8 Florian Loses Money and Wins Crescence
He was brought to a pause by the sight of a gaming-table. He passed on, and inspected the tobacco-pipes in the next booth. Turning back, he resolved merely to look at the others who were playing. One was particularly fortunate with No. 8. Putting his hand in his pocket, he set a three-creutzer piece on the same number, and lost it. He tried again, and again he lost. He bit his lips until they bled, but immediately looked around with a smile, to conceal his vexation. He lost again. He felt his knees knocking, and his intestines boiled. With hot, trembling hand, he threw down his last coin, and looked another way. He won back all the money he had lost. He seized it hastily, thinking, “There! so much for playing with edged tools. I’ll hold on to you now, my darling!” Yet he remained rooted to the spot. It would not do to let people see how glad he was to walk off without being fleeced.
Then again he reflected that he must, somehow, raise money to pay Schlunkel. He would try one piece, and put the rest of his money into his right pocket, where he never put his hand.
He played: he did put his hand into his right pocket; and he walked away with empty pockets. With inexpressible grief and self-accusation, he now ran about the market: thousands of things were offered for sale, but he could not stretch forth his hand to take them. A terrible curse against the world rose to his lips: he longed to turn every thing topsy-turvy.
We might be tempted to ask, “What reason has a man like Florian to rave at the world? The world has done him no harm: he is himself the cause of his own distress.” But then people like Florian—whether they belong to the class of society which wears gloves, or to that which wears them not—are never ready to think: when in bad luck they scold.
His only comfort was that he was firmly resolved never to touch a die again as long as he lived. To-be-sure, it was easy to shut the stable-door after the horse was stolen: still, there was some comfort in a virtuous resolution.
He met his father looking very happy. “Have you any money, father?” said Florian, running up to him.
“Yes: I’ve earned three six-creutzer pieces, selling some oxen. See!”
“Give me two of them.”
Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared with the money. He now walked up and down among the booths in good spirits, sustained by the consciousness of possession. He no longer cast a look upon the gambling-tables.
But soon he began to think that he had been very stupid in skipping about from one number to another: how could he help losing them? Should the rascally sweat-cloth fellows have the satisfaction of keeping it? But then he had sworn never to touch a die again! Well, he would keep his vow: he would go where the croupier made the die roll through the coils of a snake, and where he might play without touching any thing.
At first he played for creutzers, like the others. He used great circumspection, taking care to remember the numbers which had won frequently, and betting upon the others. For some time he neither lost nor won. Finding this tedious, he staked larger pieces, and tried several numbers at a time, and with success. Seeing some of his acquaintances, he beckoned to them to come up and join him.
But the tide soon turned, and Florian lost. He now wandered about the board, passed every number, and changed his bet before the throw fell. When, at such times, the deserted number proved the winning one, he laughed aloud. Fortune frowned more and more, though he returned to his old system of remaining true to certain numbers. Taking his last groat, he laid it upon the table with such force as to make the table quiver,—and lost.
Florian continued to regard the board intently, with breath almost suppressed, though a tempest of emotion was raging within him. Having stayed long enough to prevent his acquaintances from suspecting the true state of the case, he stole away. Now he had neither vows nor curses, neither good nor evil intentions: he wandered from place to place like a body without a soul, without thoughts, without will, dull, hollow, and ruined.
The sound of music awakened him from his trance, and he found himself before the Rose Inn. The French simpleton, who was standing at the door and waiting for somebody to treat him, cried, “Drenda marioin,” and made a sign of thirst; but Florian pushed him aside and went up into the dancing-hall.
Every one treated him: he only sipped at the glass and offered to set it down again. “It’s in good hands,” was the cry,—meaning, “Drink it all.” “High up behind, they say at the Rhine,” he would then say, and drain the glass at a draught.
The frequent repetition of this ceremony infused new life into him: the various kinds of wine had the same effect, and he wiped his forehead. At length Peter came up to him, saying, “Have you seen Crescence? She is sitting at the Knight with the geometer.”
Florian hardly stayed to drain his friend’s glass. An object had appeared upon which to vent his wrath: he had an excuse for committing a crime, for destroying himself and others. Through lanes and alleys, passing the little apothecary-shop where the crowd never came, he made his way to the Knight, and bounded up-stairs, taking three steps at a time.
Oh that men would run to do good with half the impetuosity which wafts them on the road to evil! How often do they scorn wind and weather, distance and darkness, in the gratification of their baser passions! but, when a duty is to be done, every breath is too rude, and every pebble an insurmountable hindrance.
As he entered the room, panting and out of breath, Crescence ran to meet him with beaming eyes, and, taking his trembling hand in hers, she said, “God be praised, you are mine again, and I am all yours now: I’ve just sent the geometer about his business for good and all. It’s been boiling in me a long time, and at last it ran over. Oh, I’m so glad! I don’t know what to do. I know whom I belong to now, and I belong to you, and will belong to you, no matter what happens. What makes you look so cross? A’n’t you glad, too, that there’s an end of this lying?”
She straightened his cap, which had been pushed to one side of his head. Florian suffered her to say and do what she liked. He awoke from a dream of vice, blood, and horror, to find himself in the arms of love and peace. He almost recoiled from this true-hearted love which came to him in the abyss of his degradation. Nothing had been left him but his poor, wasted life, which he would so gladly have thrown off likewise: now he learned to prize it again when he saw another life twined so confidingly around it. Smiling with a mixture of sadness and glee, he said at last, “Come, Crescence: let’s go.”
Crescence made no objection, though she could not help looking up with a smile at hearing the musicians strike up a fresh waltz: full as her heart was, she would gladly have danced a little, though she refrained from saying so,—not so much to guard against misunderstanding as because it made her happy just to live according to Florian’s pleasure.
Near the front door Schlunkel was sitting over his wine without a companion. To the astonishment of Crescence, he asked Florian to drink with him; and Florian not only acknowledged the salutation, but said to her, “Go on a little: I’ll come right-away.”
She waited for him on the front door-steps. Schlunkel said, “Well, where’s my money?”
“I can’t pay you now: I can’t cut it out of my ribs.”
“Then you must give me the knife there in pawn.”
“Oh, now, just wait till to-morrow night: do. If I don’t give it to you then, you shall have it double.”
“Oh, yes: you can promise it double; but who’s to give it to me?”
“I am.”
“Will you come to me to-morrow night?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m agreed.”
Florian passed on, and when Crescence asked him, “What does that wretch want of you?” he blushed like a fire-thief, and answered, “Nothing: he wanted me to sell him my knife.”
“Don’t let him have it: he’d murder somebody with it.”
Florian shuddered; and it pained him to see the undoubting faith with which Crescence received his words.