the Chevalier angrily. 'I tell you you won't get so much as a hundred,
nor fifty, nor twenty, no, not so much as a single _Louis d'or_ from
me. I should be mad to make you even the smallest advance, so as to
help you begin your shameful trade over again. Fate has stamped you in
the dust like a poisonous reptile, and it would simply be villainy for
me to aid you in recovering yourself. Go and perish as you deserve.'
"Pressing both hands over his face, Vertua sank on the floor with a
muffled groan. The Chevalier ordered his servant to take the strong-box
down to his carriage, and then cried in a loud voice, 'When will you
hand over to me your house and effects, Signor Vertua?'
"Vertua hastily picked himself up from the ground and said in a firm
voice, 'Now, at once--this moment, Chevalier; come with me.'
"'Good,' replied the Chevalier, 'you may ride with me as far as your
house, which you shall leave tomorrow for good.'
"All the way neither of them spoke a single word, neither Vertua nor
the Chevalier. Arrived in front of the house in the Rue St. Honoré,
Vertua pulled the bell; an old woman opened the door, and on perceiving
it was Vertua cried, 'Oh! good heavens, Signor Vertua, is that you at
last? Angela is half dead with anxiety on your account.'
"'Silence,' replied Vertua. 'God grant she has not heard this unlucky
bell! She is not to know that I have come.' And therewith he took the
lighted candle out of the old woman's hand, for she appeared to be
quite stunned, and lighted the Chevalier up to his own room.
"'I am prepared for the worst,' said Vertua. 'You hate, you despise me,
Chevalier. You have ruined me, to your own and other people's joy; but
you do not know me. Let me tell you then that I was once a gambler like
you, that capricious Fortune was as favourable to me as she is to you,
that I travelled through half Europe, stopping everywhere where high
play and the hope of large gains enticed me, that the piles of gold
continually increased in my bank as they do in yours. I had a true and
beautiful wife, whom I neglected, and she was miserable in the midst of
all her magnificence and wealth. It happened once, when I had set up my
bank in Genoa, that a young Roman lost all his rich patrimony at my
bank. He besought me to lend him money, as I did you to-day, sufficient
at least to enable him to travel back to Rome. I refused with a laugh
of mocking scorn, and in the insane fury of despair he thrust the
stiletto which he wore right into my breast. At great pains the
surgeons succeeded in saving me; but it was a wearying painful time
whilst I lay on the bed of sickness. Then my wife tended me, comforted
me, and kept up my courage when I was ready to sink under my
sufferings; and as I grew towards recovery a feeling began to glimmer
within me which I had never experienced before, and it waxed ever
stronger and stronger. A gambler becomes an alien to all human emotion,
and hence I had not known what was the meaning of a wife's love and
faithful attachment. The debt of what I owed my wife burned itself into
my ungrateful heart, and also the sense of the villainous conduct to
which I had sacrificed her. All those whose life's happiness, whose
entire existence, I had ruined with heartless indifference were like
tormenting spirits of vengeance, and I heard their hoarse hollow voices
echoing from the grave, upbraiding me with all the guilt and
criminality, the seed of which I had planted in their bosoms. It was
only my wife who was able to drive away the unutterable distress and
horror that then came upon me. I made a vow never to touch a card more.
I lived in retirement; I rent asunder all the ties which held me fast
to my former mode of life; I withstood the enticements of my croupiers,
when they came and said they could not do without me and my good-luck.
I bought a small country villa not far from Rome, and thither, as soon
as I was recovered of my illness, I fled for refuge along with my wife.
Oh! only one single year did I enjoy a calmness, a happiness, a
peaceful content, such as I had never dreamt of! My wife bore me a
daughter, and died a few weeks later. I was in despair; I railed at
Heaven and again cursed myself and my reprobate life, for which Heaven
was now exacting vengeance upon me by depriving me of my wife--she who
had saved me from ruin, who was the only creature who afforded me hope
and consolation. I was driven away from my country villa hither to
Paris, like the criminal who fears the horrors of solitude. Angela grew
up the lovely image of her mother; my heart was wholly wrapt up in her;
for her sake I felt called upon not so much to obtain a large fortune
for her as to increase what I had already got. It is the truth that I
lent money at a high rate of interest; but it is a foul calumny to
accuse me of deceitful usury. And who are these my accusers?
Thoughtless, frivolous people who worry me to death until I lend them
money, which they immediately go and squander like a thing of no worth,
and then get in a rage if I demand inexorable punctuality in repayment
of the money which does not indeed belong to me,--no, but to my
daughter, for I merely look upon myself as her steward. It's not long
since I saved a young man from disgrace and ruin by advancing him a
considerable sum. As I knew he was terribly poor, I never mentioned a
syllable about repayment until I knew he had got together a rich
property. Then I applied to him for settlement of his debt Would you
believe it, Chevalier? the dishonourable knave, who owed all he had to
me, tried to deny the debt, and on being compelled by the court to pay
me, reproached me with being a villainous miser? I could tell you more
such like cases; and these things have made me hard and insensible to
emotion when I have to deal with folly and baseness. Nay, more--I could
tell you of the many bitter tears I have wiped away, and of the many
prayers which have gone up to Heaven for me and my Angela, but you
would only regard it as empty boasting, and pay not the slightest heed
to it, for you are a gambler. I thought I had satisfied the resentment
of Heaven; it was but a delusion, for Satan has been permitted to lead
me astray in a more disastrous way than before. I heard of your good-
luck. Chevalier. Every day I heard that this man and that had staked
and staked at your bank until he became a beggar. Then the thought came
into my mind that I was destined to try my gambler's luck, which had
never hitherto deserted me, against yours, that the power was given me
to put a stop to your practices; and this thought, which could only
have been engendered by some extraordinary madness, left me no rest, no
peace. Hence I came to your bank; and my terrible infatuation did not
leave me until all my property--all my Angela's property--was yours.
And now the end has come. I presume you will allow my daughter to take
her clothing with her?'
"'Your daughter's wardrobe does not concern me,' replied the Chevalier.
'You may also take your beds and other necessary household utensils,
and such like; for what could I do with all the old lumber? But see to
it that nothing of value of the things which now belong to me get mixed
up with it.'
"Old Vertua stared at the Chevalier a second or two utterly speechless;
then a flood of tears burst from his eyes, and he sank upon his knees
in front of the Chevalier, perfectly upset with trouble and despair,
and raised his hands crying, 'Chevalier, have you still a spark of
human feeling left in your breast? Be merciful, merciful. It is not I,
but my daughter, my Angela, my innocent angelic child, whom you are
plunging into ruin. Oh! be merciful to _her_; lend _her_, _her_, my
Angela, the twentieth part of the property you have deprived her of.
Oh! I know you will listen to my entreaty! O Angela! my daughter!' And
therewith the old man sobbed and lamented and moaned, calling upon his
child by name in the most heart-rending tones.
"'I am getting tired of this absurd theatrical scene,' said the
Chevalier indifferently but impatiently; but at this moment the door
flew open and in burst a girl in a white night-dress, her hair
dishevelled, her face pale as death,--burst in and ran to old Vertua,
raised him up, took him in her arms, and cried, 'O father! O father! I
have heard all, I know all! Have you really lost everything--
everything, really? Have you not your Angela? What need have we of
money and property? Will not Angela sustain you and tend you? O father,
don't humiliate yourself a moment longer before this despicable
monster. It is not _we_, but _he_, who is poor and miserable in the
midst of his contemptible riches; for see, he stands there deserted in
his awful hopeless loneliness; there is not a heart in all the wide
world to cling lovingly to his breast, to open out to him when he
despairs of his own life, of himself. Come, father. Leave this house
with me. Come, let us make haste and be gone, that this fearful man may
not exult over your trouble.'
"Vertua sank half fainting into an easy-chair. Angela knelt down before
him, took his hands, kissed them, fondled them, enumerated with
childish loquacity all the talents, all the accomplishments, which she
was mistress of, and by the aid of which she would earn a comfortable
living for her father; she besought him from the midst of burning tears
to put aside all his trouble and distress, since her life would now
first acquire true significance, when she had to sew, embroider, sing,
and play her guitar, not for mere pleasure, but for her father's sake.
"Who, however hardened a sinner, could have remained insensible at the
sight of Angela, thus radiant in her divine beauty, comforting her old
father with sweet soft words, whilst the purest affection, the most
childlike goodness, beamed from her eyes, evidently coming from the
very depths of her heart?
"Quite otherwise was it with the Chevalier. A perfect Gehenna of
torment and of the stinging of conscience was awakened within him.
Angela appeared to him to be the avenging angel of God, before whose
splendour the misty veil of his wicked infatuation melted away, so that
he saw with horror the repulsive nakedness of his own miserable soul.
Yet right through the midst of the flames of this infernal pit that was
blazing in the Chevalier's heart passed a divine and pure ray, whose
emanations of light were the sweetest rapture, the very bliss of
heaven; but the shining of this ray only made his unutterable torments
the more terrible to bear.
"The Chevalier had never been in love. The moment in which he saw
Angela was the moment in which he was to experience the most ardent
passion, and also at the same time the crushing pain of utter
hopelessness. For no man who had appeared before the pure angel-child,
lovely Angela, in the way the Chevalier had done, could dream of hope.
He attempted to speak, but his tongue seemed to be numbed by cramp. At
last, controlling himself with an effort, he stammered with trembling
voice, 'Signor Vertua, listen to me. I have not won anything from you--
nothing at all. There is my strong box; it is yours,--nay, I must pay
you yet more than there is there. I am your debtor. There, take it,
take it!'
"'O my daughter!' cried Vertua. But Angela rose to her feet, approached
the Chevalier, and flashed a proud look upon him, saying earnestly and
composedly, *'Chevalier, allow me to tell you that there is something
higher than money and goods; there are sentiments to which you are a
stranger, which, whilst sustaining our souls with the comfort of
Heaven, bid us reject your gift, your favour, with contempt. Keep your
mammon, which is burdened with the curse that pursues you, you
heartless, depraved gambler.'
"'Yes,' cried the Chevalier in a fearful voice, his eyes flashing
wildly, for he was perfectly beside himself, 'yes, accursed,--accursed
will I be--down into the depths of damnation may I be hurled if ever
again this hand touches a card. And if you then send me from you,
Angela, then it will be you who will bring irreparable ruin upon me.
Oh! you don't know--you don't understand me. You can't help but call me
insane; but you will feel it--you will know all, when you see me
stretched at your feet with my brains scattered. Angela! It's now a
question of life or death! Farewell!'
"Therewith the Chevalier rushed off in a state of perfect despair.
Vertua saw through him completely; he knew what change had come over
him; he endeavoured to make his lovely Angela understand that certain
circumstances might arise which would make it necessary to accept the
Chevalier's present Angela trembled with dread lest she should
understand her father. She did not conceive how it would ever be
possible to meet the Chevalier on any other terms save those of
contempt. Destiny, which often ripens into shape deep down in the human
heart, without the mind being aware of it, permitted that to take place
which had never been thought of, never been dreamed of.
"The Chevalier was like a man suddenly wakened up out of a fearful
dream; he saw himself standing on the brink of the abyss of ruin, and
stretched out his arms in vain towards the bright shining figure which
had appeared to him, not, however, to save him--no--but to remind him
of his damnation.
"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.