THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ÉMILE ZOLA. Эмиль Золя
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a gaming-table open to the public.
And now, this is what happens. After a few months, conversation and drinking cease, and whole nights are spent around the green baize; the stakes, at first very small, gradually increase in amount, so much so that it is easy to ruin oneself in a few nights. The management is no longer so strict, anyone is free to enter, there are more strangers in the club than members, even women are admitted, sharpers soon put in an appearance for the purpose of fleecing inexperienced players, and this state of things lasts until the police make a raid and close the premises. Two months later the club reopens some distance off, the farce is played over again with the same ending.
This is one of the open sores of Marseille, a festering sore which spreads every day. The clubs have always a tendency to become gambling-houses, abysses which swallow up the fortunes and honour of those imprudent enough to venture therein. And once one has tasted the keen delights of play, all other pleasures seem to cloy; the fever seizes hold of one’s whole being and the table claims the last coin in one’s purse. Not a week goes by without some fresh disaster or complaint to the authorities.
One time it is merchants who have been ruining themselves at the gaming-tables. They come there and jeopardize the money deposited with them, first dissipating their own profits, and then breaking into the funds that have been entrusted to their commercial probity; after that they are obliged to go into bankruptcy, and they drag down in their ruin those who have had faith in their honesty.
Another time it is small clerks with appetites for luxury and fast living, and whose modest salaries are insufficient for the gratification of their passions. They see around them wealthy people wallowing in the lap of luxury, surrounded by lovely women, reclining in carriages, in short tasting of all the dissolute joys of life; they are seized with jealousy, and feel a keen desire to lead a similar existence of pleasure and festivity. So they seek to obtain the necessary money at the gaming-table; they first of all risk their salaries; then, when luck is against them, they rob their employers, and enter upon a criminal career.
Then again there are young men, poor simple fellows fresh from college, who become the prey of skilful sharpers. If they win, they plunge into debauchery; if they lose, they fall into debt, give bills to usurers, and eat their corn in the ear.
The following characteristic story is told. A clerk, who had been given a few thousand francs by his employer to pay the duty on some merchandise, went that evening to a club and lost the money with which he had been entrusted, at baccara. It was a temporary madness, the clerk being an honest fellow who had succumbed to the gambling fever. The employer threatened to make a complaint to the authorities. On hearing this, the members of the club, met together and decided to restore to the employer, out of their own pockets, the sum which his clerk had misappropriated. When they had paid up, the clerk signed a bill to the order of the cashier of the club, and the cashier has never insisted on the payment of this bill which the poor clerk was unable to meet.
Is not this kind action on the gamblers’ part an admission? They understood that they were all jointly and severally guilty of the embezzlement, and they hushed up the affair so that the authorities should not come and disturb them in the gratification of their passion.
It was into this world stricken with madness, into this company of excited gamblers, that Sauvaire introduced Marius.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH MARIUS WINS TEN THOUSAND FRANCS
THE Corneille Club was one of those authorized gambling hells that were referred to in the preceding chapter. In principle it should only have comprised members admitted by a majority of voices and paying a subscription of twenty-five francs; but, in reality, everyone could go there and gamble. At the commencement, to save appearances, they were in the habit of pasting a list of the newcomers up on the glass; or else strangers were obliged to give a card of introduction supplied by one of the members. Later on they had omitted to ask for the card and they had not taken the trouble to post up the names. Anyone could go there who liked.
Of course the master-stevedore was an upright man incapable of committing a base action; but his life of pleasure had caused him to make strange friendships. He naively said that he preferred the society of rogues to that of straightforward people, for while the latter worried him the former made him laugh. He sought low society by instinct, because he could there unbutton himself at his ease, and amuse himself as he pleased, that is to say by making a frightful riot. Besides, with his affected air of a simple, easy man, he concealed extraordinary cunning and prudence: he never compromised himself, gambled little, and withdrew as soon as he ran the least danger. He was aware of the shady reputation of the majority of the frequenters of the Corneille Club, and he went there because he met with ladies who were the reverse of being straitlaced, and was able to satisfy his inclinations of an upstart.
Sauvaire and Marias, after ascending a narrow staircase, reached a spacious apartment on the first floor where a score of marble-topped tables were set out. Against the walls were divans covered with red velvet and in the centre rush-seated chairs: you might have imagined yourself in a café. At the end was a large table covered with green cloth on which two squares were marked out with red braid, and between these was a well for the cards that had been used. This was the gaming-table. It was surrounded by chairs.
Marius cast a bewildered look over the place on entering. He was suffocating, like a man who had just fallen into the water. Anyone, to look at him, might have thought that he had just come into a cavern where wild beasts were about to devour him. His heart was beating rapidly and his brow covered with perspiration. A sort of timidity mingled with repugnance kept him motionless, awkward, and gave him an embarrassed appearance.
There was hardly anyone in the room. A few men were drinking. Two women were conversing excitedly in a low tone in the corner. The gaming-table remained dark and unoccupied in the background, for the gas burners which descended in the centre of the green cloth had not vet been lit.
Marius regained his assurance little by little; but the fever continued raging in his veins.
“What will you take?” inquired Sauvaire.
“Whatever you like,” answered the young man, in an offhand way, staring at the table with curiosity and alarm.
The master-stevedore ordered beer. He extended himself full length on a divan and lit a cigar.
“Ah! There is Clairon, along with her friend Isnarde,” he all at once exclaimed, perceiving the two girls talking in a corner. “Look what pearls of women they are! Eh! what say you? They are the sort of little creatures you require to drive away your troubles.”
Marius looked at the girls. Clairon wore an old black velvet gown stained and frayed; she was short, dark, faded; her face, which was pale and covered with yellow spots, wore an air of weariness which was painful to look at. Isnarde, who was tall and thin, appeared still older and more worn out; it seemed as if her angular limbs would pierce through her faded silk gown at the shoulders. Marius was at a loss to understand Sauvaire’s passionate admiration for these creatures. He turned away his head with an expression of disgust; Fine’s healthy countenance had just appeared to him, and he felt ashamed at being in such a place.
The high key of Sauvaire’s voice had made the two girls turn their heads and they began to laugh.
“Oh! they are buxom lasses,” murmured the master-stevedore, “there’s no mourning in their society. If you like we’ll take them off with us tonight?”
“Aren’t we going to play?” inquired Marius, sharply, interrupting his companion.
“Good heavens! What a hurry you are in!” answered Sauvaire, who stretched himself out still more to attract the girls’ attention. “Of course we are going to play, we’ll play until tomorrow morning if you like. But dash it, there’s time enough for that. Just observe how Clairon and Isnarde are looking at me.”
The frequenters of the place gradually came in. A waiter lit the gas, and several players went and seated themselves at the gaming-table. The two girls began to move about the room, smiling on