"Yes: I've earned three six-creutzer pieces, selling some oxen. See!"
"Give me two of them."
Without waiting for an answer, he disappeared with the money. He now walked up and down among the booths in good spirits, sustained by the consciousness of possession. He no longer cast a look upon the gambling-tables.
But soon he began to think that he had been very stupid in skipping about from one number to another: how could he help losing them? Should the rascally sweat-cloth fellows have the satisfaction of keeping it? But then he had sworn never to touch a die again! Well, he would keep his vow: he would go where the croupier made the die roll through the coils of a snake, and where he might play without touching any thing.
At first he played for creutzers, like the others. He used great circumspection, taking care to remember the numbers which had won frequently, and betting upon the others. For some time he neither lost nor won. Finding this tedious, he staked larger pieces, and tried several numbers at a time, and with success. Seeing some of his acquaintances, he beckoned to them to come up and join him.
But the tide soon turned, and Florian lost. He now wandered about the board, passed every number, and changed his bet before the throw fell. When, at such times, the deserted number proved the winning one, he laughed aloud. Fortune frowned more and more, though he returned to his old system of remaining true to certain numbers. Taking his last groat, he laid it upon the table with such force as to make the table quiver,--and lost.
Florian continued to regard the board intently, with breath almost suppressed, though a tempest of emotion was raging within him. Having stayed long enough to prevent his acquaintances from suspecting the true state of the case, he stole away. Now he had neither vows nor curses, neither good nor evil intentions: he wandered from place to place like a body without a soul, without thoughts, without will, dull, hollow, and ruined.
The sound of music awakened him from his trance, and he found himself before the Rose Inn. The French simpleton, who was standing at the door and waiting for somebody to treat him, cried, "Drenda marioin," and made a sign of thirst; but Florian pushed him aside and went up into the dancing-hall.
Every one treated him: he only sipped at the glass and offered to set it down again. "It's in good hands," was the cry,--meaning, "Drink it all." "High up behind, they say at the Rhine," he would then say, and drain the glass at a draught.