He slowly removed one thick hand from the table and slipped it into the pocket of his dinner-jacket. The hand came out holding a small metal cylinder2 with a cap which Le Chiffre unscrewed. He inserted the nozzle of the cylinder, with an obscene deliberation, twice into each black nostril3 in turn, and luxuriously4 inhaled5 the benzedrine vapour.
Unhurriedly he pocketed the inhaler, then his hand came quickly back above the level of the table and gave the shoe its usual hard, sharp slap.
During this offensive pantomime Bond had coldly held the banker's gaze, taking in the wide expanse of white face surmounted7 by the short abrupt8 cliff of reddish-brown hair, the unsmiling wet red mouth and the impressive width of the shoulders, loosely draped in a massively cut dinner-jacket.
But for the high-lights on the satin of the shawl-cut lapels, he might have been faced by the thick bust9 of a black-fleeced Minotaur rising out of a green grass field.
Bond slipped a packet of notes on to the table without counting them. If he lost the croupier would extract what was necessary to cover the bet, but the easy gesture conveyed that Bond didn't expect to lose and that, this was only a token display from the deep funds at Bond's disposal.
The other players sensed a tension between the two gamblers and there was silence as Le Chiffre fingered the four cards out of the shoe.
The croupier slipped Bond's two cards across to him with the tip of his spatula10. Bond, still with his eyes holding Le Chiffre's, reached his right hand out a few inches, glanced down very swiftly, then as he looked up again impassively at Le Chiffre, with a disdainful gesture he tossed the cards face upwards11 on the table.
They were a four and a five - an unbeatable nine.
There was a little gasp12 of envy from the table and the players to the left of Bond exchanged rueful glances at their failure to accept the two million franc bet.
With a hint of a shrug13, Le Chiffre slowly faced his own two cards and flicked14 them away with his fingernail. They were two valueless knaves15.
'Le baccarat,' intoned the croupier as he spaded the thick chips over the table to Bond.
Bond slipped them into his right-hand pocket with the unused packet of notes. His face showed no emotion, but he was pleased with the success of his first coup17 and with the outcome of the silent clash of wills across the table.
The woman on his left, the American Mrs Du Pont, turned to him with a wry18 smile.
'I shouldn't have let it come to you,' she said. 'Directly the cards were dealt I kicked myself.'
'It's only the beginning of the game,' said Bond. 'You may be right the next time you pass it.'
Mr Du Pont leant forward from the other side of his wife: 'If one could be right every hand, none of us would be here,' he said philosophically19.
'I would be,' his wife laughed. 'You don't think I do this for pleasure.'
As the game went on, Bond looked over the spectators leaning on the high brass20 rail round the table. He soon saw Le Chiffre's two gunmen. They stood behind and to either side of the banker. They looked respectable enough, but not sufficiently21 a part of the game to be unobtrusive.
The one more or less behind Le Chiffre's right arm was tall and funereal22 in his dinner-jacket. His face was wooden and grey, but his eyes flickered23 and gleamed like a conjurer's. His whole long body was restless and his hands shifted often on the brass rail. Bond guessed that he would kill without interest or concern for what he killed and that he would prefer strangling. He had something of Lennie in Of Mice and Men, but his inhumanity would not come from infantilism but from drugs. Marihuana, decided24 Bond.
The other man looked like a Corsican shopkeeper. He was short and very dark with a flat head covered with thickly greased hair. He seemed to be a cripple. A chunky malacca cane25 with a rubber tip hung on the rail beside him. He must have had permission to bring the cane into the Casino with him, reflected Bond, who knew that neither sticks nor any other objects were allowed in the rooms as a precaution against acts of violence. He looked sleek26 and well fed. His mouth hung vacantly half-open and revealed very bad teeth. He wore a heavy black moustache and the backs of his hands on the rail were matted with black hair. Bond guessed that hair covered most of his squat27 body. Naked, Bond supposed, he would be an obscene object.
The game continued uneventfully, but with a slight bias28 against the bank.
The third coup is the 'sound barrier' at chemin-de-fer and baccarat. Your luck can defeat the first and second tests, but when the third deal comes along it most often spells disaster. Again and again at this point you find yourself being bounced back to earth. It was like that now. Neither the bank nor any of the players seemed to be able to get hot. But there was a steady and inexorable seepage29 against the bank, amounting after about two hours' play to ten million francs. Bond had no idea what profits Le Chiffre had made over the past two days. He estimated them at five million and guessed that now the banker's capital could not be more than twenty million.
In fact, Le Chiffre had lost heavily all that afternoon. At this moment he only had ten million left.
Bond, on the other hand, by one o'clock in the morning, had won four million, bringing his resources up to twenty-eight million.
Bond was cautiously pleased. Le Chiffre showed no trace of emotion. He continued to play like an automaton30, never speaking except when he gave instructions in a low aside to the croupier at the opening of each new bank.
Outside the pool of silence round the high table, there was the constant hum of the other tables, chemin-de-fer, roulette and trente-et-quarante, interspersed31 with the clear calls of the croupiers and occasional bursts of laughter or gasps32 of excitement from different corners of the huge salle.
In the background there thudded always the hidden metronome of the Casino, ticking up its little treasure of one-per-cents with each spin of a wheel and each turn of a card - a pulsing fat-cat with a zero for a heart.
It was at ten minutes past one by Bond's watch when, at the high table, the whole pattern of play suddenly altered.
The Greek at Number 1 was still having a bad time. He had lost the first coup of half a million francs and the second. He passed the third time, leaving a bank of two millions. Carmel Delane at Number 2 refused it. So did Lady Danvers at Number 3.
The Du Ponts looked at each other.
'Banco,' said Mrs Du Pont, and promptly33 lost to the banker's natural eight.
'Un banco de quatre millions,' said the croupier.
'Banco,' said Bond, pushing out a wad of notes.
Again he fixed34 Le Chiffre with his eye. Again he gave only a cursory35 look at his two cards.
'No,' he said. He held a marginal five. The position was dangerous.
Le Chiffre turned up a knave16 and a four. He gave the shoe another slap. He drew a three.
'Sept à la banque,' said the croupier, 'et cinq,' he added as he tipped Bond's losing cards face upwards. He raked over Bond's money, extracted four million francs and returned the remainder to Bond.
'Un banco de huit millions.'
'Suivi,' said Bond.
And lost again, to a natural nine.
In two coups36 he had lost twelve million francs. By scraping the barrel, he had just sixteen million francs left, exactly the amount of the next banco.
Suddenly Bond felt the sweat on his palms. Like snow in sunshine his capital had melted. With the covetous37 deliberation of the winning gambler, Le Chiffre was tapping a light tattoo38 on the table with his right hand. Bond looked across into the eyes of murky39 basalt. They held an ironical40 question. 'Do you want the full treatment?' they seemed to ask.
'Suivi,' Bond said softly.
He took some notes and plaques41 out of his right hand pocket and the entire stack of notes out of his left and pushed them forward. There was no hint in his movements that this would be his last stake.
His mouth felt suddenly as dry as flock wall-paper. He looked up and saw Vesper and Felix Leiter standing42 where the gunman with the stick had stood. He did not know how long they had been standing there. Leiter looked faintly worried, but Vesper smiled encouragement at him.
He heard a faint rattle43 on the rail behind him and turned his head. The battery of bad teeth under the black moustache gaped44 vacantly back at him.
'Le jeu est fait,' said the croupier, and the two cards came slithering towards him over the green baize - a green baize which was no longer smooth, but thick now, and furry45 and almost choking, its colour as livid as the grass on a fresh tomb.
The light from the broad satin-lined shades which had seemed so welcoming now seemed to take the colour out of his hand as he glanced at the cards. Then he looked again.
It was nearly as bad as it could have been - the king of hearts and an ace6, the ace of spades. It squinted46 up at him like a black widow spider.
'A card.' He still kept all emotion out of his voice.
Le Chiffre faced his own two cards. He had a queen and a black five. He looked at Bond and pressed out another card with a wide forefinger47. The table was absolutely silent. He faced it and flicked it away. The croupier lifted it delicately with his spatula and slipped it over to Bond. It was a good card, the five of hearts, but to Bond it was a difficult fingerprint48 in dried blood. He now had a count of six and Le Chiffre a count of five, but the banker having a five and giving a five, would and must draw another card and try and improve with a one, two, three or four. Drawing any other card he would be defeated.
The odds49 were on Bond's side, but now it was Le Chiffre who looked across into Bond's eyes and hardly glanced at the card as he flicked it face upwards on the table.
It was, unnecessarily, the best, a four, giving the bank a count of nine. He had won, almost slowing up.
Bond was beaten and cleaned out.
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收听单词发音
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1
irises
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| n.虹( iris的名词复数 )；虹膜；虹彩；鸢尾（花） | |
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cylinder
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| n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸 | |
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nostril
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| n.鼻孔 | |
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luxuriously
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| adv.奢侈地，豪华地 | |
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5
inhaled
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| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ace
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| n.A牌；发球得分；佼佼者；adj.杰出的 | |
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7
surmounted
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| 战胜( surmount的过去式和过去分词 )； 克服（困难）； 居于…之上； 在…顶上 | |
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8
abrupt
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| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
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9
bust
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| vt.打破；vi.爆裂；n.半身像；胸部 | |
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10
spatula
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| n.抹刀 | |
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upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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13
shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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14
flicked
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的过去式和过去分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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15
knaves
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| n.恶棍，无赖( knave的名词复数 )；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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16
knave
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| n.流氓；（纸牌中的）杰克 | |
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17
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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18
wry
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| adj.讽刺的；扭曲的 | |
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19
philosophically
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| adv.哲学上；富有哲理性地；贤明地；冷静地 | |
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brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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21
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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22
funereal
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| adj.悲哀的；送葬的 | |
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23
flickered
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| （通常指灯光）闪烁，摇曳( flicker的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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25
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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26
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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27
squat
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| v.蹲坐，蹲下；n.蹲下；adj.矮胖的，粗矮的 | |
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28
bias
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| n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见 | |
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29
seepage
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| n.泄漏 | |
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30
automaton
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| n.自动机器，机器人 | |
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31
interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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32
gasps
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| v.喘气( gasp的第三人称单数 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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33
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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34
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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35
cursory
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| adj.粗略的；草率的；匆促的 | |
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36
coups
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| n.意外而成功的行动( coup的名词复数 )；政变；努力办到难办的事 | |
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37
covetous
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| adj.贪婪的，贪心的 | |
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38
tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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39
murky
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| adj.黑暗的，朦胧的；adv.阴暗地，混浊地；n.阴暗；昏暗 | |
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40
ironical
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| adj.讽刺的，冷嘲的 | |
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41
plaques
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| （纪念性的）匾牌( plaque的名词复数 )； 纪念匾； 牙斑； 空斑 | |
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42
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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43
rattle
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| v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓 | |
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44
gaped
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| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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45
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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46
squinted
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| 斜视( squint的过去式和过去分词 )； 眯着眼睛； 瞟； 从小孔或缝隙里看 | |
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47
forefinger
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| n.食指 | |
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48
fingerprint
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| n.指纹；vt.取...的指纹 | |
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49
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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