Night Games: And Other Stories and Novellas Read Online Free PDF Page A

like a dragon-on my gold, unfortunately, as well. So-up and
into battle, my dear toreadors!"
    The others rose. "I'm invited somewhere else," said Willi, lighting
his cigarette with studied carelessness. "I'll just watch for a quarter of an
hour."
    "Ha," laughed Wimmer, "the way to hell is paved with good intentions." "And the way to heaven with bad ones," added Weiss, the theatre
manager. "Well said," said Wimmer, and clapped him on the shoulder.
    They went inside the cafe. Willi cast one last glance back over his shoulder out into the open air, over the roofs of the villas toward the hills.
And he swore to himself that he would be sitting in the garden with the
Kessners in no more than half an hour at the most.

    Together with the other men he entered a dark corner of the cafe, a
place where neither the spring air nor the spring light could penetrate. To
show that he had absolutely no intention of joining the game, he pulled
his chair way back from the table. The consul, a gaunt man of uncertain
age, with a mustache trimmed English style and reddish, partly grey,
thinning hair, elegantly dressed in a light grey suit, was studying, with
the thoroughness that characterized him, a card which Dr. Flegmann, acting as banker, had just dealt him. He won, and Dr. Flegmann drew some
brand-new bills from his wallet.
    "He doesn't even bat an eyelash," noted Wimmer with ironic appreciation.
    "Eyelash-batting doesn't change anything," answered Flegmann
coolly, his lids half closed. Regiment Doctor Tugut, division chief of the
military hospital in Baden, put down a bank of two hundred gulden.
    This is not for me today! thought Willi, and pulled his armchair still
farther back.
    The actor Elrief, a young man of good family, more famous for his
stinginess than for his talent, allowed Willi to see his cards. He bet small
sums and shook his head in bewilderment when he lost. Tugut soon doubled his capital. The theatre manager Weiss borrowed some money from
Elrief, and Dr. Flegmann took still more money out of his wallet. Tugut
was on the point of withdrawing when the consul, without counting,
cried, "The whole bank!" He lost, and with a quick reach into his wallet
he made good his debt, which amounted to three hundred gulden. "Once
more the whole bank!" he said. The regiment doctor declined. Dr. Flegmann took over as banker and dealt the cards. Willi declined to take one,
and only for fun, at Elrief's continued urging, he placed a gulden on Elrief's card "to bring him luck"-and won. In the next round Dr. Flegmann tossed Willi a card which he didn't refuse. He won again, lost,
won, pulled his chair up to the table between the others, who willingly
made room for him, and won-lost-won-lost, as if fate could not
quite decide what she had in store for him today. The theatre manager had to return to the theatre and forgot to give Elrief back the money he
had borrowed from him, even though he had already won far more. Willi
was a little ahead but was still nine hundred and fifty gulden short of the
thousand he needed.

    "Nothing's happening!" Greising declared, dissatisfied. The consul
became the banker again, and at that moment everyone knew that the
game was finally about to get serious.
    Hardly anything more was known about Consul Schnabel other
than that he was a consul, the ambassador of a small free state in South
America, and a "wholesale merchant." It had been Weiss who had introduced him into the officers' circle, and the theatre manager's relationship
with him came about because the consul had known how to interest him
in hiring a minor actress, who, immediately upon her appearance in a
small part, had entered into a more intimate relationship with Herr Elrief.
The company would have enjoyed engaging in the good old custom of
making fun of the deceived lover, but ever since he had casually asked
Elrief, while dealing cards and without looking up, a cigar between his
teeth, "Well, how's our little