A narrow dirty passage conducted to a small staircase, at the bottom of which I began to hear the voices of the throng above. At the top were two men wrangling in no very measured terms; and passing on, I entered a large room, where about twenty tables were set out, and most of them occupied. A crown was demanded for admission, which I paid; and then proceeded to examine the various groups that were scattered through the room. Squalid misery, devouring passion, and debasing vice, were written in every countenance I beheld.
Of course, the whole assembly were divided between losers and winners. Of the first, some were talking high and angrily; some were blaspheming with the insanity of disappointment; some were gazing with the silent stupefaction of despair, and some were laughing with that wringing, soulless mockery of mirth, with which vanity sometimes strives to hide the bitterest pangs of the human heart. Of the winners, some were amassing their gains with greedy satisfaction; some were smiling with a sneering triumph at the poor fools they plundered; and some, with the eager falcon eye of avarice, were gazing keenly at the rolling dice or turning cards, as if they feared that chance might yet snatch their prey from out their talons.
The whole scene came upon my heart with a sickening faintness that had nearly made me turn and fly it all; but at that moment a very polite personage, seeing a stranger, approached, and invited me in courteous terms to sit at one of the vacant tables, and try a throw of the dice; or, if I loved better the more scientific games, we would open a pack of cards, he said. I agreed to the latter proposal, and we sat down to piquet. He played a bold and more hazardous game, I the quiet and more certain one; and though some fortunate runs of the cards made him eventually the winner, my loss was but two crowns.
"One throw with these for what you have lost," said my adversary, before we rose, offering me the dice at the same time. We threw, and I lost two crowns more. We threw again, and I was penniless.
I bore it more calmly than I had expected; but I believe it was more the calmness of despair, than anything else, which supported me. However wishing my adversary good night as politely as I could, I walked away, hearing him say in a whisper to one who stood near, "He plays very well at piquet, that young gentleman. It was as much as I could do to beat him."
Beyond a doubt this was meant for my hearing, and if so, it had its effect; for my first thought was what article of my scanty stock I could part with, to yield the means of recovering that night's loss. The diamonds which Achilles had entrusted to me instantly suggested themselves to my mind; and the tempter, who still lies hid in the bottom of man's heart till passion calls him forth, did not fail to suggest a thousand excellent and plausible motives for using them. "Achilles," said the devil, "had himself voluntarily given them to me; and even if he had not done so, I had just as much a right to them as he had--but if my conscience forbade me to take them ultimately, it would be very easy to repay the value, either when I should have recovered my losses at the gaming-table, or when I was restored to the bosom of my family."
Thank Heaven, however, I had honour enough left not to violate a trust reposed in me. I had still a diamond ring of my own. My mother had given it to me, it is true; but necessity more strong than feeling required me to part with it, and I determined to do so the next morning. In looking for it, for I had ceased to wear it since I set out for Marseilles, I met with the packet of papers regarding the Count de Bagnols, which I had almost always kept about me; and looking over them, I was tempted again to read some of the letters. I went on from one to another, through the whole correspondence between the Count, then a very young man, and the rebellious Rochellois, and I found throughout that fine discrimination between right and wrong which is the chivalry of the mind. It was a lesson and a reproach; but as I had passed to the brink of vice, not by the short and flowery path of pleasure, but by a road where every step was upon thorns--as I had been driven by errors and by accidents, rather than led by indulgence, the road back seemed not so long as to those who have followed every maze of enjoyment in their course from virtue to vice. With me it wanted but one effort of the mind--but the moral courage to communicate my true situation to those I loved, and I should at once free myself of the enthralment of circumstances. Such reflections passed rapidly through my mind, and I resolved to do what I should have done. But what are resolutions?--Air.
The next morning I carried my diamond ring to a most respectable jeweller, who bought it of me for one-fifth of its worth, and vowed all the while that he should lose by his bargain. Six louis, however, now swelled my purse; and as night came, my good resolutions faded like the waning sunshine. The cursed book of games found its way into my hands, and at seven o'clock I stood before the same house where I had left my money the night before.
Like the gates of Dis, the doors stood ever open, and those feet which had once trod that magic path could hardly cross it without again turning in the same direction.
On entering the room, the society which it contained struck me as even more ruffianly than the night before, and I fancied that many eyes turned upon me, as on one whose appearance there on the former evening had been remarked. My polite adversary was looking on at one of the tables, where the parties were playing for louis; but the moment his eye fell upon me, he came forward and offered me my revenge. "They are playing too high at that table," said he, as we sat down. "To my mind, it takes away all the pleasure of the game to have such a stake upon it as would pain one to lose. No gentleman ever plays for the sake of winning a great deal of other people's money, and therefore he ought to take care that he does not part with too much of his own. I play for amusement alone, and therefore let us begin with crowns, as we did last night."