It was extremely characteristic of Bernard
Longueville that his pleasure should suddenly transform itself into
flatness. What he felt was not regret or repentance. He had it not
in the least on his conscience that he had given countenance to the
reprehensible practice of gaming. It was annoyance that he had passed
out of his own control--that he had obeyed a force which he was unable
to measure at the time. He had been drunk and he was turning sober. In
spite of a great momentary appearance of frankness and a lively relish
of any conjunction of agreeable circumstances exerting a pressure to
which one could respond, Bernard had really little taste for giving
himself up, and he never did so without very soon wishing to take
himself back. He had now given himself to something that was not
himself, and the fact that he had gained ten thousand francs by it was
an insufficient salve to an aching sense of having ceased to be his own
master. He had not been playing--he had been played with. He had been
the sport of a blind, brutal chance, and he felt humiliated by having
been favored by so rudely-operating a divinity. Good luck and bad luck?
Bernard felt very scornful of the distinction, save that good luck
seemed to him rather the more vulgar.
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