good-luck to join them, for now would come the struggle which alone made the game interesting.

"And in fact during the first _taille_ the cards fell favourable to the Chevalier as they always had done. But when, relying upon his invincible luck, he at last cried '_Va banquet_,'6 he lost a very considerable sum at one stroke.

"The Colonel, at other times preserving the same even temperament whether winning or losing, now swept the money towards him with the most demonstrative signs of extreme delight. From this moment fortune turned away from the Chevalier utterly and completely. He played every night, and every night he lost, until his property had melted away to a few thousand ducats,7 which he still had in securities.

"The Chevalier had spent the whole day in running about to get his securities converted into ready money, and did not reach home until late in the evening. So soon as it was fully night, he was about to leave the house with his last gold pieces in his pocket, when Angela, who suspected pretty much how matters stood, stepped in his path and threw herself at his feet, whilst a flood of tears gushed from her eyes, beseeching him by the Virgin and all the saints to abandon his wicked purpose, and not to plunge her in want and misery.

"He raised her up and strained her to his heart with painful passionate intensity, saying in a hoarse voice, 'Angela, my dear sweet Angela! It can't be helped now, indeed it must be so; I must go on with it, for I can't let it alone. But to-morrow--to-morrow all your troubles shall be over, for by the Eternal Destiny that rules over us I swear that to-day shall be the last time I will play. Quiet yourself, my dear good child--go and sleep--dream of happy days to come, of a better life that is in store for you; that will bring good-luck. Herewith he kissed his wife and hurried off before she could stop him.

"Two _tailles_, and the Chevalier had lost all--all. He stood beside the Colonel, staring upon the faro-table in moody senselessness.

"'Are you not punting any more, Chevalier?' said the Colonel, shuffling the cards for a new _taille_, 'I have lost all,' replied the Chevalier, forcing himself with an effort to be calm.

"'Have you really nothing left?' asked the Colonel at the next _ taille_.

"'I am a beggar,' cried the Chevalier, his voice trembling with rage and mortification; and he continued to stare fiercely upon the table without observing that the players were gaining more and more advantages over the banker.

"The Colonel went on playing quietly. But whilst shuffling the cards for the following _taille_, he said in a low voice, without looking at the Chevalier, 'But you have a beautiful wife.'

"'What do you mean by that?' burst out the Chevalier angrily. The Colonel drew his cards without making any answer.

"'Ten thousand ducats or--Angela!' said the Colonel, half turning round whilst the cards were being cut.

"'You are mad!' exclaimed the Chevalier, who now began to observe on coming more to himself that the Colonel continually lost and lost again.

"'Twenty thousand ducats against Angela!' said the Colonel in a low voice, pausing for a moment in his shuffling of the cards.

"The Chevalier did not reply. The Colonel went on playing, and almost all the cards fell to the players' side.

"'Taken!' whispered the Chevalier in the Colonel's ear, as the new _taille_ began, and he pushed the queen on the table.

"In the next draw the queen had lost. The Chevalier drew back from the table, grinding his teeth, and in despair stood leaning in a window, his face deathly pale.

"Play was over. 'Well, and what's to be done now?' were the Colonel's mocking words as he stepped up to the Chevalier.

"'Ah!' cried the Chevalier, quite beside himself, 'you have made me a beggar, but you must be insane to imagine that you could win my wife. Are we on the islands? is my wife a slave, exposed as a mere _thing_ to the brutal arbitrariness of a reprobate man, that he may trade with her, gamble with her? But it is true! You would have had to pay twenty thousand ducats if the queen had won, and so I have lost all right to raise a protest if my wife is willing to leave me to follow you. Come along with me, and despair when you see how my wife will repel you with detestation when you propose to her that she shall follow you as your shameless mistress.'

"'You will be the one to despair,' replied the Colonel, with a mocking, scornful laugh; 'you will be the one to despair, Chevalier, when Angela turns with abhorrence from you--you, the abandoned sinner, who have made her life miserable--and flies into my arms in rapture and delight; you will be the one to despair when you learn that we have been united by the blessing of the Church, and that our dearest wishes are crowned with happiness. You call me insane. Ho! ho! All I wanted to win was the right to claim her, for of Angela herself I am sure. Ho! ho! Chevalier, let me inform you that your wife loves _me_--_me_, with unspeakable love: let me inform you that I am that Duvernet, the neighbour's son, who was brought up along with Angela, bound to her by ties of the most ardent affection--he whom you drove away by means of your diabolical devices. Ah! it was not until I had to go away to the wars that Angela became conscious to herself of what I was to her; I know all. It was too late. The Spirit of Evil suggested to me the idea that I might ruin you in play, and so I took to gambling--followed you to Genoa,--and now I have succeeded. Away now to your wife.'

"The Chevalier was almost annihilated, like one upon whose head had fallen the most disastrous blows of fortune. Now he saw to the bottom of that mysterious secret, now he saw for the first time the full extent of the misfortune which he had brought upon poor Angela. 'Angela, my wife, shall decide,' he said hoarsely, and followed the Colonel, who was hurrying off at full speed.

"On reaching the house the Colonel laid his hand upon the latch of Angela's chamber; but the Chevalier pushed him back, saying, 'My wife is asleep. Do you want to rouse her up out of her sweet sleep?'

"'Hm!' replied the Colonel. 'Has Angela ever enjoyed sweet sleep since you brought all this nameless misery upon her?' Again the Colonel attempted to enter the chamber; but the Chevalier threw himself at his feet and screamed, frantic with despair, 'Be merciful. Let me keep my wife; you have made me a beggar, but let me keep my wife.'

"'That's how old Vertua lay at your feet, you miscreant dead to all feeling, and could not move your stony heart; may Heaven's vengeance overtake you for it.' Thus spoke the Colonel; and he again strode towards Angela's chamber.

"The Chevalier sprang towards the door, tore it open, rushed to the bed in which his wife lay, and drew back the curtains, crying, 'Angela! Angela!' Bending over her, he grasped her hand; but all at once he shook and trembled in mortal anguish and cried in a thundering voice, 'Look! look! you have won my wife's corpse.'

"Perfectly horrified, the Colonel approached the bed; no sign of life!--Angela was dead--dead.

"Then the Colonel doubled his fist and shook it heavenwards, and rushed out of the room uttering a fearful cry. Nothing more was ever heard of him."

This was the end of the stranger's tale; and the Baron was so shaken that before he could say anything the stranger had hastily risen from the seat and gone away.

A few days later the stranger was found in his room suffering from apoplexy of the nerves. He never opened his mouth up to the moment of his death, which ensued after the lapse of a few hours. His papers proved that, though he called himself Baudasson simply, he was no less a person than the unhappy Chevalier Menars himself.

The Baron recognised it as a warning from Heaven, that Chevalier Menars had been led across his path to save him just as he was approaching the brink of the precipice; he vowed that he would withstand all the seductions of the gambler's deceptive luck.

Up till now he has faithfully kept his word.

FOOTNOTES TO "GAMBLER'S LUCK":

Footnote 1 In faro the keeper of the bank plays against all the rest of the players (who are called _punters_). He has a full pack; they have but a single complete suit. The punters may stake what they please upon any card they please, except in so far as rules may have been made to the contrary by the banker. After the cards have been cut, the banker proceeds to take off the two top cards one after the other, placing the first at his right hand, and the second at his left, each with the face uppermost. Any punter who has staked a card which bears exactly the same number of "peeps" as the card turned up on the banker's right hand loses the stake to the latter; but if it bears the same number of "peeps" as the card on the banker's left, it is the banker who has to pay the punter a sum equal to the value of his stake. The twenty-six drawings which a full pack allows the banker to make are called a _taille_.

This general sketch will help to make the text intelligible for the most part without going into minor technicalities of the game.]

Footnote 2 The words "win," "lose," with which the banker places the two cards on the table, the first to his right for himself, the second on his left for the punter.]

Footnote 3 The new _Louis d'or_ were worth somewhat less than the old coins of the time of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. (See note, page 175.)]

Footnote 4 The banker's assistants, who shuffle cards for him, change cheques, notes, and make themselves generally useful.]

Footnote 5 Malmaison is a chateau and park situated about six miles W. of Paris. It once belonged to Richelieu; and there the Empress Josephine lived, and there she died on the 13th May, 1814.]

Footnote 6 "_Va bout_" or "_Va banque_" meant a challenge to the bank to the full amount of the highest limit of play, and if the punter won he virtually broke the bank.]

Footnote 7 The first silver ducat is believed to have been struck in 1140 by Roger II., Norman king of Sicily; and ducats have been struck constantly since the twelfth century, especially at Venice (see _Merchant of Venice_). They have varied considerably both in weight and fineness, and consequently in value, at different times and places. Ducats have been struck in both gold and silver. The early Venetian silver ducat was worth about five shillings. The name is said, according to one account, to have been derived from the last word of the Latin legend found on the earliest Venetian gold coins:--_Sit tibi, Christe, datus, quem tu regis, ducatus_ (duchy); according to another account it is taken from "_il ducato_," the name generally applied to the duchy of Apulia. (Note, page 98, Vol. I.)]

_MASTER JOHANNES WACHT._1

At the time when people in the beautiful and pleasant town of Bamberg lived, according to the well-known saying, well, _i.e._, under the crook, namely in the end of the previous century, there was also one inhabitant, a man belonging to the burgher class, who might be called in every respect both singular and eminent His name was Johannes Wacht, and his trade was that of a carpenter.