Ten years before the war, the narrator was resting on the Riviera, in a small guesthouse. A major scandal erupted in a nearby hotel. A young Frenchman arrived there by day train, who immediately attracted general attention with his beauty and courtesy. He very quickly met everyone and two hours after his arrival he was already playing tennis with the daughters of a respectable manufacturer from Lyon. The next morning he went fishing with the Dane, after lunch, he sat in the garden with the wife of the Lyon factory owner Madame Henriet for about an hour, then played tennis with her daughters, and in the late afternoon talked with a German couple in the lobby of the hotel. About six o'clock, the narrator met the Frenchman at the station, where he went to send a letter. The Frenchman said that he was suddenly leaving on an urgent matter, but would be back in two days. At dinner, everyone was just talking about him, extolling his pleasant, cheerful disposition. In the evening, a turmoil arose in the hotel: Madame Henriet did not return from the walk. Her husband rushed along the seashore and unsuccessfully called her. They called the police. The manufacturer went upstairs to reassure his daughters, and found a letter where Madame Henriet reported that she was leaving with a young Frenchman. Everyone was outraged: a thirty-three-year-old decent woman abandoned her husband and two children for the sake of a young man whom she had just met the day before. Most of the inhabitants of the guesthouse decided that they had known each other, and only the narrator defended the possibility of such passionate love at first sight. They discussed this case from soup to pudding. Mrs. K., an elderly representative Englishwoman, was tacitly presided over by a small circle gathering behind a table dot. Apparently, she was glad that, despite all the objections, the narrator zealously defended Madame Henriet, and when it was time for his departure, she wrote him a letter asking for permission to tell him one incident from her life. The narrator, of course, agreed, and she invited him to her room after dinner. Mrs. C. admitted that the events that had happened to her during twenty-four hours twenty-five years ago did not give her rest, and even now, when she is sixty-seven years old, not a day goes by that she does not remember them. She never told anyone about this and hopes that the story will ease her Soul.
The daughter of wealthy landlords who owned large factories and estates in Scotland, she got married at eighteen, gave birth to two children and lived happily until forty. But suddenly her husband fell ill and died, her sons were adults, and she felt very lonely. To disperse, she went to travel. And in the second year of her widowhood, she arrived in Monte Carlo. There, she often went to the casino, having fun that she was watching not the faces, but the hands of the players: her late husband taught her that. And then one day she saw amazing hands on the gambling table: white, beautiful, they darted over green cloth like living beings, there was so much passion, so much strength that Mrs. K. could not take her eyes off them. Finally, she decided to look into the face of the person who owned these magical hands. She had never seen such an expressive face. He was a young man of about twenty-five with gentle handsome features. When he won, his hands and face radiated joy, when he lost, his eyes dimmed, his hands fell powerlessly onto the table. Finally, searching his pockets, they found nothing. He lost all the money. The young man jumped up impulsively and wandered to the exit. I immediately realized that he was going to commit suicide. She rushed after him. It was not love that moved it - it was a fear of something terrible, an instinctive desire to help.
Leaving the casino, the young man dropped powerlessly onto the bench. stopped nearby, not daring to approach him. It began to rain. The young man continued to sit motionless on the bench, as if not noticing him. I ran to him, pulled his sleeve and said: “Come on!” Her only thought was to take the unfortunate woman from this bench, to drag him somewhere under the roof, where it was dry and warm. He mistook her for a cocotte and said that he did not have an apartment and he had nowhere to invite her. called the crew and asked the coachman to take them to some hotel easier. There she wanted to give the young man one hundred francs so that he paid for the room and left for Nice in the morning. But he refused money: he does not need anything, all the same his life is over, he cannot be helped. insisted, but the young man did not concede. Finally, he resolutely said: “Let's go,” and dragged her along the stairs, and until that moment, thinking only about saving the unfortunate, she dutifully followed him. In the morning, Mrs. K. woke up with horror, recalling a crazy night, and, burning with shame, she wanted to leave slowly, but, looking at the very childish face of a sleeping young man, she felt a surge of tenderness and joy because she had saved him. When the young man woke up, Mrs. K. made an appointment at noon at the casino doors and left. The joyful consciousness that someone needed her excited her blood.
Meeting with the young man, Mrs. K. invited him to dine together in a small restaurant. He told her what comes from an old aristocratic family of Galician Poles. He studied in Vienna, and after a successful exam, his uncle took him to Prater, and together they went on the run. Uncle won a large sum, and they went to dinner at an expensive restaurant. The next day the young man went on the run again, and he was lucky: he tripled the amount received as a gift from his father. His passion for the game swept over him. He could not think of anything else and quickly lost all the money. He stole pearl earrings from an old aunt and laid them, sold his suitcase, clothes, an umbrella, even a cross presented by his godmother. promised to give him money so that he could buy the jewelry until the theft was discovered, and went home if he swore that he would never play again. The young man looked at Mrs. C. with respect and gratitude. There were tears in his eyes. handed the young man the necessary amount of money and promised after a visit to her cousin to come to the station to conduct it. When the young man left, Mrs. K. felt disappointed. He treated her like a guardian angel, but he did not see a woman in her, meanwhile, she passionately wanted him to squeeze her in his arms; she was ready to follow him to the ends of the world, despising human rumors, like Madame Henriet behind a barely familiar Frenchman. I didn’t stay with my cousin for long: referring to a migraine, she returned to her hotel. She felt that she could not let the young man go, that she had to go with him to spend this night together, the next one as much as he wanted. She began feverishly collecting things. When she already wanted to leave, her cousin came to her, concerned about her ailment. she couldn’t manage to get her cousin out, at last she could not stand it and, saying: “Goodbye, I have to leave”, she rushed to the exit, not paying attention to her puzzled look.
Mrs. K. was late: the train was already moving. She stood on the platform, as if petrified. Recovering, she decided to go to the casino to find the table at which the young man was sitting when she first saw him, to imagine his hands. When she entered the hall, she saw a young man in the same place as the day before. She decided that she had a hallucination, but it was not so - the young man did not leave, he came with her money to the casino and, while she was desperate for him with all her heart, she devotedly played. became furious. She stared at him for a long time, but he did not notice her. When she touched his shoulder, at first he did not even recognize her. Intoxicated by the game, he forgot everything - his oath, Mrs. K. and the whole world. reminded him that a few hours ago he had sworn to her never to play. The young man, ashamed, wanted to get up from the gambling table, but then his eyes fell on the Russian general, who was just betting, and he asked permission to play only one more game - he put in the same place as the general, and the general was lucky . Having bet once, he again forgot about everything in the world and began to bet after bet. When Mrs. C. touched his shoulder again, he angrily shouted to her that she was bringing him misfortune: when she was near, he always loses. He threw her a few hundred-franc tickets: “Here you have your money! Now leave me alone! ” Everyone looked at her, laughed, pointed a finger. Burning with shame and humiliation, she suddenly saw eyes in which horror froze: it was her cousin. rushed out of the room. Remembering that her belongings were already at the station, she decided to leave Monte Carlo immediately. When she returned to England and came to her son, everyone looked after her as if she were sick, and she gradually recovered from the shock. Therefore, when many years later she was introduced to the Pole, attaché of the Austrian embassy, and she asked him about the fate of the young man, she did not even flinch when she heard that ten years ago, obsessed with a passion for gambling, he shot himself in Monte Carlo. even calmed down: now she has nothing to fear that someday she will meet this man.
Mrs. K. finished her story. She did not expect comforting words from the interlocutor. She said that she was glad that she was able to finally speak out, and was grateful for the attention with which he had listened to her. In parting, she held out her hand to her interlocutor, and he respectfully kissed her.
