'That is true,' she said, hanging her head.
'It may be,' he added after a short hesitation. 'Perhaps I would have taken some of it to gamble with—just a little, only to try and recoup myself—only for that, Luisella.'
'In short, you cannot keep from gambling!' his wife cried out in a rage.
He trembled like a guilty boy, and did not answer.
'Can you not keep from it?' she asked again, attacked by a most terrible fear.
'Look here, this is how it is: it is a perfidious passion. You do not know what it is; you must have felt it to know; you must have panted and dreamt, or you cannot think what it is like. One starts gambling for a joke, out of curiosity, as a little challenge to fortune. One goes on, pricked to the quick by delusions, excited by vague desires that grow. Woe to you if you win anything—an ambo, a small terno! It is all up with you, for your chance of winning seems certain. Do you see? You feel certain of winning a large sum, as you have managed to get a small amount, and you put back not only all you have gained, but you double, treble the stake in the weeks that follow your success. It is the devil's money going back to hell. What a passion it is, Luisella! It is bad for one to win, and bad not to win. Then the dream, that for seven days keeps you alive, on the eighth day gives you a bitter disappointment; it ends by setting your blood on fire, and to increase your chances of winning at any cost, your stakes increase frightfully; the desire of winning gets to be a madness. The soul gets sick; it neither sees nor hears anything. No family ties, position, nor fortune, can stand against this passion.'
'My God!' she said softly, just as if she were going to fall into a chasm.
'You are right, Luisella, to ill-use me, to strike at me with your scorn; you have a right to do it. I am a bad husband, a worse father; I have beggared my family. You are quite right,' Cesare said again convulsively. 'I was a cheerful, industrious young fellow; all wished me well; my business was going splendidly; you were a joy, and Agnesina a pleasure to me. What fascination has overcome me? That cursed idea I had of winning seventy thousand francs at the lottery to open a shop at San Ferdinando with—a cursed idea that has put the fire of hell into my blood. I wanted to enrich you by gambling, whereas grandfather and father taught me by example that only by being content with a little, by putting sou upon sou, one gets rich. What folly was it seized me? What was the infection? Where did I catch it? What a horrible passion gambling is!'
The poor woman listened to that anguished confession, pale, her lips shaking from the effort she made to restrain her sobs, leaning against the elbows of the chair, feeling crushed by a nameless agony.
'How much have I staked?' Cesare went on. He seemed to be speaking to himself now, without seeing his wife or hearing his sleeping child's breathing. 'I do not know, I do not remember now. The lottery is a great melter-down of money; it is like a crucible the metal runs out of. At first I played moderately; I tried to be moderate and wise about it, as if the lottery was not the most laughable trick that fortune plays on man. At that time I wrote down the money I staked in a pocket-book where I note my ordinary expenses; but afterwards the fever seized me, and has grown so, I remember no more. I do not remember how many thousands of francs I threw away so madly in an ugly dream, a delirium that came back again every Friday. Luisella, you do not know it, but we are ruined.'