Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas by Arthur Schnitzler Read Free Book Online Page A

consul began inquiringly.
    "Ah-yes," Willi laughed, and folded the thousand-gulden bill together.
    "Half, Consul," he said.
    "Five hundred?"
    Willi nodded. The others also placed bets, but merely out of formality. An end-of-the-game atmosphere was already settling over them. First
Lieutenant Wimmer was standing up with his coat over his shoulders.
Tugut was leaning over the billiard table. The consul uncovered his card.
    "Eight." And half of Willi's thousand was gone. He shook his head
as though something were amiss.
    "The rest," he said, and thought to himself: I'm really quite calm.
He uncovered his cards slowly. Eight. The consul had to buy a card.
Nine. And the five hundred was gone, the thousand was gone. Everything was gone! Everything? No. He still had the hundred and twenty
gulden with which he had come, more or less. Funny, suddenly he was
once more the same poor devil he had been before. And outdoors the
birds sang ... as they had before ... when he could have gone to Monte
Carlo. Well, it was a pity, but now he really had to stop. He certainly
couldn't risk the few gulden that he still had ... he had to stop, though there was still a quarter of an hour left to play. What bad luck! In a quarter of an hour he could win five thousand gulden as easily as he had just
lost them!

    "Lieutenant?" asked the consul.
    "I'm very sorry," replied Willi in a high-pitched, grating voice, and
pointed to the few miserable bills lying in front of him. His eyes were almost laughing, and almost as a joke he placed ten gulden on a card. He
won. Then twenty. And won again. Fifty-and won again. His blood
mounted into his head; he could have cried with rage. Now his luck was
back-and it was too late. And with a sudden, bold idea he turned to the
actor who was standing behind him near Fraulein Rihoscheck.
    "Herr von Elrief, would you be so kind as to loan me two hundred
gulden?"
    "I'm terribly sorry," replied Elrief, shrugging his shoulders aristocratically. "You saw that I lost everything, down to the last kreuzer, Lieutenant." It was a lie, and everyone knew it. But it seemed they found it
quite proper that the actor Elrief should lie to the lieutenant. But the consul casually thrust a few bills to him across the table, seemingly without
counting them. "Please help yourself," he said. Tugut cleared his throat
audibly. Wimmer warned, "I'd stop if I were you, Kasda."
    Willi hesitated.
    "I don't wish to persuade you in any way, Lieutenant," said Schnabel. He still held his hand spread lightly over the money.
    At that Willi hastily grasped the bills, then acted as if he wanted to
count them.
    "It's fifteen hundred," said the consul. "You can depend upon it,
Lieutenant. Do you want a card?"
    Willi laughed: "What else?"
    "Your bet, Lieutenant?"
    "Oh, not all of it!" cried Willi, his head clearing. "The poor have to
be economical. One thousand to begin with."
    He uncovered, imitating the consul's customary exaggerated slowness. Willi had to buy a card, and added a three of spades to his four of
diamonds. The consul also uncovered; he, too, held a seven.

    "I'd stop," warned First Lieutenant Wimmer again, and now his
words sounded almost like a command. And the regiment doctor added,
"Now, when you are just about even."
    Just about even! Willi thought. He calls that "just about even!" A
quarter of an hour ago I was a well-to-do young man; now I'm a beggar,
and he calls that "even"! Should I tell them the story of Bogner? Maybe
then they would understand.
    New cards lay in front of him. Seven. No, he didn't want to buy a
card. But the consul didn't even ask him; he simply uncovered an eight.
A thousand lost! buzzed in Willi's brain. But I'll win it back! And if I
don't, it won't make any difference. I can no more pay back a thousand
than I can pay back two thousand. It's all the same now! Ten minutes is
still time enough. I could even win back the four or five thousand I had
before.
    "Lieutenant?" asked the