Of course, I am living in constant trepidation,playing for the smallest of stakes, and always looking out for something--calculating, standing whole days by the gaming-tables to watch the play--even seeing that play in my dreams--yet seeming, the while, to be in some way stiffening, to be growing caked, as it were, in mire. But I must conclude my notes, which I finish under the impression of a recent encounter with Mr. Astley. I had not seen him since we parted at Roulettenberg, and now we met quite by accident. At the time I was walking in the public gardens, and meditating upon the fact that not only had I still some fifty olden in my possession, but also I had fully paid up my hotel bill three days ago. Consequently, I was in a position to try my luck again at roulette; and if I won anything I should be able to continue my play, whereas, if I lost what I now possessed, I should once more have to accept a lacquey's place, provided that, in the alternative, I failed to discover a Russian family which stood in need of a tutor. Plunged in these reflections, I started on my daily walk through the Park and forest towards a neighbouring principality. Sometimes, on such occasions, I spent four hours on the way, and would return to Homburg tired and hungry; but, on this particular occasion, I had scarcely left the gardens for the Park when I caught sight of Astley seated on a bench. As soon as he perceived me, he called me by name, and I went and sat down beside him; but, on noticing that he seemed a little stiff in his manner, I hastened to moderate the expression of joy which the sight of him had called forth.
"YOU here?" he said. "Well, I had an idea that I should meet you. Do not trouble to tell me anything, for I know all--yes, all. In fact, your whole life during the past twenty months lies within my knowledge."
"How closely you watch the doings of your old friends!" I replied. "That does you infinite credit. But stop a moment. You have reminded me of something. Was it you who bailed me out of Roulettenberg prison when I was lying there for a debt of two hundred gulden? SOMEONE did so."
"Oh dear no!--though I knew all the time that you were lying there."
"Perhaps you could tell me who DID bail me out?"
"No; I am afraid I could not."
"What a strange thing! For I know no Russians at all here, so it cannot have been a Russian who befriended me. In Russia we Orthodox folk DO go bail for one another, but in this case I thought it must have been done by some English stranger who was not conversant with the ways of the country."
Mr. Astley seemed to listen to me with a sort of surprise.
Evidently he had expected to see me looking more crushed and broken than I was.
"Well," he said--not very pleasantly, "I am none the less glad to find that you retain your old independence of spirit, as well as your buoyancy."
"Which means that you are vexed at not having found me more abased and humiliated than I am?" I retorted with a smile.
Astley was not quick to understand this, but presently did so and laughed.
"Your remarks please me as they always did," he continued. "In those words I see the clever, triumphant, and, above all things, cynical friend of former days. Only Russians have the faculty of combining within themselves so many opposite qualities. Yes, most men love to see their best friend in abasement; for generally it is on such abasement that friendship is founded.
All thinking persons know that ancient truth. Yet, on the present occasion, I assure you, I am sincerely glad to see that you are NOT cast down. Tell me, are you never going to give up gambling?"
"Damn the gambling! Yes, I should certainly have given it up, were it not that--"
"That you are losing? I thought so. You need not tell me any more. I know how things stand, for you have said that last in despair, and therefore, truthfully. Have you no other employment than gambling?"
"No; none whatever."
Astley gave me a searching glance. At that time it was ages since I had last looked at a paper or turned the pages of a book.
"You are growing blase," he said. "You have not only renounced life, with its interests and social ties, but the duties of a citizen and a man; you have not only renounced the friends whom I know you to have had, and every aim in life but that of winning money; but you have also renounced your memory. Though I can remember you in the strong, ardent period of your life, I feel persuaded that you have now forgotten every better feeling of that period--that your present dreams and aspirations of subsistence do not rise above pair, impair rouge, noir, the twelve middle numbers, and so forth."
"Enough, Mr. Astley!" I cried with some irritation--almost in anger. "Kindly do not recall to me any more recollections, for I can remember things for myself. Only for a time have I put them out of my head. Only until I shall have rehabilitated myself, am I keeping my memory dulled. When that hour shall come, you will see me arise from the dead."
"Then you will have to be here another ten years," he replied.
"Should I then be alive, I will remind you--here, on this very bench--of what I have just said. In fact, I will bet you a wager that I shall do so."
"Say no more," I interrupted impatiently. "And to show you that I have not wholly forgotten the past, may I enquire where Mlle. Polina is? If it was not you who bailed me out of prison, it must have been she. Yet never have I heard a word concerning her."
"No, I do not think it was she. At the present moment she is in Switzerland, and you will do me a favour by ceasing to ask me these questions about her." Astley said this with a firm, and even an angry, air.
"Which means that she has dealt you a serious wound?" I burst out with an involuntary sneer.
"Mlle. Polina," he continued, "Is the best of all possible living beings; but, I repeat, that I shall thank you to cease questioning me about her. You never really knew her, and her name on your lips is an offence to my moral feeling."
