The Enemies of Women Part 19

The war had awakened him for a few weeks from the grip of his wild dream. His brother had died a few weeks before; but countless young nephews still remained. They had given up their comforts and pleasures in high society to offer their lives. Some of them, who were in the navy, had embarked on small vessels, torpedo-boats and submarines, seeking the greatest dangers; others entered the army as officers. A niece of his even, delicate in health, had been decorated on the firing line, for her sacrifices as a nurse.

"And I, miserable selfish man that I am," he said, in talking with the Colonel at the Casino, "go on being a mere Monte Carlo gambler. I ought to be out there, where the men are, but I can't.... I can't! My days are over; I'm a corpse that eats and sleeps just to go on gambling. Add to that the fact that some of my relatives, older than I am, are in the army!"

At the age of fifty-four, the consciousness of his moral decay, and his continual losses, had embittered his nature. Besides, the evenings that luck was against him he kept going out to the Casino bar, seeking inspiration in one whisky after another gulped down in haste. Heavy set, with square shoulders, a small head, deep blue eyes and a red mustache streaked with gray, he reminded Atilio somewhat of a wild boar, perhaps because of his aggressiveness and gruffness when he was in a bad humor.

He gambled with his head sunk between his shoulders, his strong hands resting on the green baize, without looking at any one, and without allowing any one to talk to him, since it disturbed his calculations.

The days when things were going wrong, and he was having arguments in regard to some doubtful play, with the employees or with those who were sitting near him at the tables, Lewis's outburst of rage broke the discreet calm of the gaming rooms. He insulted the croupiers, inviting them to step outside on the Square, while his biceps swelled like a prize fighter's. It was necessary to call one of the princ.i.p.al directors to pacify him with all the paternal considerations which a steady patron deserved.

This man, who in his youth had believed in neither G.o.d nor devil, lived a constant prey to superst.i.tions which were Castro's delight. He detested strange faces, feeling certain that they exercised on him an evil influence. It was enough that he should see one across the green table, or behind his seat, to cause him to begin to growl in an undertone, until finally he would get up and go out to the bar, with the idea that a whisky taken in time would change his luck. His intimate friend, the only one who could live with him for several days in succession, was a French count, older than Lewis, and who was simply called by his t.i.tle, as though he were nameless, or as though he were just naturally "The Count." The latter never gambled, but he was ever so wise, in spite of the fact that many people considered him insane! One day, thirty years ago, he had stepped out of his house in Paris, saying that he was going out to buy some tobacco, and he had not yet returned.

His wife had died without seeing him, and his children, and countless grand-children, who had been born and had grown up during his absence, were anxious that he should never finish making his purchase.

While Lewis played, the Count, seated on a divan, quietly read some book, without paying any attention to the curiosity of the public, which stared at his long white hair brushed back, his enormous wild-looking mustache, his round green eyes, gleaming with phosph.o.r.escence like those of a night hawk. Castro's curiosity was aroused by the Count's books.

They were always new volumes of the sort that are never seen in any book store, and are published by obscure unknown firms; conscientious treatises on the nectars and ambrosias of modern life--opium, cocaine, morphine, and ether--formulas by which one can enter into direct communication with the mysterious powers--spirits, hobgoblins, and familiar demons--old books of magic brought to light by up-to-date sorcerers.

He never deigned to give his friend advice as to gambling; his thoughts were on higher things; but Lewis felt surer whenever he raised his eyes and saw him, by chance, reading in a corner. As long as he was there, he always won, or at least he did not lose much. His presence was enough to conjure the evil power of the infinite number of enemies which the Englishman felt were surrounding the table. Besides, he was aware of the object which the Count was fondling secretly with one hand, while he went on reading.

After he had had the misfortune to lose for several days in succession, Lewis would come to him, entreatingly:

"Count, my dear Count, if you would please lend me your Satan's rosary!"

The learned personage would look up, doubtful and hesitating. But since it was his best friend who asked for it, he would hand the rosary over, which meant that one of his hands would be left without anything to do.

It was a rosary like any other, with large red beads and black ones to mark off the tens. The chief thing about it was the group of objects which hung in place of the missing cross: an ivory elephant picked up by the Count in India, an authentic coin of the Emperor Constantine found in the excavations at Anatolia, and another charm which even Lewis could scarcely look upon without a sense of revulsion.

Ill luck was vanquished. At times Lewis had lost while he was secretly telling the beads of the diabolical rosary under the table; but he always lost less than when he was deprived of the marvelous talisman.

He only cared to remember how one afternoon, aided by the obscene sacrilegious thing so highly prized he had succeeded in winning eighty thousand francs.

If he stopped winning it was the Count's fault. He was as fickle as a coquette. He would suddenly disappear, repeating the same unexplainable flight that had amazed his family. He never left Lewis to go and buy tobacco; but if any of the books he bought told about some narcotic used in Asia to enable one to see the future, or about a gypsy woman in Granada who could kill people by merely wis.h.i.+ng and saying a few words, then off he would go, accepting as gospel truth the saying of some anonymous writer who had never been out of Paris. He never lacked money for these mysterious trips: doubtless his family was interested in keeping him at a distance. He might be three months or five years in reappearing. At last the rumor would reach Lewis that his friend was living in Nice or Cannes, and he would then write him frequently, inviting him to come over to Monte Carlo. He even used to go after him and the Count would allow himself to be brought back with his mysterious books and his prodigious rosary, without ever saying a word about what discoveries he had made on his trips.

On seeing Lewis, after a year's absence, the Prince was obliged to conceal his surprise. Nothing save the clear, quiet, gentle eyes, recalled the vanished freshness of the athletic and elegant gentleman.

He had grown thin in an alarming manner, with the emaciation of illness.

His skull seemed to have shrunk, and across his baldness strayed the few scattered ashen locks that still remained.

A remark made by the Colonel came to his mind. Toledo had made a study of the decadence of gamblers. It was when they reached the last limits of depression and despair that they began to stoop, to shrivel up, and become wrinkled. Lewis' hat was getting too big for him; each day it sat farther down on his head until it rested on his ears. His s.h.i.+rt collar was also getting larger, as though it were making room for his sorrowing heart to take flight.

During the lunch, Lewis, Castro and Spadoni kept up the conversation.

They talked about gambling and the Casino, but no one dared ask the Englishman if he had been winning. He had a superst.i.tious fear of this question, as if it brought misfortune. On the other hand, he talked about other people's good luck, and the great stakes that had been won in a night. He kept in his mind all that he had been told, and all that he had imagined he had seen during twenty-five years of life at Monte Carlo. An American had gone away with a million; an Englishman had won ten thousand pounds sterling with five _louis_ that he had borrowed.

Thus he went on talking about the wonders that had happened in the Casino. And after that could there still be people to a.s.sert that all, absolutely all, of the gamblers, lose in the end?

With eyes that glistened with astonishment and greed, the pianist listened to the tales of the "Dean of the Gamblers." Castro was more skeptical. He had heard of these extraordinary winnings, and of many others, but had never witnessed a single one of them, although he had been coming to Monte Carlo for a good many years. It was true that he had seen as much as five hundred thousand francs won in a single night.

But the next day things had changed, and the winner had lost all his gains, and all the money he had brought, into the bargain, finally being obliged to ask for the customary viatic.u.m in order to be able to return to his country.

"I think," he said, "all these stories are invented by the advertising department of the Casino. They tell me they have engaged a popular novelist, whose business it is to start a story like that every week, in order to encourage the gamblers."

The Prince smiled at this invention of his friend, but Lewis would not listen to jokes on such a serious subject, and a.s.serted that he had witnessed everything that he related. He was lying unconsciously in making this statement. In reality he had seen the same things as Atilio: people who won to lose later on; but he felt the need of the supernatural and was inclined to believe everything in advance. He had the soul of a fanatic, who, when told of a miracle, affirms a few days later with sincerity: "I saw it with my own eyes."

Every now and then the Prince would eye Castro, expecting to surprise some ironic glance, something which would reveal his impressions in regard to the visit he had received that morning. Lewis' presence seemed to have obliterated all memory of anything unrelated to gambling.

When the luncheon was over they talked in the hall, over their coffee, about those who played for big stakes in the private rooms. The names of some of them were spoken of with respect, as though they were masters, worthy of admiration.

"So-and-so knows how to play," was the one comment.

The amusing part of it for Michael was the fact that Lewis also figured among the masters "who knew how to play," and every one of them lost, like those who were "ignorant." Their one merit rested on their ability to put off the hour of final ruin, and prolong the annihilating emotion, growing old like prisoners in the shadow of the rocky cliffs of the Princ.i.p.ality.

The Prince looked at Castro once more, as at a clever enemy who is hiding his thoughts. He ventured to ask a question.

"And how does my relative, the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille, play?"

Atilio looked at him, with not so much as a mischievous twinkle in his eyes, surprised at the interest shown by the Prince. But before he could reply, Lewis broke in with an answer. The latter hated women, especially at the gaming tables. They were only a nuisance, interrupting the calculations of the men, with their nervous looks and gestures.

"She plays like an idiot," he said brutally. "She plays like any woman.... The money she's lost like a fool!"

Castro intervened as though desiring the conversation to go no further.

"How about the Count?" he asked Lewis. "Where is he? The Colonel is very much interested in him."

Don Marcos gave an exclamation of surprise and reproach. He had formed his own opinion of that person a long time ago. He was a crazy man! He would never forget the brief dialogue they had had one afternoon in the Casino, after Atilio had introduced them. On learning Toledo's nationality he had launched into a great eulogy of Spain. Oh, Spain!

What an interesting language it had! And when the Colonel was about to thank him for his extreme politeness, he was dumbfounded by the following remark, that took away his breath:

"Because, as you probably know, Spanish is the preferred language of the devil, after Latin. The most powerful charms are written in Spanish.

What wonderful necromancers in Toledo! What learned sorcerers in Salamanca!"

The old soldier who had fought for the Most Catholic king was always greatly disturbed when he thought of the Count and his rosary. For this reason when Lewis declared that he had no idea of the whereabouts of his friend, he solemnly replied:

"I know where he is: in a mad house."

Suddenly the roar of a train was heard pa.s.sing Villa Sirena, accompanied by shouts and whistling. They were more Englishmen on their way to Italy.

This caused them to take up the subject of the war. Lewis, who had imbibed freely at the table, was overcome at once with an intense sadness, the talk of gambling having reminded him of the worthlessness of his life. His intoxication was of the solemn, melancholy kind.

"Two of my nephews died in the Jutland naval battle. Six of my brother's sons were killed in France, in a single afternoon: they belonged to the same battalion. They were all young, spirited, and anxious to do something. I'm the only man left in the family; I'm the worthless one, the old man, good for nothing. It's terrible!"

No one said anything, realizing the shame and despair of this man, who seemed to be weeping over the ruins of his aimless existence. Novoa nodded slightly, as though approving of his words.

"My family is extinct. And there were so many young men in it! Life is strange. Time goes by without anything extraordinary happening, and then all of a sudden the hours are like months, the days like years, and in a few minutes things take place that usually require centuries. All dead!

None left but my niece Mary, the nurse. She is here; her superiors ordered her away almost by force, to take a rest and recuperate. But, anxious to resume her service, she got away to Menton and Nice, where there are wounded men. If at least she would only marry! But it can't be: she will die like the rest. And I shall remain alone, and be a lord, the third Lord Lewis; Lord Lewis the Historian, Lord Lewis the Colonel Governor, and Lord Lewis the Wastrel...."

At this point they all stopped him in affectionate protest. The misfortune of his family had been extraordinary, but he ought not to torture himself like that.

"If you don't mind, Prince," said the Englishman, changing the conversation, "some day I shall bring my niece to let her see your gardens. She is so fond of such things! She is the only one of the family to inherit my father's spirit."

After saying that, Lewis showed signs of desiring to go. It was necessary for him to forget, and he knew where oblivion was waiting for him. For a gambler like him, it was no more possible to sit still than it would be for a drunkard who is thinking of a bar with its rows of gla.s.ses. Castro and Spadoni exchanged several glances with him.

"What do you say to dropping in at the Casino?" one of them proposed.

And all three disappeared.

The Colonel also left, and the Prince spent the remainder of the afternoon talking with Novoa, walking about the gardens, and looking at the sunset. Finally, he sat down in the hall under a tall rose-shaded floor lamp, to read.

Castro returned alone, long before the dinner hour. He was sad; he whistled occasionally. His smile was a savage grin. It had been a bad afternoon. He had lost everything! The next day he would have to ask his relative for a fresh loan in order to return to his "work."