The Dodd Family Abroad, Vol. I

LETTER XXVIII. JAMES DODD TO ROBERT DOOLAN, ESQUIRE, TRINITY COLLEGE,

DUBLIN

My dear Bob, – It is quite true, I am a shameful correspondent, and your last three letters now before me, unanswered, comprise a tremendous indictment against me; but reflect for a moment, and you will see that in all complaints of this kind there is a certain amount of injustice, since it is hardly possible ever to find two people whose tastes, habite, and present circumstances place them on such terms of perfect equality that the interchange of letters is as easy for one as the other. Think over this for a moment, and you will perceive that sitting down at your quiet desk, in "No. 2, Old Square," is a different process from snatching a hurried moment amidst the din, the crash, and the conflict of life at Baden; and if your thoughts flow on calmly, tinctured with the solemn influences around you, mine as necessarily reflect an existence checkered by every rainbow hue of good or evil fortune.

Be therefore tolerant of my silence and indulgent to my stupidity, since to transmit one's thoughts requires previously that you should think; and who can, or ever could, in a place like this? Imagine a winding valley, with wooded hills rising in some places to the height of mountains, in the midst of which stands a little village – for it is no more – nearly every house of which is a palace, some splendid hotel of France, Russia, or England. You pass from these by a shady alley to a little rustic bridge, over what might be, and very possibly is, an excellent trout-stream, and come at once in front of a magnificent structure, frescoed without and gilded and stuccoed within. "The Rooms," the Temple of Fortune, the ordeal of destiny, Bob, is held here; and the rake of the croupier is the distaff of the Fate. Hither come flocking the representatives of every nation of the world, and of almost every class in each. Royalty, princely houses, and nobility with twenty quarterings, are jostled in the indiscriminate crowd with houseless adventurers, beggared spendthrifts, and ruined debauchees. All who can contribute the clink of their Louis d'or to the music are welcome to this orchestra! And women, too, fair, delicate, and lovely, the tenderest flowers that ever were nursed within domestic care, mixed up with others, not less handsome perhaps, but whose siren beauty is almost diabolic by comparison. What a babel of tongues, and what confusion of characters! The grandee of Spain, the escaped galley-slave, the Hungarian magnate, the London "swell," the old and hoary gambler with snow-white moustaches, and the unfledged minor, anticipating manhood by ruining himself in his "teens." All these are blended and commingled by the influence of play? and, differing as they do in birth, in blood, in lineage, and condition, yet are they members of one guild, associates of one society, – the gambling-table. And what a leveller is play! He who whispers in the ear of the Crown Prince yonder is a branded felon from the Bagnes de Brest; the dark-whiskered man yonder, who leans over the lady's chair, is an escaped forger; the Carlist noble is asking friendly counsel of a Christino spy; the London pickpocket offers his jewelled snuff-box to an Archduke of Austria. "How goes the game today?" cries a Neapolitan prince of the blood, and the question is addressed to a red-bearded Corsican, whose livelihood is a stiletto. "Is that the beautiful Countess of Hapsburg?" asks a fresh-looking Oxford man; and his friend laughingly answers: "Not exactly; it is Mademoiselle Varenne, of the Odéon." The fine-looking man yonder is a Mexican general, who carried off the military chest from Guanaguato; the pompous little fellow beside him is a Lucchese count, who stole part of the Crown jewels of his sovereign; the long-haired, broad-foreheaded man, with open shirt-collar, so violently denouncing the wrongs of injured Italy, is a Russian spy; and the dark Arab behind him is a Swiss valet, more than suspected of having murdered his master in the Mediterranean. Our English contingent embraces lords of the bedchamber, members of Parliament, railroad magnates, money-lending attorneys, legs, swells, and swindlers, and a small sprinkling of University men, out to read and be ruined, – the fair sex, comprising women of a certain fast set in London, divorced countesses, a long category of the widow class, some with daughters, some without. There is an abundance of good looks, splendid dress, and money without limit! The most striking feature of all, however, is the reckless helter-skelter pace at which every one is going, whether his pursuit be play, love, or mere extravagance. There is no such thing as calculation, – no counting the cost of anything. Life takes its tone from the tables, and where, as wealth and beggary succeed each other, so does every possible extreme of joy and misery, people wager their passions and their emotions exactly as they do their bank-notes and their gold pieces. Chance, my dear Bob, – chance is ten times a more intoxicating liquor than champagne, and once take to "dramming" with fortune, and you may bid a long adieu to sobriety! I do not speak here of the terrible infatuation of play, and the almost utter impossibility of resisting it, but I allude to what is infinitely worse, the certainty of your applying play theories and play tactics to every event and circumstance of real life.

The whole world becomes to you but one great green cloth, and everything in it a question of luck! Will the bad run continue here? Will good fortune stand much longer to you? These are the questions ever rising to your mind. You grow to regard yourself as utterly powerless and impassive; a football at the toe of Destiny! I think I see your eyebrows upraised in astonishment at these profound reflections of mine. You never suspected me of moralizing, nor, shall I own it, was I aware myself that I had any genius that way. Shall I tell you the secret, Bob, – shall I unlock the mysterious drawer of hidden motives for you? It is this, then: I have been a tremendously heavy loser at Rouge-et-Noir! As long as luck lasted, which it did for three weeks or more, I enjoyed this place with a zest I cannot describe to you. The moralists tell us that prosperity hardens the heart; I cannot believe it. I know at least, that in my brief experience I never felt such a universal tenderness for everything and everybody. I seemed to live in an atmosphere of beauty, luxury, and splendor; every one was courteous; all were amiable! It was not alone that fortune favored me, but I appeared to have the good wishes of all beholders; words of encouragement murmured around me as I won; soft bewitching glances beamed over at me, as I raked up my gold. The very banker seemed to shovel out the shining pieces to me with a sense of satisfaction! Old veterans of the tables peeped over me to watch my game, and exclamations of wonder and admiration broke forth at each new moment of my triumphs! I don't care what it may be that constitutes the subject of display: a great speech in the House, a splendid picture at the Gallery, a novel, a song, a spirited lecture, a wonderful feat of strength or horsemanship; but there is an inward sense of intoxication in being the "cynosure of all eyes" – the "one in a thousand" – that comes very nigh to madness! Many a time have I screwed up my hunter to a fence – a regular yawner – that I knew in my heart was touch-and-go with both of us, simply because some one in the crowd said, "Look how young Dodd will do it" I made some smashing ventures at the "tables," under pretty similar promptings, and, I must say, with splendid success.

"Are you always so fortunate?" asked a royal personage, with a courteous smile towards me.

"And in everything?" sighs a gentle voice, with a look of such bewitching softness that I forgot to take up my stake, and see it remain on the board to double itself the next deal.

Besides all this, there is a grand magnificence in all your notions under the access of sudden wealth. You give orders to your tradespeople with a Jove-like omnipotence. You revel in the unbounded realms of "I will." What signifies the cost of anything, – the most gorgeous entertainment? It is only adding twenty Naps, to your next bet! That rich bracelet of rubies – pshaw! – it is to be had for the turn of a card! In a word, Bob, I felt that I had fallen upon the "Bendigo Diggins," without even the trouble of the search! I wanted fifty Naps, for a caprice, and strolled in to win them, as coolly as though I were changing a check at my banker's!

"Come, Jim, be a good fellow, and back me this time; I 'm certain to win if you do," whispers a young lord, with fifteen thousand a year.

"Which side is Dodd on?" asked an old peer, with his purse in his hand.

"How I should like to win eighty Louis, and buy that roan Arab," whispers Lady Mary to her sister.

"I 'd rather spend the money on that opal brooch," murmurs the other.

"Egad! if I win this time, I 'll start for my regiment to-night," mutters a pale-looking sub., with a red spot in one cheek, and eyes lustrous as if on fire.

Fancy the power of him who can accomplish these, and a hundred like longings, without a particle of sacrifice on his own part! Imagine, my dear Bob, the conscious rule and sway thus suggested, and ask yourself what ecstasy ever equalled it! I possessed all that Peter Schlemihl did, and had n't to give even my "shadow" in return. During these three glorious weeks, I gave dinners, concerts, and suppers, commanded plays, bespoke operas, patronized humbugs of all kinds, and headed charities without number. As to presents of jewelry, I almost fancied myself a kind of distributing agent for Storr and Mortimer.

The hotel stables were filled with animals of all kinds belonging to me, – dogs, donkeys, horses, Spanish mules, and a bear; while every shape and description of equipage crammed the coach-houses and the courtyard. One of these, with a single wheel in front, and great facilities for upsetting behind, was invented by a Baden artist, and most flatteringly and felicitously called "Le Dod." Wasn't that fame for you, my boy? Think of going down to posterity on noiseless wheels and patent axles! Fancy being transmitted to remote ages on C springs and elastic cushions! Such was the rage for my patronage that an ingenious cutler had dubbed a newly invented forceps by my name, and I was introduced into the world of surgery as a torture.

Now for the obverse of the medal. It was on that un-luckiest of all days – a Friday – that fortune changed with me. I had lain all the morning abed, after being up the whole night previous, and only went down to "the Rooms" in the evening. As usual, I was accompanied by my train of followers, lords, baronets, M. P.s, foreign counts and chevaliers, – for I went to the field like a general, with his full staff around him! You 'll scarcely believe me when I tell you, Bob, but I say it in all truth and seriousness, that so long as my star was in the ascendant, so long as my counsels were what Homer would call "wealth-bestowing words," there was not an opinion of mine upon any subject, no matter how great my ignorance of it might have been, that was not listened to with deference and repeated with approval. "Dodd said so yesterday," "I hear Dodd thinks highly of it," "Dodd's opinion is unfavorable," and so on, were phrases that rang around me from every group I passed, and from the "odds on the Derby" to the "division on the Budget," there was a profound impression that my sentiments were worth hearing.

The pleasantest talkers in Europe, the wittiest conversera that ever convulsed a dinner-party with laughter, would have been deserted and forsaken to hear me hold forth, whether the theme was art, literature, law and politics, or the drama, or any other you please to mention, and of which my ignorance was profound. My luck was unfailing. "Dodd never loses," "Dodd has only to back it," – these were the gifts which all could acknowledge and profit by, and these no man undervalued or denied.

"Benasset" – this was the proprietor of the tables – "has been employing his time profitably, Dodd, during your absence. He has made a great morning of it, – cleared out the old Elector, and sent the Margraf of Ragatz penniless to his dominions." This was the speech that met me as I entered the door, and a general all hail followed it.

"Now you 'll see some smart play," whispered one to his newly come friend. "Here 's young Dodd; we shall have some fun presently." Amid these and similar murmurings I approached the tables, at which a place for me was speedily made, for my coming was regarded by the company as a good augury.

I could dwell long upon the sensations that then thronged my brain; they were certainly upon the whole highly pleasurable, but not unmixed with some sadness; for I already was beginning to feel a kind of contempt for my worshippers, and for myself too, as the unworthy object of their devotion. This scorn had not much leisure granted for its indulgence, for the cards were now presented to me for "the cut," and the game began.

As usual, my luck was unbroken. If I had doubled my stake, or by caprice withdrew it altogether, it was the same. Fortune seemed to wait upon my orders. Revelling in a kind of absolutism over fate, I played a thousand pranks with luck, and won, – won on, as if to lose was an impossibility. What strange fancies crossed my mind as I sat there, – vague fears, shadowy terrors of the oddest kind, wild, dreamy, and undefined! Visions of joy and misery; orgies, mad and furious with mirth, and agonizing sights of misery, thoughts of men who had made compacts with the Fiend, and the terrors that beset them in the midst of their voluptuous abandonment; Belshazzar at his feast; Faust on the Brocken, – rose to my mind, and I almost started up and fled from the table at one moment, so impressed was I by these images! Would that I had! Would that I had listened to that warning whisper of my good genius that was then admonishing me!

My revery had become such at last that I really never saw nor heard what went on about me. You can picture my condition to yourself when I say that I was only recalled to self-possession by loud and incessant laughter, that rang out on every side of me. "What 's the matter, – what has happened?" cried I, in amazement. "Don't you perceive, sir," said a bystander, "that you have broken the bank, and they are waiting for a remittance to continue the play?"

So it was, Bob; I had actually won their last Napoleon, and there I sat pushing my stake mechanically into the middle of the table, and raking it up again, playing an imaginary game, to the amusement of that motley crowd, who looked on at me with screams of laughter. I laughed, too, when I came to myself. It was such a relief to me to join, even for a moment, in any feeling that others experienced!

The money came at last. Two strongly clasped, heavily ironed coffers were borne into the room by four powerful men. I watched them with interest as they unlocked and poured forth their shining stores; for in imagination they were already my own. I believe at that moment, if any one had offered to assure me the winning of them "for fifty Naps.," that I should have rejected the proposal with disdain, so impossible did it seem to me that luck could desert me! Do you know, Bob, that what most interested me at the time was the varied expressions displayed by the company at sight of the gorgeous treasure before them? It was strange to mark how little all their good breeding and fine manners availed to repress vulgarity of thought and feeling, for there was greed or envy or hatred, or some inordinate passion or other, on every face around; looks of mild and gentle meaning became dashed with a half ferocity; venerable old age grew fretful and impatient; youth lost its frank and careless bearing; and, in fact, gain, and the lust of gain, was the predominant and overbearing thought of every mind, and wish of every heart! I pledge you my word, there was more animal savagery in the expressions on all sides than ever I saw on a pack of yelping fox-hounds when the huntsman held up the fox in the midst of them. It was the comparison that came to my mind at the moment, and I repeat it, with the reservation that the dogs behaved best.

There was an old careworn, meanly dressed man, with a faded blue ribbon in his button-hole, seated in the place I usually occupied, and he arose to give it to me with that mingled air of reluctance and respect which it is so bard to resist. His manner seemed to say, "I am too poor and too humble to contest the matter, but I 'd remain here if I could."

"So you shall, then," said I to myself, and pushed him gently down upon the seat again.

"By Jove! the old fellow has got the lucky place," cried one in the crowd behind me.

"Hang we, if Dodd has n't given up his old chair!" said another.

"I 'd rather have had that seat," exclaimed a third, "than one at the India Board."

But I only laughed at these absurd superstitions, – as though it were the spot, and not myself, that Fortune loved to caress! As if to resent the foolish credulity, I threw a heavy bet on the table, and lost it! Again and again I did the same, with the like result; and now a murmur ran through the room that luck had turned with me. I had given up my winning seat, and was losing at every turn of the cards.

"Let me have a peep at him," I beard one whisper to his friend behind. "I 'd like to see how he bears it!"

"He loses remarkably well," muttered the other.

"Admirably!" said another. "He seems neither confident nor impatient; I like the way he stands it."

"Egad, his hand trembles, though! He tore that banknote in trying to get it out of his fingers!"

"His hand is hot, too, – see how the Louis stick to it!"

"They 'll not do so very long, depend on 't," said a close-shaved, well-whiskered fellow, with a knowing eye; and the remark met an approving smile from the bystanders.

"I have just added up his last fifteen bets," said a young man to a lady on his arm, "and what do you think he has lost? Forty-eight thousand francs, – close on two thousand pounds!"

"Quite enough for one evening!" said I, with a smile towards him, which made both himself and his friend blush deeply at being overheard; and with this I shut up my pocket-book, and strolled away from the tables into another room, where there were chess and whist players. I took a chair, and affected to watch the game with interest, my heart at the moment throbbing as though it would burst through my chest. Don't mistake, Bob, and fancy it was the accursed thirst for gold that enthralled me. I swear to you that mere gain, mere wealth, never entered into my thought at that moment. It was the gambler's lust – to be the victor, not to be beaten – that was the terrible passion that now struggled and stormed within me! I 'd like to have staked a limb – honor – happiness – life itself – on the issue of a chance; for I felt as though it were a duel with destiny, and I could not quit the ground till one of us should succumb!

How poor and unsatisfying seemed the slow combinations of skill, as I watched the chess-players! What miserable minuteness, what petty plottings for small results! – nothing grand, great, or decisive! It was like being bled to death from some wretched trickling vessel, instead of meeting one's fate gloriously, amidst the roar of artillery and the crash of squadrons!

I lounged into the salons where they dance; it was a very brilliant and a very beautiful assembly. There were faces and figures there that might have proved attractive to eyes more critical than my own. My sudden appearance amongst them, too, was rapturously welcomed. I was already a celebrity; and I felt that amidst the soft glances and beaming smiles around me, I had but to choose out her whom I would distinguish by my attentions. My mother and the girls came to me with pressing entreaties to take out the beautiful Countess de B., or to be presented to the charming Marchioness of N. There was a dowager archduchess who vouchsafed to know me. Miss Somebody, with I forget how many millions in the funds, told Mary Anne she might introduce me. Already the master of the ceremonies came to know if I preferred a mazurka or a waltz. The world was, so to say, at my feet; and, as is usual at such moments, I kicked it for being there. In plain English, Bob, I saw nothing in all that bright and brilliant crowd but scheming mammas and designing daughters; a universal distrust, an utter disbelief in everything and everybody, had got bold of me. Whatever I could n't explain, I discredited. The ringlets might be false; the carnation might be rouge; the gentle timidity of manner might be the cat-like slyness of the tiger; the artless gayety of heart, the practised coquetry of a flirt, – ay, the very symmetry that seemed perfection, might it not be the staymaker's! Play had utterly corrupted me, and there was not one healthy feeling, one manly thought, or one generous impulse left within me! I left the room a few minutes after I entered it. I neither danced nor got presented to any one; but after one lounging stroll through the salons I quitted the place, as though there was not one to know, not one to speak to! I have more than once witnessed the performance of this polite process by another. I have watched a fellow making the tour of a company, with a glass stuck in his eye, and his hand thrust in his pocket. I have tracked him as he passed on from group to group, examining the guests with the same coolness he bestowed on the china, and smiling his little sardonic appreciation of whatever struck him as droll or ridiculous; and when he has retired, it has been all I could do not to follow him out, and kick him down the stairs at his departure. I have no doubt that my conduct on this occasion must have inspired similar sentiments; nor have I any hesitation in avowing that they were well merited.

When I reached the open air I felt a delicious sense of relief. It was so still, so calm, so tranquil! a bright starlit summer's night, with here and there a murmuring of low voices, a gentle laugh, beard amongst the trees, and the rustling sounds of silk drapery brushing through the alleys, – all those little suggestive tokens that bring up one's reminiscences of

"Those odorous boon
In jasmine bowers,
Or under the linden tree!"

But they only came for a second, Bob, and they left not a trace behind them. The monotonous rubric of the croupier rang ever through my brain, – "Faîtes votre jeu, Messieurs! " – "Messieurs, faîtes votre jeu!" The table, the lights, the glittering gold, the clank of the rake, were all before me, and I set off at full speed to the hotel, to fetch more money, and resume my play.

I 'll not weary you with a detail, at every step of which I know that your condemnation tracks me. I re-entered the play-room, secretly and cautiously; I approached the table stealthily; I hoped to escape all observation, – at least, for a time; and with this object I betted small sums, and attracted no notice. My luck varied, – now inclining on this side, now to that. Fortune seemed as though in a half-capricious mood, and as it were undetermined how to treat me. "This comes of my own miserable timidity," thought I; "when I was bold and courageous, she favored me. It is the same in everything. To win, one must venture."

There was a vacant place in front of me; a young Hungarian had just quitted it, having lost his last "Louis." I immediately took it. The card on which he had been marking the chances of the game still lay there. I took it up, and saw that he had been playing most rashly; that no luck could possibly have carried a man safely through such a system as he had followed.

I must let you into a little secret of this game, Bob, and do not be incredulous of my theory, because my own case is a sorry illustration of it. Where all men fail at Rouge-et-Noir, is from temper. The loser makes tremendous efforts to repair his losses; the winner grows cautious with success, and diminishes his stake. Now the wise course is, play low when you see Fate against you, and back your luck to the very limit of the bank. You ask, perhaps, "How are you to ascertain either of these facts? What evidence have you that Fortune is with or against you?" As you are not a gambler, I cannot explain this to you. It is part of the masonry of the play-table, and every one who risks heavily on a chance knows well what are the instincts that guide him.

I own to you, that though well aware of these facts, and thoroughly convinced that they form the only rules of play, I soon forgot them in the excitement of the game, and betted on, as caprice, or rather as passion, dictated. We Irish are bad stuff for gamblers. We have the bull-dog resistance of the Englishman, – his stern resolve not to be beaten, – but we have none of his caution or reserve. We are as impassioned as the men of the South, but we are destitute of that intense selfishness that never suffers an Italian to peril his all. In fact, as an old Belgian said to me one night, we make bad winners and worse losers, – too lavish in one case, too reckless in the other.

I am not seeking excuses for my failure in my nationality. I accept the whole blame on my own shoulders. With common prudence I might have arisen that night a large winner; as it was, I left the table with a loss of nigh three thousand pounds. Just fancy it, Bob, – five thousand pounds poorer than when I strolled out after luncheon. A sum sufficient to have started me splendidly in some career, – the army, for instance, – gone without enjoyment, even without credit; for already the critics were busily employed in analyzing my "play," which they unanimously pronounced "badly reasoned and contemptible." There remained to me still – at home in the hotel, fortunately – about eight hundred pounds of my former winnings, and I passed the night canvassing with myself what I should do with these. Three or four weeks back I had never given a second thought to the matter, – indeed, it would never have entered my head to risk such a sum at play; but now the habit of winning and losing heavy wages, the alternations of affluence and want, had totally mastered all the calmer properties of reason, and I could entertain the notion without an effort. I 'll not tire you with my reasonings on this subject. Probably you would scarcely dignify them with the name. They all resolved themselves into this: "If I did not play, I 'd never win back what I lost; if I did, I might." My mind once made up to this, I began to plot how I should proceed to execute it I resolved to enter the room next day just as the table opened, at twelve o'clock. The players who frequented the room at that hour were a few straggling, poor-looking people, who usually combined together to make up the solitary crown-piece they wished to venture. Of course I had no acquaintances amongst them, and therefore should be free from all the embarrassing restraints of observation by my intimates. My judgment would be calmer, my head cooler, and, in fact, I could devote myself to the game with all my energies uncramped and unimpeded.

Sharp to the moment of the clock striking twelve, I entered the room. One of the croupiers was talking to a peasant-girl at the window. The other, seated on a table, was reading the newspaper. They both looked astonished at seeing me, but bowed respectfully, not, however, making any motion to assume their accustomed places, since it never occurred to them that I could have come to play at such an hour of the morning. A little group, of the very "seediest" exterior, was waiting respectfully for when it might be the croupiers' pleasure to begin, but the functionaries never deigned to notice them.