The Gambler - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

     The Gambler is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky about a young tutor, Alexey Ivanovitch, in the employment of a formerly wealthy Russian general. And also his intense and inescapable addiction is accentuated by his affair with the General’s cruel yet seductive niece, Polina.

    The novella reflects Dostoyevsky's own addiction to roulette, which was in more ways than one the inspiration for the book: Dostoyevsky completed the novella under a strict deadline to pay off gambling debts.

***

In fact, during the two weeks of my absence I had felt far more at my ease than I did now, on the day of my return; although, while travelling, I had moped like an imbecile, rushed about like a man in a fever, and actually beheld her in my dreams. Indeed, on one occasion (this happened in Switzerland, when I was asleep in the train) I had spoken aloud to her, and set all my fellow-travellers laughing. Again, therefore, I put to myself the question: “Do I, or do I not love her?” and again I could return myself no answer.

Yet I also swear that if, on the Shlangenberg, she had really said to me, “Leap into that abyss,” I should have leapt into it, and with equal pleasure. Yes, this I knew well.

***

Never at any time have I been able to bear the flunkeyishness which one meets in the Press of the world at large, but more especially in that of Russia, where, almost every evening, journalists write on two subjects in particular namely, on the splendour and luxury of the casinos to be found in the Rhenish towns, and on the heaps of gold which are daily to be seen lying on their tables. Those journalists are not paid for doing so: they write thus merely out of a spirit of disinterested complaisance. For there is nothing splendid about the establishments in question; and, not only are there no heaps of gold to be seen lying on their tables, but also there is very little money to be seen at all. Of course, during the season, some madman or another may make his appearance — generally an Englishman, or an Asiatic, or a Turk — and (as had happened during the summer of which I write) win or lose a great deal.

***

Insignificant profits and sumptuous profits do not stand on the same footing. No, it is all a matter of proportion. What may seem a small sum to a Rothschild may seem a large sum to me, and it is not the fault of stakes or of winnings that everywhere men can be found winning, can be found depriving their fellows of something, just as they do at roulette. As to the question whether stakes and winnings are, in themselves, immoral is another question altogether, and I wish to express no opinion upon it. Yet the very fact that I was full of a strong desire to win caused this gambling for gain.

***

Do you know that sometimes I could kill you? — not because I do not love you, or am jealous of you, but, because I feel as though I could simply devour you... You are laughing!

***

Look at her — especially when she is sitting alone, and plunged in thought. All this was pre-ordained and foretold, and is accursed.

***

I thought with, may God forgive me, a most malicious smile,

***

Every gambler knows how a person may sit a day and a night at cards without ever casting a glance to right or to left.

***

I had remarked it only too often — that, after listening to what I had to say, and angering me almost beyond endurance, she loved suddenly to torture me with some fresh outburst of contempt and aloofness! Yet she must have known that I could not live without her.

***

Sometimes it happens that the most insane thought, the most impossible conception, will become so fixed in one’s head that at length one believes the thought or the conception to be reality. Moreover, if with the thought or the conception there is combined a strong, a passionate, desire, one will come to look upon the said thought or conception as something fated, inevitable, and foreordained — something bound to happen. Whether by this there is connoted something in the nature of a combination of presentiments, or a great effort of will, or a self-annulment of one’s true expectations…

***

Now, although I was honestly sorry for Polina, it is a fact that, from the moment when, the previous night, I had approached the gaming-table, and begun to rake in the packets of bank-notes, my love for her had entered upon a new plane. Yes, I can say that now; although, at the time, I was barely conscious of it. Was I, then, at heart a gambler?

***

 “You are growing blase,” he said. “You have not only renounced life, with its interests and social ties, but the duties of a citizen and a man; you have not only renounced the friends whom I know you to have had, and every aim in life but that of winning money; but you have also renounced your memory.

***

Yet why should I not rise from the dead? I should require at first but to go cautiously and patiently and the rest would follow. I should require but to put a check upon my nature for one hour, and my fortunes would be changed entirely. Yes, my nature is my weak point. I have only to remember what happened to me some months ago at Roulettenberg, before my final ruin. What a notable instance that was of my capacity for resolution! On the occasion in question I had lost everything — everything; yet, just as I was leaving the Casino, I heard another gulden give a rattle in my pocket! “Perhaps I shall need it for a meal,” I thought to myself; but a hundred paces further on, I changed my mind, and returned. That gulden I staked upon manque — and there is something in the feeling that, though one is alone, and in a foreign land, and far from one’s own home and friends, and ignorant of whence one’s next meal is to come, one is nevertheless staking one’s very last coin!

Türkçe Metinler

    Dostoyevski’nin Kumarbaz’ı genç bir öğretmen, Alexey Ivanovitch, hakkında kısa bir romandır. Kendisi, eskiden varlıklı olan bir Rus generalinin hizmetinde çalışmaktadır. Ayrıca Alexey’in General’in acımasız fakat karşı konulmaz yeğeni Polina’ya karşı güçlü ve kaçınılmaz gönül ilişkisi kitabın odak noktalarından biridir.
    Esere birçok yönden ilham kaynağı olan Dostoyevski’nin rulet bağımlılığı romana da yansır. Dostoyevski kumar borcunu ödeyebilmek için romanı belirlenen teslim süresinde bitirmek zorunda kaldı.