Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

bound-not gaming, no, it was the most hateful avarice with which Satan himself had inflamed his heart. In one word, he was the most consummate of all gaming Bankers.

"One night, it happened to the chevalier without his having, exactly, lost a large sum, that his luck had been less favorable than formerly. A small, old, withered man, meanly clad, of an almost repulsive face, stepped to the gaming table, took a card with trembling hand and put upon it one gold piece. Many of the gamesters glanced at the old man with deep astonishment, and treated him even with striking contempt without his changing countenance, much less uttering a word of complaint.

"The old man lost, lost one stake after another; but the higher his loss so much the other players applauded. Yes, as the old man, ever doubling his stake, once placed upon a card five hundred louis-d'ors and lost them on the very instant, one cried out in the midst of laughter, Well done, well done, Signor Vertua, dont give up, go on, go on, you will break the bank yet at this immense rate!'

6

"The old man cast a basilisk look at the jester and ran immediately out, but entered again in only half an hour, his pockets filled with gold. With the last deal all was at an end; he had again played away all the gold he had brought to the spot.

"The Chevalier, who, notwithstanding the infamy of his doings, yet supported a certain demeanor which must be preserved at his bank, was displeased in the highest degree at the scorn, the contempt with which the old man had been treated. There was ground enough when the play was ended, and the old man had withdrawn, to call to account the jester as well as two others whose disgraceful conduct to the old man had been most evident.

"Ah,' cried one, 'you do not know old Francisco Vertua, Chevalier, or you would not complain of us and our conduct, but call it rather entirely praiseworthy. Learn, that this Vertua, a Neapolitan by birth, for the last fifteen years in Paris, is the lowest, foulest, wickedest miser and usurer living. Every manly feeling is a stranger to him; he could see his own brother writhe in the death agony at his feet,

and it would be in vain to ask him to yield a single louis-d'or if it could bring him to life again. The curses and imprecations of a multitude of men, of whole families plunged into the deepest ruin through his satanic speculations, press heavily upon him. He is bitterly hated by all who know him; every one wishes that the Revenge for all the evil that he does would grasp him and ed his guilt-spotted life. He has never played, at least so long as he has been at Paris, and after all that, you need not wonder at the astonishment in which we were thrown as the old miser stepped to the table. We must needs rejoice over his excessive ill fortune; for wrong, entirely wrong would it have been if fortune had favored the wicked wight. It is only too certain that the riches of your bank, Chevalier, blinded the old fool. He thought of plucking you and lost his own feathers. But it is yet inconceivable to know how Vertua, contrary to the peculiar nature of avarice, could resolve upon such high play. He will not come again, we have got rid of him.'

"This conjecture, however, was by no means successful, for on the following night Vertua appeared again at the bank of the Chevalier, staking and losing much more largely than the day before. There he remained, calmly laughing at times with bitter irony, as if with a certain prescience of the reverse of his ill luck. But as an avalanche, grew quicker and quicker on each succeeding night, the loss of the old man; so that it was at last reckoned he had paid to the bank thirty thousand louis-d'ors. He came there again, but long after the game had commenced, deadly pale, with a disturbed eye, placed himself far away from the gaming table, directing his eyes firmly at the cards which the Chevalier threw out. Finally, when the Chevalier had shuffled the cards, suffered them to be cut and was about to begin to deal, the old man cried out in a shrieking voice-Stop,' arresting the attention of the company. The old man pressed through, closely up to the chevalier, and spoke in a low voice in his ear-Chevalier! my house in the Rue St. Honoré together with the entire appurtenances, and my property in silver, gold, and jewels, are valued at eighty thousand francs, will you

take the stake?' 'Good,' answered the Chevalier, coolly, and without look ing at the old man, began the deal.

The Queen,' cried the old man, and at the next drawing the Queen had lost. The old man recoiled and leant upon the wall passionless and motionless, like a rigid statue. No one troubled himself further about him. The game was ended, the players dispersed, the Chevalier with his croupiers packed the gold won in his chest; the old Vertua wavered forth as a ghost out of the corner before the Chevalier, and said, in a dead hollow tone-' Yet one word, chevalier-one single word.' "What's the matter now?' replied the Chevalier, as he drew the key from the chest, and with contempt measured the old man from head to foot.

"All my wealth,' proceeded the old man, I lost at your bank. Chevalier, nothing, nothing remains to me further. I know not where I shall lay down my head to-morrow; with what I shall still my hunger. To you, Chevalier, I have recourse. Lend me the tenth part of the sum you have won from me. With it I begin again my business, and raise myself out of the deepest need.'

[ocr errors]

"What think you, Signor Vertua?' answers the Chevalier, know you not that a banker never dare lend from his winnings? That runs contrary to the old rule from which I do not turn aside-'

"You are right, Chevalier,' spoke Vertua further. 'My demand was frantic-excessive-the tenth part! no! lend me the twentieth part!'

"I tell you, verily,' answered the Chevalier, fretfully, that I never lend from my winnings!'

"It is true,' spoke Vertua, while his countenance grew even paler, his glance even more staring and fixed. You are right in lending nothing. It was not my habit either. But, give an alms for the beggar, give him from the riches blind fortune has thrown to you to-day, a hundred louis-d'ors.'

"Now in truth,' pursued the Chevalier, cheerfully, you understand how to tease people, Signor Vertua. I tell you, not a hundred, not fifty-not twenty-not one single louis-d'or do you get from me. Mad must I be, to give you only the least assistance, that with it you may begin anew your scandalous craft. Fate has trodden you down in the dust as a venomous

worm, and it were sacrilegious to raise you up again. Go out and perish as you deserve!'

"Vertua drew both hands before his face and sank with a deep sigh. The Chevalier commanded the servants to bring the chest out to the coach, and asked, in a loud tone, When do you deliver me your house, your effects, Signor Vertua?'

6

"Vertua gathered himself up from the ground, and said with a firmer voice, Immediately, this very instant, Chevalier! come with me!'

"Good,' replied the Chevalier. ' You can go with me to your house, that you must quit for ever, to-morrow.'

"Neither Vertua nor the Chevalier spoke a single word the whole way. When they arrived at the house in the Rue St. Honoré, Vertua rang the bell. An old matron opened the door and cried, as she perceived Vertua-Oh, Saviour of the world, it is you at last, Signor Vertua. Angela has fretted herself half dead for your sake'

"Be silent,' answered Vertua, 'pray heaven that Angela has not heard the unlucky bell. She shall not know that I have returned.'

"And with that he took from the hand of the petrified old woman, the candlestick with the burning wax candle, and lighted the Chevalier forward into the chamber.

66

"I am prepared for everything,' said Vertua. You hate, you despise me, Chevalier! You ruined me, you and others for pleasure, but you know me not. Learn then that I formerly was a gamester like yourself, that to me capricious luck was prodigal as to you, that I travelled over half of Europe, tarried everywhere, where high play, the hope of high winnings allured me, that gold incessantly heaped itself in my bank as in yours. I had a fair, true wife, whom I neglected, who was miserable in the midst of the most brilliant wealth. It happened that as I once in Geneva set up my bank, a young Roman lost all his rich inheritance at my table. As I have requested you to day, he begged me to lend him money at least enough to travel back to Rome. I refused him with scornful laughter, and in the frenzied madness of despair, he thrust a dagger, which he carried with him, deep in my breast. The physicians succeeded in saving me with difficulty, but my sick bed was tedious and painful. My wife

nursed me, comforted me, held me up right when I sank under pain, and with my recovery there dawned upon me a feeling and gained the mastery of me which I had never before known. The gambler becomes estranged from every manly emotion; thus it was that I knew not love, the true attachment of a wife. The thought burned deep in my soul that my unthankful heart owed so much to my wife, and that I had sacrificed her to such an impious calling. Like tormenting spirits of revenge appeared to me all those whose happiness in life, whose whole existence I had considered with wicked indifference, and I heard their deep, hoarse, death voices, reproach me with all the guilt, all the crime whose seeds I had implanted; only my wife could banish the nameless grief, the terror which then seized me! I made a vow never to touch a card more. I drew myself back, I tore myself loose from the bonds which held me fast. I withstood, the entreaties of my croupiers, who would not relinquish me and my luck. A small country-seat near Rome, which I purchased, was the place, whither, as soon as I had perfectly recovered, I fled with my wife. Alas! only for one single year fell to my lot a calm, a happiness, a joy-I had never anticipated! My wife here bore me a daughter and died a few weeks afterwards. I was thrown into despair. I accused heaven, I cursed then myself, my wretched life, which the Everlasting Might had avenged, in taking from me my wife who had saved me from destruction, the only being who afforded me hope and comfort. As a criminal, who fears the terrors of solitude, I drove myself forth from my country-seat here to Paris. Angela grew up, the sweet image of her mother; upon her hung my whole heart, for her I determined not only to provide a large property but ever to increase it. It is true I lent money at high interest-an infamous calumniation is it, if they upbraid me as a cheating usurer. And who are these accusers? Light-minded people who restlessly harass me till I lend them money which they squander as a thing without worth, and then will almost run mad when I would collect with inexorable severity the money which belonged not to me, no, to my daughter, the steward of whose property I regarded my Not long is it since I rescued a

self.

young man from shame, from destruction, by advancing to him a considerable sum. Not a syllable did I mention of the demand, for he, as I knew, was miserably poor, till he acquired a rich inheritance. I asked him for the debt. Think you, Chevalier, that the frivolous wretch, who had owed his whole existence to me, denied the debt, that he reproached me as a base usurer, since he had to pay me the debt by force of law? I could relate to you many similar occurrences which have made me hard and unfeeling where I meet with frivolity, with baseness. Enough!-I could tell you that I dried up many bitter tears, that many a prayer for myself and my Angela rose to heaven, yet you would take it for false ostentation and think nothing of it, for you are a gamester!

I thought that the Everlasting Might had been avenged-it was only a delusion! then the Devil was permitted to blind me in the same wretched manner as before-I heard of your fortune, Chevalier! Every day I learnt that this one, that that one had been reduced to a beggar at your bank; there came to me the thought that I was appointed to stake my gaming luck which never had forsaken me against yours, that it lay in my hand to put an end to your calling, and this thought, which only a strange delusion could have engendered, left me no rest, no quiet more. So I came to your bank, I forsook not my wretched infatuation until mymy Angela's property was yours! It is now over.-Will you permit my daughter to take her wardrobe with her?'

666

The wardrobe of your daughter,' replied the Chevalier, is worth nothing to me. You can take your beds and necessary household furniture with you. What should I do with the old lumber?

yet take care that nothing of any value that has fallen to me slip in with it.'

"The old Vertua stared at the Chevalier a few moments speechless, then a flood of tears rushed from his eyes; entirely overpowered, full of grief and despair, he sank down before the Chevalier and cried with uplifted hands :"Chevalier, have you no manly feeling in your heart-be pitiful!--pitiful!— Not myself, my daughter, my Angela, the innocent angel-child you thrust into destruction!-be pitiful to her. her, her, my Angela, the twentieth part

Lend

of her property, that you have robbed her of!--I know it--you relent--O Angela-my daughter!"

"The old man sobbed-lamentedgroaned cried out in heart-cutting tones the name of his child.

"The flat theatrical scene begins to be tedious to me,' said the Chevalier indifferently and fretfully; but in the same instant the door sprang open and a maiden in white night-garments, with loosened hair, death in her countenance, rushed to the old Vertua, raised him up, seized him in her arms and cried-'Oh, my father--my father-I heard-I know all. Have you then lost all? all? Have you not your Angela? What could gold or property do if Angela did not nourish you, cherish you? O father, degrade yourself no longer before this unmanly despicable man. We do not, it is he who remains poor and miserable in his abundant base wealth there leave him in dread, comfortless solitude-no living heart is there on the wide earth to cling to his breast, to unbosom itself to him when, alone, by himself, he shall despair of life!-Come, my father-leave this house with me, let us hasten away that this wretched man may not entertain himself with your grief!'

"Vertua sank half powerless in an armchair. Angela knelt down before him, seized his hands, kissed, caressed him, reckoned in childlike babbling all the accomplishments, all the talents which were at her command and by which she could abundantly maintain her father, conjured him, with scalding tears, to renounce all grief; that now life, if she could only, not for pleasure, no, for her father, embroider, sew, sing, play on the guitar, would for the first time be worth preserving.

"Who, what hardened sinner, could remain indifferent to the sight of Angela, blooming in full heavenly beauty, as with such lovely tones she comforted her old father, as out of her deepest heart flowed the purest love and the most childlike virtue?

"It was otherwise with the Chevalier. An entire hell, full of pain and anguish of conscience, awoke in his heart. Angela appeared to him the rebuking angel of God, before whose glance the misty veil of criminal delusion disappeared, so that he saw with horror his miserable Self in loathsome nakedness.

"In the midst of this hell, whose flames

raged in the Chevalier's heart, arose a pure, Godlike beam whose light was the sweetest rapture and bliss of heaven; but by the light of this beam his nameless grief became only the more unendurable.

"The Chevalier had never yet loved. As he looked at Angela there was a moment in which he was seized by the most vehement passion, and immediately by the despairing grief of entire hopelessness. A man truly could have no hope who appeared to the pure heaven's child, the sweet Angela, as the Chevalier.

666

"The Chevalier essayed to speak; he could not; a cramp, as it were, lamed his tongue. Finally he collected himself with effort, and stammered in a trembling voice, Signor Vertua-hear me! I have now nothing from you, truly nothing-there is my chest--it is your's-no! I must pay you yet more I am your debtor--take it-take it"O my daughter,' cried Vertua, but Angela rose up, stepped before the Chevalier, beamed upon him with a proud glance, Chevalier, learn that there is something higher than gold and wealth. Sentiments, strange to you, which fill our souls with the comfort of heaven, return your gifts, your favor with contempt. Keep the Mammon upon which a curse abides which follows you, a heartless, abandoned gamester."

[ocr errors]

"Yes!' cried the Chevalier, quite out of himself with a wild look, in a wretched tone, yes, cursed-cursed will I be, cast down into the deepest hell if ever again this hand touches a card!-And if you thrust me from you, Angela! thus you bring upon me remediless destruction-oh, you know notyou understand me not-wandering must you think me-but you will feel, you will know all when I lie before you a suicide.--Angela is death or life! Farewell!'

"The Chevalier rushed forth in the deepest despair. Vertua entirely understood him, he knew what was passing in him and sought to make intelligible to the sweet Angela, that there might occur certain circumstances, to lead to the necessity of receiving the Chevalier's gifts. Angela suddered when she understood her father. She saw not how it was possible to meet the Chevalier otherwise than with contempt. The destiny which forms itself out of the deepest depth of the manly heart, uncon

sciously to itself, brought that to pass which had not been thought of, had not been foreseen.

"The Chevalier, as if suddenly awaked from a frightful dream, saw himself now on the edge of a hell-precipice, and stretched out his arms in vain to the glancing heavenly form which appeared to him, not to save him-no! to remind him of his damnation.

"To the astonishment of all Paris, the Bank of the Chevalier Menars disappeared from the gaming-house, he himself was seen no more, and the most various and wonderful reports were abroad, of which one was only more lying than another. The Chevalier avoided all company, his love expressed itself in the deepest, most indigestible grief. It happened that he met old Vertua and his daughter suddenly in one of the solitary and darkest passages of the gardens at Malmaison.

"Angela, who believed she could not look upon the Chevalier otherwise than with loathing and contempt, felt herself strangely moved as she saw him before her, troubled and deadly pale, scarcely taking courage, in his bashful reserve, to raise his eyes. She knew well that the Chevalier, since that fatal night, had entirely abandoned play, that he had changed his whole course of life. She, she alone had accomplished all this, she had saved the Chevalier from destruction. Could the vanity of woman be further flattered?.

"As Vertua exchanged the usual salutations with the Chevalier, Angela asked with a tone of the softest, kindest sympathy: What has disturbed you, Chevalier Menars? you appear ill. In truth you should confide yourself to a physician.'

"It may be supposed that Angela's words beamed through the Chevalier with comforting hope. On the instant he was no longer the same. He raised his head, he was able to utter those words springing forth from the deepest soul, which formerly opened to him all hearts. Vertua reminded him to take possession of the house he had won.

"Yes, Signor Vertua,' said the Chevalier enthusiastically, that will I-I come to you to-morrow. But, with your permission, we shall consult right carefully on the conditions, should it take a month.'

"Be it so. It seems to me,' replied Vertua, smiling, many things at the

time might come into discourse, of which we cannot think at present.' It could not fail that the Chevalier, comforted at heart, should revive anew all the love-worthiness, once peculiar to him before confused, ruinous passion had carried him away. His visits to old Signor Vertua became ever more frequent, ever more affectionate Angela became to him, whose guardian angel she had been, until she finally believed that she loved him truly from her very heart, and promised to give him her hand to the great joy of old Vertua, who looked upon the affair with reference to his prosperity as fully compensated.

"Angela, the happy bride of the Chevalier Menars, sat one day at the window, absorbed in various thoughts of love, delight, and bliss, as is quite usual with brides. A rifle regiment marched by with merry trumpet-sound, destined for the campaign in Spain. Angela regarded with interest those who were devoted to death in the unhappy war. A young man in the lustihood of youth looked up at Angela, as his mettlesome horse turned on the spot, and she sank powerless back in her chair.

"Ah, no one else was the rifleman who marched to bloody death, than the young Duvernet, the son of a neighbor, who had grown up with her, been almost daily in the house, and who first stayed away since the Chevalier appeared.

"In the severely reproachful look of the young man (the bitterness of death itself lay in it), knew Angela for the first time not only how unspeakably he had loved her-nay, how boundlessly she herself had loved him, without hav ing been conscious of it, while she was only fooled and dazzled by the brilliance the Chevalier ever diffused around him. Now first she understood the young man's anxious sighs, his quiet, unassuming wooing; now first understood her own confused heart, knew what had moved her unquiet breast when Duvernet came, when she heard his voice.

"It is too late, he is lost to me!' So spake Angela in her heart. She had the courage to combat down the comfortless feeling which would tear her heart, and because she had the courage to do it, she succeeded. Yet that something disturbing must have come to pass, could not escape the acuteness of

« AnteriorContinuar »