“Thanks very much for your favors,” said Pagel gruffly. “God, can’t I get rid of her at all? Go away, I tell you. I’m not playing any more, and as for you, I can’t stand you at any price—you disgust me!” he cried.
She regarded him attentively. “You look attractive now, sonny. I never noticed before how handsome you really are. You always sat at the table like a fool.” She tried to flatter him. “Come, darling, stake once for me! You’ll bring me luck!”
Pagel threw his cigarette away and bent very close to her. “If you speak another word to me, you damned whore, I’ll sock your teeth in!” His whole body trembled with senseless rage. Her eyes were right close to his. They were brown—suffused now with a yielding moistness.
“Hit me, then!” she whispered. “But stake for me once, darling.”
He turned round with a jerk and went quickly to the table. Seizing von Studmann by the elbow and breathing rapidly, he asked: “Are we going or aren’t we?”
“I can’t get the Rittmeister away!” von Studmann whispered back as excitedly. “Just look at him!”
IX
It was with extreme reluctance that Rittmeister von Prackwitz had accompanied young Pagel on his mysterious journey through Berlin at night. Already in Lutter and Wegner’s he had borne his company and provoking chatter only with great repugnance, hardly forgiving him the insult of the proffered money. His friend’s interest in this completely dissipated fellow, whose ample funds seemed to be questionable at the very least, he found completely out of place. If to von Studmann the little incident of the retrieved shell splinter in the skirmish before Tetelmünde appeared a little ridiculous, yet also—and especially in the case of such a young fellow—rather heroic, to von Prackwitz the ridiculous outweighed all the heroic; moreover, a character which was capable of such extravagance could seem only suspicious to him.
The worthy Rittmeister Joachim von Prackwitz found only the extravagances of others suspicious; his own he regarded with perfect benevolence. From the moment he heard that the excursion had nothing to do with some filthy naked-woman business, his pet aversion—but it was merely a little game, or to put it better, a jeu—from that moment the two policemen with their hobnailed boots lost all their terror, the dark house acquired something inviting, the cheeky spotter became enveloped in humor, and Second Lieutenant Pagel changed from a tempter and doubtful character into a decent fellow and an experienced man of the world.
And when the Rittmeister had found himself standing in the little homely anteroom with its overcrowded clothes hooks, and the mustached man behind the small folding table had pleasantly asked: “Counters, gentlemen?” and the Rittmeister, after a scrutinizing glance, had said: “Seen service, eh? Where?” and the mustached fellow, clicking his heels together, had replied: “Nineteenth Saxon Transport Section—Leipzig,” then the Rittmeister had felt himself in the best of moods and completely at home.
No thought of the prohibition of such games had disturbed this good mood. With excited interest he had asked to have explained to him the use and value of the unfamiliar counters—in his time one had played only with cash, or with visiting cards bearing a number scribbled on them. Had he thought of young Pagel at all, it would have been with extreme benevolence. But no thought of this young person crossed his mind. He found the game and the players much too interesting for that. With regret he had to admit that the people here were far from being as distinguished as those in the Officers’ Casino in peace time. Here at the gaming table, for example, sat a fat red-faced man who kept on murmuring aloud to himself, and distributed his stakes with plump, jewel bedecked fingers. When he considered his bull neck with its many folds, there could be no doubt that this was a kind of brother or cousin of that cattle dealer from Frankfurt whom he never cared to admit into his house. What was more, the fellow had also swindled him a few times—the one in Frankfurt, of course. The Rittmeister stared at the fat man with hostility. So it was here that the profits unjustly squeezed from the landowners went—and the man couldn’t even lose with decency! His fear of each loss was clearly noticeable, and yet he renewed it with every fresh stake.
The Rittmeister was also disturbed by the large number of women who thronged round the gaming table; women, in his opinion, had no business gambling, which was purely a man’s affair. Only a man summoned up sufficient cold-bloodedness and intelligence to gamble with success. The women were, indeed, very elegant, but a little too extravagantly dressed, or rather undressed, for his taste. This mode of exhibiting a pair of young breasts in a gaping silk case, so to speak, for the inspection of every onlooker, made him think of the streetwalkers he hated so much. Such women certainly were not allowed admittance here, but even to be reminded of them was painful.
Yet there were also pleasant things to be seen; a fair-skinned old gentleman, for example, with a curiously sharp-pointed nose and monocle. Where this gentleman played, where this gentleman sat, where this gentleman was a guest, there a Rittmeister von Prackwitz could also be present. It was significant that Prackwitz completely failed to see young Pagel, who sat next to him; his eye, usually so sharp, noticed shabbily dressed people only with difficulty.
As far as the roulette was concerned—and the Rittmeister sat down with polite thanks on a chair that was apparently free, but was of course only vacated for him on a sign from the management—as far as the roulette was concerned, it appeared difficult to get used to. There were a surprising number of possibilities—and moreover it was played with such unseemly haste. He had hardly begun to perceive how the stakes were distributed when the wheel already hummed, the ball rolled, the croupier called, here came a rain of counters, there a drought broke out, the game finished, started again, people betting, disk turning, ball rolling, wheel humming, croupier calling—bewildering!
The Rittmeister’s own experience of roulette lay far back in his lieutenant years. Even so, it had been little enough; the game hadn’t been played more than three or four times. That was due to the fact that it had been very strictly forbidden, more strictly, indeed, than all other games of chance, being regarded as particularly dangerous. As a matter of fact the young officers had then known only one gambling game, called “God’s Blessing on Cohen,” which was considered as relatively harmless. All the same it had become so dangerous for the Rittmeister, then unmarried, that after one turbulent night he had had to travel at breakneck speed to his father, a most hot-tempered gentleman holding the rank of general. There, within the space of half an hour’s fury, he was disinherited and cast off, though in the end both of them—after ample shedding of tears—had signed a whole pile of promissory notes with a swarthy gentleman, for which they received so much money that the gambling debt was eventually cleared. Since that time the Rittmeister had not gambled.
And so he now sat confused before the green cloth, looked at the numbers, gently rattled the counters in his pocket, and did not know how to begin, however much he wished to.
But when von Studmann asked: “Well, Prackwitz, do you really want to play?” he answered crossly: “Don’t you? What have we bought counters for?” And he staked on red. Naturally red turned up. Before he had properly collected his thoughts a little heap of counters fell with a dry rattle on to his own. The unpleasant fellow who looked like a ruffled vulture called out something, and the wheel went spinning again. The Rittmeister was still undecided as to what he should stake on next when the ball settled it for him.
Red had turned up again. Now he possessed a whole mountain of counters.
He withdrew them and looked around like a man waking up. The best player at the gaming table was still the gentleman with the monocle. The Rittmeister looked at the long, thin fingers that were bent slightly upwards and which distributed little heaps of counters with incredible rapidity over the various numbers and on the intersections of their fields; and without overmuch reflection he imitated the gentleman. He also placed bets on numbers, on intersections of numbers, but in doing so he avoided out of a feeling of chivalry the areas occupied by the master (so as not to upset him).