Prevod

The vice of gambling had me in its grip.—When I say the vice of gambling, I should explain that I did not consider it a vice at all, much less believe that the law could suppress it without infringing a man’s indisputable right to lose his fortune just as he might make it. “One may use and abuse one’s property,” I would repeat disdainfully, scoffing at the advice of some timid friend.

Yet for all my contempt for public opinion, I did everything in my power to keep my violent passion a secret at home. Madly in love, I had married a beautiful young woman named Ventura; our union was drawn still closer by the sweet bond of a little boy who, when I called him, could not yet make his way unaided into my arms. To spare my wife fear and anguish, I concealed my tastes as though they were a crime, choosing my hours carefully to indulge them. I took the very precautions I would have taken had I been giving my wife a rival, all so that I could frequent the Casino and other establishments where handfuls of gold are staked on the turn of a card. Inventing every sort of pretext—stock-market business, conferences with political friends, sickbeds to watch over, invitations to accept—I justified my absences and found some explanation for my agitation, my pallor, my sleeplessness, my sudden bursts of joy, my dejection, the disturbance of my nerves, shattered by what may be the strongest and deepest of human emotions.

For some time I had possessed nothing but what gambling brought me. Once the owner of a modest fortune, I had gradually sold off my properties to cover my losses. A long spell of good fortune followed, but I invested my winnings in readily negotiable securities, which recent reverses were already depleting. My Ventura noticed none of this, for, like almost all women, she received money from her husband’s hands without asking where it came from. Secure in my affection, content and passive in her home, it never occurred to her—and perhaps she had no wish—to inquire into the state of our affairs. In prosperous times I brought her costly jewels and bought her pretty dresses; when money was tight, a hint from me was enough to make her cut back on expenses and put off payments, with an instinctive complicity. But if my wife gave me no cause for concern, and keeping her in the dark seemed the easiest thing in the world, another member of the family inspired an indefinable uneasiness in me.

This was Ventura’s elder brother, my brother-in-law Bernardo, a man of quick, discerning intelligence and ardent temperament, whom secret sorrows, perhaps bitter disappointments, had driven to enter the priesthood. Bernardo carried out his ministry with a burning zeal, a thirst for sacrifice that consumed him, wasting his body and kindling a perpetual flame in his blue eyes. When those eyes rested on me, they showed glimmers of suspicion and severity. Undoubtedly this saintly, selfless man, devoted to doing good, sensed in me the selfish, unbridled passion that ringed my eyes with dark, bruised shadows and made my hand tremble feverishly when I clasped his. An uneasiness, a disquiet like that of someone who ventures into the sunlight on a crowded promenade in dirty clothes, came over me whenever I stood face to face with Bernardo. He lived outside Madrid, forever engrossed in charitable undertakings, founding homes for the needy and benevolent associations, and came to see us only twice a year: at Easter and Christmas.

That solemn season of the year was drawing near when fortune, which had already turned against me, began to show me its wrath. A black wind of ill luck was blowing, so harsh and merciless that it swept away all my hopes. My most painstaking gambling systems failed; my clever strokes came to nothing, my hunches proved false, and every card I touched was fatal. Fiercely bent on recouping my losses, I rushed on in blind fury, stubbornly hurling myself towards ruin, exhausting my resources, defying the future. The intuition that catastrophe was bearing down on me redoubled my desperate energy. Already owing a large sum on my word of honour, I sought out a moneylender—the most usurious, the most infamous of them all—and without hesitation, like a man who shuts his eyes and leaps into an abyss, I delivered myself into his clutches, signing whatever he pleased, pledging my honour in exchange for immediate possession of the sum I needed to settle my debt at the Casino and try one final, decisive stroke. I was determined never to see the day when I must confess to Ventura that poverty awaited us, and disgrace besides. True, it sometimes occurred to me to tell her: “Imagine I had been a businessman; I have gone bankrupt; we must resign ourselves and work.”—But I immediately understood how impossible, how absurd it would be to call the consequences of my dissipation a bankruptcy. If I fell at my wife’s feet and revealed the truth, I would have to beg forgiveness, as a man who has failed in his duties must. Better to die; and death seemed to me the only solution to that dreadful predicament. At such moments I saw as clearly as daylight that death was the necessary and natural consequence of my way of understanding life, and that the right to gamble was brother to the right to take one’s life: both came down to a single right... “To use and abuse”... And to die without fear.

With these thoughts I returned home on the afternoon of December 24, carrying in my pocket the money obtained from the usurer. Scarcely had I entered the anteroom when I felt arms embracing both my neck and my legs. The first embrace was that of my loving wife, who pressed her face to mine in a rush of tender affection; the second... Who can embrace a man below the knee but his little boy, the darling creature just trying his first steps, who must still cling to something to keep from falling on his face?

I felt my heart split open; I felt tears spring to my eyes; and, pulling abruptly away to conceal them, I exclaimed: “What is it? What is all this about?”

“Bernardo has arrived,” answered Ventura, surprised by my coldness. “Uncle Nado,” repeated my little boy, greeting his own cleverness with a peal of laughter.

“Well, here,” I said, handing my wife a fistful of banknotes, “prepare a supper; but a proper supper, the kind I like... And now leave me, darling, leave me for a little while; I want to rest, my head aches, and I hope I shall be better by tonight, so I can talk to Bernardo.”

Ventura obeyed, and I shut myself away to write a sort of will and farewell. My teeth were chattering; I finished the task, inspected my pistols, loaded them, threw myself onto the sofa, and smoked nervously, cigar after cigar, until Ventura came solicitously to tell me supper was ready. It was early, for the child could not be left out of the meal on such a night, and his mother avoided keeping him up till all hours. We went into the dining room, lit by pink candles and bright with the whiteness of the table linen and the sparkle of glass and silver.

The almond soup steamed gently and smelled heavenly; rare fruits were heaped upon the centrepiece, reflected in a sheet of looking glass encircled by late roses; the golden Sauternes was already laughing in the wineglasses, and my wife, dressed in her finery, smiling, her curly hair a little tousled and her cheeks rosy, came up to me and murmured in a caressing voice:

“Aren’t you going to greet our visitor? There he is.” I embraced Bernardo, and supper began, enlivened at first by the little boy’s antics and Ventura’s coquetry. She was determined that I should admire her coiffure, and so bent on captivating me that she even rested her tiny foot on mine. Yet the conversation soon languished; it was not difficult to see that Bernardo and I were lost in thought. To my wife’s anxious questions I pleaded fatigue and a headache; but Bernardo, with his sparkling blue eyes, declared emphatically:

“Your husband may have whatever is wrong with him, and may not care to tell us why he looks like a condemned man who has just heard his sentence; but as for me... I am like this... because I am ashamed to be dining so well, on salmon, oysters, prawns, and aged wines, while I cannot offer certain poor families—not these Lucullan feasts, but at least bread for the year, a fire on the hearth, and clothes to cover their flesh. The Apostle taught that Christians should not shut themselves away to feast on succulent dishes. We gorge ourselves on delicacies, and we are about to drink a toast in Champagne... which I recognize from other occasions... Clicquot! While the poor... I cannot prevent this, nor can you; but deep within me there is a corner of my soul that weeps. What can one do? I cannot find a remedy!”

The priest had scarcely spoken when an idea flashed through my mind; there was no time for reflection, nor for me to calculate the effect my words would have on Bernardo. I rose, filled a glass with the Champagne that already gleamed, cold as snow, in the cut-glass jug, and held it out to Bernardo, exclaiming meaningfully:

“Then drink a toast... or pray! Pray that a plan of mine succeeds... If it does, you will be able to provide bread for several families.” Bernardo reached for his glass, and before raising it fixed his mesmerizing eyes on me. It seemed to me that he was searching my brain, looking into my conscience, reading me like an open book.

Then, with sudden resolve, he held out his glass, brought it to mine, clinked them together, and pronounced solemnly: “I shall drink now... I shall pray afterwards. I wish your plan success... but just this once, do you understand? Just once.”

I considered the pact sealed. In my gambler’s superstition I had tried everything: Gypsy women and mediums, amulets and childish spells... everything except enticing God with the lure of charity, sharing my winnings with the supreme Arbiter, whose providence serves blind chance as an unseen guide. To bring heaven over to my side! Yes, for heaven could hardly wish me to carry out that last, irrevocable resolve, the only one that could cut the infernal knot of my destiny...

As soon as supper ended, I rose, made an excuse, left Ventura out of temper and Bernardo deep in thought, and rushed away to stake not merely money now, but honour and life itself—a life that at that moment seemed so alluring, so well worth living, amid the caresses of a woman in love and the radiant smile of a cherub who clung to my legs, asking for protection and help in learning to walk...

In the streets one heard the clamour of crowds, the merry jingle of tambourines, the strumming of little guitars; light filtered out of the houses, betraying the intimate celebrations of those who loved one another. And as the carriage I had taken at my door rolled towards the Casino, I thought: “If I fail, this is my last Christmas Eve.”

Do you know what people mean by outrageous, incredible, mad good luck? That was the luck I had from the very first moment. There were hours and hours in which to play, and the heavy gamblers were there, with their bulging wallets and solid credit. I swept them aside without respite: I cannot recall another such winning streak; it was as though I could see through the cards that were about to fall, or some invisible power were dictating my stakes. As if God were taking particular pains to fulfil the pact, my luck grew still greater after midnight struck.

On returning home, I went into Bernardo’s room. The priest was awake; no doubt he had been waiting for me. “Go to bed,” I told him, “and sleep soundly, for tomorrow you will have the means to give those poor families their bread for the year.”

I saw signs of perplexity and anxiety in the priest’s expressive face. He understood perfectly the source of the money I had come to offer him in fulfilment of our bargain, and his conscience struggled with his passion for doing good, for comforting sorrow, for drying tears. At last, weak, overcome by desire, shaken by an inward trembling that made his usually resonant voice grow hoarse, he took my hands in his and murmured:

“I accept... Give it to me... Only remember!... The condition...” “Tonight was the last time: on my word of honour,” I answered, forestalling his plea.

I do not know whether you will believe me, but I have never gambled again since that Christmas Eve. At first my fingers twitched and my head swam with the longing to taste once more the bitter delights of gambling; then, little by little, peace came: forgetfulness, never! I went into business, built a fortune, and learned that I may use it, but not abuse it. I know I hold it in trust. Its owner is above.