Alea sequa vorax species certissima furti Non contenta bonis, animum
quoque perfida mergit;--Furca, furax--infamis, iners, furiosa, ruina.
Petrarch: Dial.
I dined the next day at the Freres Provencaux; an excellent
restaurateur’s, by-the-by, where one gets irreproachable gibier, and
meets no English. After dinner, I strolled into the various gambling
houses, with which the Palais Royal abounds.
In one of these, the crowd and heat were so great, that I should
immediately have retired if I had not been struck with the extreme
and intense expression of interest in the countenance of one of the
spectators at the rouge et noir table. He was a man about forty years
of age; his complexion was dark and sallow; the features prominent, and
what are generally called handsome; but there was a certain sinister
expression in his eyes and mouth, which rendered the effect of his
physiognomy rather disagreeable than prepossessing. At a small distance
from him, and playing, with an air which, in its carelessness and
nonchalance, formed a remarkable contrast to the painful anxiety of the
man I have just described, sate Mr. Thornton.
At first sight, these two appeared to be the only Englishmen present
besides myself; I was more struck by seeing the former in that scene,
than I was at meeting Thornton there; for there was something distingue
in the mien of the stranger, which suited far worse with the appearance
of the place, than the bourgeois air and dress of my ci-devant second.
“What! another Englishman?” thought I, as I turned round and perceived
a thick, rough great coat, which could possibly belong to no continental
shoulders. The wearer was standing directly opposite the seat of the
swarthy stranger; his hat was slouched over his face; I moved in order
to get a clearer view of his countenance. It was the same person I had
seen with Thornton that morning. Never to this moment have I forgotten
the stern and ferocious expression with which he was gazing upon the
keen and agitated features of the gambler opposite. In the eye and
lip there was neither pleasure, hatred, nor scorn, in their simple and
unalloyed elements; but each seemed blent and mingled into one deadly
concentration of evil passions.
This man neither played, nor spoke, nor moved. He appeared utterly
insensible of every feeling in common with those around. There he stood,
wrapt in his own dark and inscrutable thoughts, never, for one instant,
taking his looks from the varying countenance which did not observe
their gaze, nor altering the withering character of their almost
demoniacal expression. I could not tear myself from the spot. I felt
chained by some mysterious and undefinable interest; my attention was
first diverted into a new channel, by a loud exclamation from the
dark visaged gambler at the table; it was the first he had uttered,
notwithstanding his anxiety; and, from the deep, thrilling tone in
which it was expressed, it conveyed a keen sympathy with the overcharged
feelings which it burst from.
With a trembling hand, he took from an old purse the few Napoleons that
were still left there. He set them all at one hazard, on the rouge. He
hung over the table with a dropping lip; his hands were tightly clasped
in each other; his nerves seemed strained into the last agony of
excitation. I ventured to raise my eyes upon the gaze, which I felt must
still be upon the gambler--there it was fixed, and stern as before; but
it now conveyed a deeper expression of joy than of the other passions
which were there met. Yet a joy so malignant and fiendish, that no look
of mere anger or hatred could have so chilled my heart. I dropped my
eyes. I redoubled my attention to the cards--the last two were to be
turned up. A moment more!--the fortune was to the noir. The stranger had
lost! He did not utter a single word. He looked with a vacant eye on the
long mace, with which the marker had swept away his last hopes, with his
last coin, and then, rising, left the room, and disappeared.
The other Englishman was not long in following him. He uttered a short,
low, laugh, unobserved, perhaps, by any one but myself; and, pushing
through the atmosphere of sacres and mille tonnerres, which filled that
pandaemonium, strode quickly to the door. I felt as if a load had been
taken from my bosom, when he was gone.