The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

Toledo's voice as he said this was as sad as the Prince's had been on enumerating to his friends the advantages of living away from women. On the other hand, Michael was now himself submitting to a woman's domination, and almost envied the scientist returning to his former modest life in order to meet the woman he loved more frequently.

As for himself, Michael was less happy. Days went by without his being able to repeat his promenade with Alicia in the gardens of Monaco.

"I love you!" she said. "You may believe that I haven't forgotten that afternoon. Later on we will take the same trip, but not now, I know how it would end. It is impossible for me… I am thinking of my son."

Michael had no doubt that this was true, but something more than worry over the absent one was at the time in her thoughts. She had abandoned herself once more to gambling with the money she had found in her house. The Prince even suspected that she had sold or pawned the pin with which he had repaired the tear in her dress. After giving her the Princess Lubimoff's pearl, he had not seen it again. Alicia seemed unmoved at the first splendor of Spring.

"Some day we shall go there," she said, when he recalled to her the gardens of San Martino, "I promise you. But I must be free from worry, I must lose everything or win everything. I must make the most of my time. As you see, luck seems to be remembering me again."

She was winning little, but she was winning, and this caused her to hope that that sudden burst of good luck which had stirred the Casino, would be repeated.

In the evening she withdrew contented. She had three or four thousand francs more, but what did that amount to? She lamented the smallness of her capital. She wanted to play the "grand jeu" and win back all that she had lost. Winning thus little by little, she would never get anywhere. If she could only get together again the thirty thousand francs, which rose and fell, but always remained faithful!

Michael remained in the Casino for hours at a time near her table, watching for a propitious occasion, without being able to obtain more than brief conversation when she was resting from the play, or taking tea in the bar of the private rooms.

One morning he went to surprise her in her villa. It was ten o'clock. He met Valeria who had just put on her hat, and seemed annoyed at this visit. Perhaps she was going to Monaco, perhaps her man of Science was waiting for her in one of the side streets of Monte Carlo.

"The Duchess has gone," she said, smiling, "she must be in the midst of her work."

Among the gamblers the Casino was known as the "factory," and they really meant it, when they referred to their worry and scheming around the tables as their "work."

Doubtless she had spent a large part of the night figuring, in order to be on hand at the Casino, at the opening hour, her eyes still heavy with sleep, and without paying any attention to her personal adornment, as though there were all too little time for carrying out some wonderful combination she had just discovered.

Whenever he met her, the Prince, with a childish rather ill-concealed motive, alluded to her son's fate. It was only thus that he could rouse her from her preoccupations with gambling, which kept her constantly distracted, talking and smiling automatically, like a person walking in her sleep.

One day, Lubimoff showed her various telegrams and letters from Madrid, Paris, and Berne. Kings and Ministers had taken up the task of finding out the fate of the aviator who had disappeared. A promise came over from Berlin, through the medium of a neutral nation, to look for the young man in every prison cantonment. They suspected that he might be confined in Poland, in a punishment camp.

Alicia began at once ardently to measure time, as though the longed-for notice might arrive at any moment.

"In Heaven's name, please, Michael! Write, telegraph this very day. Tell the gentlemen who have been so kind to send their answer directly to me. The telegram or letter might come to your Villa while you are away, and I would be hours and hours without knowing anything about it! No, have them write to me. Every day, when I go out, I tell my gardener that if there is a telegram he should bring it to me at the Casino. Imagine my impatience! Tell me you'll do this. Promise me you won't forget!"

The one thing that the Prince was at all able to forget, while he was by Alicia's side, was his own personal business. His mind was entirely taken up with discovering the forgotten captive, on whom his happiness depended.

"The day I learn for certain that he is alive!.. you will see then how different I am. I shan't bore you with my troubles: you will find a different woman."

And as a matter of fact, her smile and her glances, full of promises, caused him to see in her once more the Alicia who had walked beside him on the path along the seashore, with her lips pressed closely to his in an endless kiss.

When he found himself alone, he was assailed by his own troubles and worries. He had received news from Russia through various fugitives who had just been freed from the persecution of the Revolution. The men who formerly administered his estate there had been murdered. The Lubimoff palace was being used as the headquarters of a Bolshevist Committee. His mines were national property, although no one was working them; his land had been divided; various persons of obscure origin, former old clothes dealers and liquor merchants, had become the owners of his houses, no one knew how. And at the same time that he received this news, which made his future so uncertain, he learned other details which embittered his pleasantest memories. A great lady of the Court, with whom he had had a love affair, the memory of which he cherished, was now selling newspapers on the sidewalks; another very elegant lady, who had set all the fashions in Saint Petersburg, was sweeping snow on the streets of Petrograd, and had lost several fingers by freezing. He could count by the dozen friends of his who had been killed; some of them shot with revolvers like rats, in the depths of some dungeon, others executed by firing squads. Several had perished of hunger, just as years before those of the lower classes, who now were taking revenge, had died.

All these horrors aroused his selfish instincts, causing him to take fresh delight in his own situation. The world had been plunged into a bloody madness. East and west men were rushing about like wild beasts, while he remained quietly beside the most smiling of seas, with love and desire filling his life, which had been so empty before, and awakening anew the ardor and enthusiasm of youth. At the very hour when thousands of human beings were dying in crowds, and the whole villages were being swept from the surface of the earth, he was living under the sway of a woman, and finding his servitude very sweet.

One afternoon, in the bar of the private room, Alicia spoke to him with an air of resolution. She must play big stakes. She was tired of "working" on small capital, and gaining small returns. Besides, she scorned the Casino with its limited bets, its roulette and trente et quarante, almost mechanical games in which you cannot see the banker sitting opposite, but instead mere employees.

"All that gives you the impression of struggling with a formidable machine, that functions monotonously, with no imagination, no soul. I must play baccarat."

She had gotten her thirty thousand francs together once more: either enormous winnings or nothing! She preferred to lose everything and end it once for all at a single stroke.

"To-night in the Sporting Club. Don't say no: I need you. I have a feeling that this is going to be the decisive night for me – and perhaps for you. Sit opposite me so that I can see you. Remember that on the lucky afternoons you were near me. You will bring me luck. Don't shake your head; you will bring me luck, I tell you."

And she said it with such conviction, that Michael could no longer withhold his consent.

"Come, you will gain by it: I promise you. You will gain by it, no matter what the result. If they clean me out, to-morrow we will go for a walk in the Monaco Gardens, as we did before. And if I win – if I win, – all you want!.."

She did not need to say any more. The look in her eye and her smile filled Michael with enthusiasm. He would see her at the Club.

That night, Castro and Toledo were surprised at seeing the Prince sit down at the table dressed, like themselves, in a Tuxedo.

"The Boss isn't staying home," said Atilio to the Colonel. "He too is going to the opera."

He went to the Casino theater, to while away the time until midnight. He would not have been able to tell for a certainty with whom he talked during the intermission, nor with whom he shook hands. He was obliged to make an effort several times to recall the name and composer of the opera. The music made no difference to him. It was a lulling sound which rocked his thoughts to sleep, calming his emotion – an emotion made up of hope and of fear.

During the first act, he wanted Alicia to lose everything, absolutely everything, thus she would be his more completely, depending absolutely on him, in sweet bondage. Later, during the following act he thought of Alicia's despair after such a loss. She was full of temperament, and she felt the pride of an artist in her play. Perhaps more than the lost money, she would lament her personal defeat. No, it was better that she should win. But how long the music was lasting! How slowly his watch seemed to go! After eleven, when the lobby was lighted and the crowd was leaving the opera, Michael got into an elevator, which took him down into the bowels of the earth, and then he followed a subterranean passageway, the multi-colored stucco walls of which brilliantly reflected the electric lights. He was walking along under the square front of the Casino, where at that moment many carriages were passing back and forth. Another elevator took him up to a large room filled with columns. It was the great hall of the Hôtel de Paris. He saw women in evening gowns and gentlemen dressed in Tuxedos, the usual crowd of fashionable hotel people who put on uniforms for dinner, and then sit around in deep armchairs, to digest what they have eaten, looking at one another without talking, or else conversing in low tones, as though they were in church, until they are overcome by sleep.

He bowed distantly to various friends who arose, on seeing him, to begin a conversation. He pretended not to see certain ladies who smiled at him, motioning with their heads to call him. He entered another elevator, and descended once more underground. He found himself in a curving passageway, the walls of which were decorated with Pompeian paintings. It extended under two hotels and their gardens. Once more he entered an elevator, which brought him above the surface of the ground. He opened a glass door. An old lackey, in a blue livery, with knee breeches and white stockings, bowed, somewhat surprised at recognizing, after a moment's hesitation, Prince Lubimoff. He was in the Sporting Club.

He had not entered it for years, since before the war. He was not a gambler, and it was only because he had been interested in certain women that he had spent his nights amid elegant society in that place which, like many others of the same class, was merely a gambling den.

The drawing rooms were too small, after midnight; one walked along stepping on the trains of women's gowns. One had to be very dextrous to slip through between the various groups. Every one was smoking, the women more than the men, and the atmosphere grew thicker and thicker with tobacco smoke and the perfumes of the boudoir. The wealthy people scorned the crowds at the Casino, considering it a sign of distinction to be packed in together in this club. They gambled with their own set, considering themselves safe from bad neighbors at the tables, and from contact with suspicious characters who were so frequent in the public rooms. To get in here, it was necessary to give guarantees; some one must vouch for the honor of a person before he could be presented.

The Prince was well acquainted with this brilliant gathering. Here one might meet people of royal blood, heirs to thrones, who were passing through the Riviera, famous bankers, millionaires from all parts of the world, women celebrated for their nobility, their beauty, or their jewels, and many famous and aged cocottes and a few, young and fresh looking, who were anxious to grow old as soon as possible, as though that were a means of attaining celebrity. They had all appeared on the stage, at one time or another, in a trained-rabbit act, perhaps, or in some wretched dance, or with a song which they sang in spite of the fact that they had no voices. They were admitted to the Club under the rather vague classification of "artists."

Michael came forward through the atmosphere warm from the crowds and heavy with fading perfumes. He still had to watch where he stepped this time as he had done on his visit here before. Now, to be sure, women's skirts were very short, and their legs were shown uncovered, with a placid lack of shame. The war was shortening their skirts, as though the women, obliged to run in the open field, had taken as a model the ancient Vivandière. But almost all of them, in order not to break completely with a majestic tradition, had added to their stylish overskirts, a sharp and narrow tail, tongue-shaped, which dragged far behind as they walked.

A lady came forward to meet Lubimoff, and it was a moment before he recognized her. It had been so many years since he had seen Alicia in evening dress! Her gown dated back to pre-war times, but was of rich material and the Duchess wore it with the same smartness as in the days of her wealth. The long pearl necklace gained an air of genuineness on her person, as did her other ornaments. It was evident that she had made extraordinary efforts to present a proper appearance on her visit to the Club.

She came here seldom, the crowd composed of former friends talked too much, disturbing her in her gambling calculations. She preferred the Casino, with its large rooms and its motley crowd, talking in various languages. She was a proletarian in the matter of gambling: she had a superstition that fortune prefers to come where its devotees gather in large bands. Her intuition that she would be lucky at baccarat, a game to be found only here, had persuaded her to abandon her usual custom for this one night.

The Prince complimented her on her lovely appearance, her dress, her pearls…

"False, scandalously false, my dear," she said, laughing and looking about her. "But you know very well that the majority of those worn by the other women are no better. Ah, pearls! If all that shine in the world were brought together, the sea would not be large enough to have produced a tenth part."

She led the Prince toward the bar. She had a favor to ask of him. At midnight the game of baccarat commenced: she had asked for "the bank," but the rules of the Club prevented her from getting it. Alas for women! Even in gambling they were condemned to a position of degrading inferiority. Lost in the common crowd of "ponteurs" they might lose a fortune, but they were forbidden ever to hold the bank. The directors of this Club and other similar ones doubtless feared that women were more given to cheating than men. She, the Duchess de Delille, could not be the equal of a Greek sailor, who dealt every evening with unheard-of luck, causing the crowd to feel suspicious and think evil thoughts.

"They insist that I get a man to deal for me. He must appear as my banker, although every one knows that the capital is mine. I thought that you might do me this favor. I like to think of our going together into this business which means life or death to me! Besides, I am sure of success if you deal. And what an event! How they would bet! Prince Lubimoff playing the banker!"

But she did not continue. Michael interrupted her with a decisive gesture of refusal. It made no difference what she said. He was indignant at the very idea that people should see him seated at the green table, playing with money that did not belong to him, and having Alicia at his back. Besides, he was sure of losing.

The Duchess hastily left him. Time was flying, and any minute they might give out the bank. She believed once more in her good star as she saw a young man timidly slipping through the crowd.

"Spadoni! Spadoni!"

The pianist grew pale on hearing her. "Oh, Duchess!" He trembled and stammered with emotion. He dealing in the Sporting-Club before an elegant opera night crowd, handling thousands of francs, with all eyes fixed on him! It was the crowning moment of his career; after that he could die happy.

Two players had asked for the bank, the famous Greek and a manufacturer from Paris, who had gotten fabulously rich making munitions. Spadoni also presented himself, carrying in a purse the fifteen thousand francs which were necessary in order to take charge of the bank. Lots were to be drawn among the three petitioners. An employee of the Club took a wicker basket that held ten numbered balls and after shaking it, threw out three on the table: one for each. Alicia mingling with them with masculine familiarity, almost clapped her hands with joy. Luck had favored Spadoni, the bank was his. But the pianist, respectful of the privileges due to genius, showed his sense of profound humility in smiles and expressions of face and eyes that seemed to beg pardon of the Greek, his rival.

The Greek was a stout man with a figure that almost formed a square, with a dark shiny complexion, black mustache and eyes that were somewhat slanting, and had a fixed aggressive look, suggesting those of a wild boar. His ancestors had been pirates in the Archipelago, and he, finding this heroic career cut off, had become a smuggler in his youth. Spadoni, somewhat intimidated by the majesty of the great man, stammered excuses with his eyes fixed on the Greek's shining shirt-bosom, adorned with pearls, and his gray silk vest that covered a heavy paunch. But the Greek replied, with an ill-humored grunt, walking away after favoring the Duchess with a bow like one of those he had seen on the stage. Although he scarcely knew how to read, the Greek was posted on the proper way of treating a lady who declares war.

It was twelve o'clock. The gambling stopped at the roulette wheels and the trente et quarante tables. The crowd was gathering in the baccarat room. The news had gone around: The pianist Spadoni, considered by every one as a pleasing parasite, was going to occupy the place that had been held on former evenings by the Greek, but in reality the bank belonged to the Duchess de Delille.