The Mystery of Marie Roget. Stories / Тайна Мари Роже. Рассказы. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Although this event failed not of a vivid effect upon my disordered imagination, yet was it evanescent as vivid. For some weeks, indeed, I busied myself in earnest inquiry, or was wrapped in a cloud of morbid speculation. I did not pretend to disguise from my perception the identity of the singular individual who thus perseveringly interfered with my affairs, and harassed me with his insinuated counsel. But who and what was this Wilson? – and whence came he? – and what were his purposes? Upon neither of these points could I be satisfied; merely ascertaining, in regard to him, that a sudden accident in his family had caused his removal from Dr. Bransby’s academy on the afternoon of the day in which I myself had eloped. But in a brief period I ceased to think upon the subject; my attention being all absorbed in a contemplated departure for Oxford. Thither I soon went; the uncalculating vanity of my parents furnishing me with an outfit and annual establishment, which would enable me to indulge at will in the luxury already so dear to my heart, – to vie in profuseness of expenditure with the haughtiest heirs of the wealthiest earldoms in Great Britain.

Excited by such appliances to vice, my constitutional temperament broke forth with redoubled ardor, and I spurned even the common restraints of decency in the mad infatuation of my revels. But it were absurd to pause in the detail of my extravagance. Let it suffice[59], that among spendthrifts I out-Heroded Herod[60], and that, giving name to a multitude of novel follies, I added no brief appendix to the long catalogue of vices then usual in the most dissolute university of Europe.

It could hardly be credited, however, that I had, even here, so utterly fallen from the gentlemanly estate, as to seek acquaintance with the vilest arts of the gambler by profession, and, having become an adept in his despicable science, to practise it habitually as a means of increasing my already enormous income at the expense of the weak-minded among my fellow-collegians. Such, nevertheless, was the fact. And the very enormity of this offence against all manly and honourable sentiment proved, beyond doubt, the main if not the sole reason of the impunity with which it was committed. Who, indeed, among my most abandoned associates, would not rather have disputed the clearest evidence of his senses, than have suspected of such courses, the gay, the frank, the generous William Wilson – the noblest and most commoner at Oxford – him whose follies (said his parasites) were but the follies of youth and unbridled fancy – whose errors but inimitable whim – whose darkest vice but a careless and dashing extravagance?

I had been now two years successfully busied in this way, when there came to the university a young parvenu nobleman, Glendinning – rich, said report, as Herodes Atticus – his riches, too, as easily acquired. I soon found him of weak intellect, and, of course, marked him as a fitting subject for my skill. I frequently engaged him in play, and contrived, with the gambler’s usual art, to let him win considerable sums, the more effectually to entangle him in my snares. At length, my schemes being ripe, I met him (with the full intention that this meeting should be final and decisive) at the chambers of a fellow-commoner, (Mr. Preston,) equally intimate with both, but who, to do him justice[61], entertained not even a remote suspicion of my design. To give to this a better colouring, I had contrived to have assembled a party of some eight or ten, and was solicitously careful that the introduction of cards should appear accidental, and originate in the proposal of my contemplated dupe himself. To be brief upon a vile topic, none of the low finesse was omitted, so customary upon similar occasions that it is a just matter for wonder how any are still found so besotted as to fall its victim.

We had protracted our sitting far into the night, and I had at length effected the manoeuvre of getting Glendinning as my sole antagonist. The game, too, was my favorite écarté[62]. The rest of the company, interested in the extent of our play, had abandoned their own cards, and were standing around us as spectators. The parvenu, who had been induced by my artifices in the early part of the evening, to drink deeply, now shuffled, dealt, or played, with a wild nervousness of manner for which his intoxication, I thought, might partially, but could not altogether account. In a very short period he had become my debtor to a large amount, when, having taken a long draught of port, he did precisely what I had been coolly anticipating – he proposed to double our already extravagant stakes. With a well-feigned show of reluctance, and not until after my repeated refusal had seduced him into some angry words which gave a color of pique to my compliance, did I finally comply. The result, of course, did but prove how entirely the prey was in my toils; in less than an hour he had quadrupled his debt. For some time his countenance had been losing the florid tinge lent it by the wine; but now, to my astonishment, I perceived that it had grown to a pallor truly fearful. I say, to my astonishment. Glendinning had been represented to my eager inquiries as immeasurably wealthy; and the sums which he had as yet lost, although in themselves vast, could not, I supposed, very seriously annoy, much less so violently affect him. That he was overcome by the wine just swallowed, was the idea which most readily presented itself; and, rather with a view to the preservation of my own character in the eyes of my associates, than from any less interested motive, I was about to insist, peremptorily, upon a discontinuance of the play, when some expressions at my elbow from among the company, and an ejaculation evincing utter despair on the part of Glendinning, gave me to understand that I had effected his total ruin under circumstances which, rendering him an object for the pity of all, should have protected him from the ill offices even of a fiend.

What now might have been my conduct it is difficult to say. The pitiable condition of my dupe had thrown an air of embarrassed gloom over all; and, for some moments, a profound silence was maintained, during which I could not help feeling my cheeks tingle with the many burning glances of scorn or reproach cast upon me by the less abandoned of the party. I will even own[63] that an intolerable weight of anxiety was for a brief instant lifted from my bosom by the sudden and extraordinary interruption which ensued. The wide, heavy folding doors of the apartment were all at once thrown open, to their full extent, with a vigorous and rushing impetuosity that extinguished, as if by magic, every candle in the room. Their light, in dying, enabled us just to perceive that a stranger had entered, about my own height, and closely muffled in a cloak. The darkness, however, was now total; and we could only feel that he was standing in our midst. Before any one of us could recover from the extreme astonishment into which this rudeness had thrown all, we heard the voice of the intruder.

“Gentlemen,” he said, in a low, distinct, and never-to-be-forgotten whisper which thrilled to the very marrow of my bones[64], “Gentlemen, I make no apology for this behaviour, because in thus behaving, I am but fulfilling a duty. You are, beyond doubt, uninformed of the true character of the person who has to-night won at écarté a large sum of money from Lord Glendinning. I will therefore put you upon an expeditious and decisive plan of obtaining this very necessary information. Please to examine, at your leisure, the inner linings of the cuff of his left sleeve, and the several little packages which may be found in the somewhat capacious pockets of his embroidered morning wrapper.”

While he spoke, so profound was the stillness that one might have heard a pin drop upon the floor. In ceasing, he departed at once, and as abruptly as he had entered. Can I – shall I describe my sensations? – must I say that I felt all the horrors of the damned? Most assuredly I had little time given for reflection. Many hands roughly seized me upon the spot, and lights were immediately reprocured. A search ensued. In the lining of my sleeve were found all the court cards essential in écarté, and, in the pockets of my wrapper, a number of packs, facsimiles of those used at our sittings, with the single exception that mine were of the species called, technically, arrondées[65]; the honours[66] being slightly convex at the ends, the lower cards slightly convex at the sides. In this disposition, the dupe who cuts, as customary, at the length of the pack, will invariably find that he cuts his antagonist an honor; while the gambler, cutting at the breadth, will, as certainly, cut nothing for his victim which may count in the records of the game.

Any burst of indignation upon this discovery would have affected me less than the silent contempt, or the sarcastic composure, with which it was received.

“Mr. Wilson,” said our host, stooping to remove from beneath his feet an exceedingly luxurious cloak of rare furs, “Mr. Wilson, this is your property.” (The weather was cold; and, upon quitting my own room, I had thrown a cloak over my dressing wrapper, putting it off upon reaching the scene of play.) “I presume it is supererogatory to seek here (eyeing the folds of the garment with a bitter smile) for any farther evidence of your skill. Indeed, we have had enough. You will see the necessity, I hope, of quitting Oxford – at all events, of quitting instantly my chambers.”

Abased, humbled to the dust as I then was, it is probable that I should have resented this galling language by immediate personal violence, had not my whole attention been at the moment arrested by a fact of the most startling character. The cloak which I had worn was of a rare description of fur; how rare, how extravagantly costly, I shall not venture to say. Its fashion, too, was of my own fantastic invention; for I was fastidious to an absurd degree of coxcombry, in matters of this frivolous nature. When, therefore, Mr. Preston reached me that which he had picked up upon the floor, and near the folding doors of the apartment, it was with an astonishment nearly bordering upon terror, that I perceived my own already hanging on my arm, (where I had no doubt unwittingly placed it,) and that the one presented me was but its exact counterpart in every, in even the minutest possible particular[67]. The singular being who had so disastrously exposed me, had been muffled, I remembered, in a cloak; and none had been worn at all by any of the members of our party with the exception of myself. Retaining some presence of mind[68], I took the one offered me by Preston; placed it, unnoticed, over my own; left the apartment with a resolute scowl of defiance; and, next morning ere dawn of day, commenced a hurried journey from Oxford to the continent, in a perfect agony of horror and of shame. I fled in vain. My evil destiny pursued me as if in exultation, and proved, indeed, that the exercise of its mysterious dominion had as yet only begun. Scarcely had I set foot in Paris ere I had fresh evidence of the detestable interest taken by this Wilson in my concerns. Years flew, while I experienced no relief. Villain! – at Rome, with how untimely, yet with how spectral an officiousness, stepped he in between me and my ambition! At Vienna, too – at Berlin – and at Moscow! Where, in truth, had I not bitter cause to curse him within my heart? From his inscrutable tyranny did I at length flee, panic-stricken, as from a pestilence; and to the very ends of the earth I fled in vain.

And again, and again, in secret communion with my own spirit, would I demand the questions “Who is he? – whence came he? – and what are his objects?” But no answer was there found. And then I scrutinized, with a minute scrutiny, the forms, and the methods, and the leading traits of his impertinent supervision. But even here there was very little upon which to base a conjecture. It was noticeable, indeed, that, in no one of the multiplied instances in which he had of late crossed my path, had he so crossed it except to frustrate those schemes, or to disturb those actions, which, if fully carried out, might have resulted in bitter mischief. Poor justification this, in truth, for an authority so imperiously assumed! Poor indemnity for natural rights of self-agency so pertinaciously, so insultingly denied!

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Примечания

1

cul-de-sac – (фр.) тупик, глухой переулок

2

pâté de foie – (фр.) печеночные паштеты

3

savants – (фр.) ученые

4

facili gradu – (лат.) с легкостью

5

a priori – (лат.) до

6

a posteriori – (лат.) после

7

alto relievo – (итал.) большое облегчение

8

an inclination for the bottle – (разг.) склонность к пьянству

9

Catullus – Гай Валерий Катулл (87–54 до н. э.), римский поэт

10

Homer – Гомер (VIII в. до н. э.), древнегреческий поэт

11

sous-cuisinier – (фр.) помощник повара, сушеф

12

tout ensemble – (фр.) весь его внешний вид

13

a là Grecque – (фр.) по-гречески

14

were hand and glove – (разг.) были в полном согласии

15

des æufs – (фр.) яйца

16

I am not at all pushed for time – (разг.) я никуда не тороплюсь; мне спешить некуда

17

a white cravat, of filthy appearance – (разг.) когда-то белый (а нынче грязноватый) галстук

18

It was not his cue to appear at all conscious – (разг.) Он не хотел показаться слишком взволнованным

19

flying off at a tangent – (разг.) внезапно отлетев в сторону

20

Registre des Condamnés – (фр.) «Список обреченных»

21

my vision is the soul – (уст.) я вижу душой

22

upon my honor – (разг.) честное слово

23

for his happy knack at making a blunder – (разг.) за его чудную привычку глубоко заблуждаться (делать грубые ошибки)

24

Ils ecrivaient sur la Philosophie (Cicero, Lucretius, Seneca) mais c’etait la Philosophie Grecque. – Condorcet. Они писали о философии (Цицерон, Лукреций, Сенека), но это была греческая философия. – Кондорсе. (примеч. авт.)

25

Epicurus – Эпикур (341–270 до н. э.), древнегреческий философ-материалист

26

Diogenes Laertes – Диоген Лаэртский (1 пол. III в.), древнегреческий писатель, автор компилятивного сочинения по истории греческой философии

27

have it your own way – (разг.) пусть будет по-вашему

28

MS. – сокр. от manuscript

29

looking daggers – (разг.) бросая гневные взгляды

30

neither here nor there – (разг.) ни то ни сё

31

Cratinus, Naevius, Andronicus, Plautus, Terentius, Lucilius, Naso, Quintus, Flaccus – римские комедиографы, сатирики (до н. э.)

32

Quirite – (уст.) житель древнего Рима

33

nil admirari – (лат.) не удивляться

34

Menander, Nicander, Martial, Archilochus, Titus Livius, Polybius – древнеримские и древнегреческие поэты, комедиографы, историки

35

gave me the cholera morbus – (разг.) заразил меня холерой

36

I tell you what – (разг.) Вот что я вам скажу

37

vivente corpore – (лат.) в живом теле

38

Quere-Arouet (примеч. авт.)

39

Couldn’t think of such a thing – (разг.) Даже и не думал об этом

40

Αυτό χατ ‘αυτά μετ’ αύτοϋ μονοειδές α’ιεί φν. Plato. Sympos – (греч.) Собой, только собой, в своем вечном единстве (Платон «Пир», 211)

41

if I err not – (уст.) если я не ошибаюсь

42

Fitche – Иоганн Готлиб Фихте (1762–1814), немецкий философ, представитель немецкого классического идеализма

43

παλιyyεδιl – (греч.) Вторичное рождение

44

Locke – Джон Локк (1632–1704), английский философ, создатель идейно-политической доктрины либерализма

45

Could it be otherwise – (уст.) Да и могло ли быть иначе

46

Elah-Gabalus – Элагабал, Гелиогабал, Марк Аврелий (121–180), римский император

47

could do but little – (уст.) едва могли

48

in a body – (разг.) всем вместе

49

peine forte et dure – (фр.) наказание строгое и длительное

50

Oh, le bon temps, que ce siècle de fer! – (фр.) О дивная пора – железный этот век!

51

time out of mind – (разг.) в незапамятные времена

52

has no heel of Achilles in itself – (разг.) не подвержен слабостям

53

but then the key, it was identical – (разг.) но интонации были такими же, как у меня

54

have already more than once spoken – (уст.) неоднократно упоминал

55

the malice with which I was imbued – (разг.) злоба, которая копилась во мне

56

Eton – Итон, одна из самых известных в Англии частных школ для мальчиков, основана в XV в.

57

secret carousal in my chambers – (разг.) тайная пирушка в моей комнате

58

grew perfectly sober in an instant – (разг.) тут же протрезвел

59

Let it suffice – (уст.) Достаточно сказать

60

out-Heroded Herod – (разг.) превзошел в жестокости самого царя Ирода (шекспировское выражение, см. «Гамлет», акт III, сц. 2)

61

to do him justice – (разг.) надо отдать ему должное

62

écarté – (фр.) экарте, карточная игра

63

I will even own – (уст.) Я даже должен признать

64

thrilled to the very marrow of my bones – (разг.) пробирал до мозга костей

65

arrondées – (фр.) скругленные

66

the honours – (карт.) козырной онёр

67

in even the minutest possible particular – (разг.) до мельчайших деталей

68

Retaining some presence of mind – (разг.) Немного придя в себя