(8) Tanta torpedo invaserat animum Vitellii, ut si principem eum fuisse non meminissent, ipse oblivisceretur. Hist., lib. iii.
This infatuation may be simply ridiculous; but it has also a horrible aspect. A distracted wife has rushed to the gaming table, imploring her husband, who had for two entire days been engaged at play, to return to his home.
'Only let me stay one moment longer—only one moment. . . . . I shall return perhaps the day after to-morrow,' he stammered out to the wretched woman, who retired. Alas! he returned sooner than he had promised. His wife was in bed, holding the last of her children to her breast.
'Get up, madam,' said the ruined gambler, 'the bed on which you lie belongs to us no longer!' . . .
When the gamester is fortunate, he enjoys his success elsewhere; to his home he brings only consternation.
A wife had received the most solemn promise from her husband that he would gamble no more. One night, however, he slunk out of bed, rushed to the gaming table, and lost all the money he had with him. He tried to borrow more, but was refused. He went home. His wife had taken the precaution to lock the drawer that contained their last money. Vain obstacle! The madman broke it open, carried off two thousand crowns—to take his revenge, as he said, but in reality to lose the whole as before.
But it is to the gaming room that we must go to behold the progress of the terrible drama—the ebb and flow of opposite movements—the shocks of alternate hope and fear, infinitely varied in the countenance, not only of the actors, but also of the spectators. What is visible, however, is nothing in comparison to the secret agony. It is in his heart that the tempest roars most fiercely.
Two players once exhibited their rage, the one by a mournful silence, the other by repeated imprecations. The latter, shocked at the sang-froid of his neighbour, reproached him for enduring, without complaint, such losses one after the other. 'Look here!' said the other, uncovering his breast and displaying it all bloody with lacerations.
It is only at play that we can observe, from moment to moment, all the phases of despair; from time to time there occur new ones—strange, eccentric, or terrible. After having lost quietly, and even with serenity, half his fortune, the father of a family staked the remainder, and lost it without a murmur. Facere solent extrema securos mala.(9) The bystanders looked at him; his features changed not; only it was perceived that they were fixed. It seemed that he was unconscious of life. Two streams of tears trickled from his eyes, and yet his features remained the same. He was literally a weeping statue. The spectators were seized with fright, and, although gamesters, they melted into pity.
(9) 'Great calamities render us CARELESS.'