singing, as you came up-stairs. It's an English song my son used to
sing. In the morning I used to go and listen at his door like a
sweetheart who, while waiting for him to appear, is glad to hear the
voice of the man she loves. Whenever I'm alone I sing it over
mechanically; I try to imagine it is George singing, and my eyes fill
with tears, but with tears of tenderness that are very sweet. While I
was making the bed it seemed as though I heard him, going back and forth
in his bedroom, with me waiting and listening in the hall. My voice was
his voice. That was why I fairly trembled when you came in. For a moment
I supposed you were he. How wonderful it will be when I see him!... I'm
sure I shall see him. Misfortune can't last forever. Don't you think
I'll see him?"
Her closed eyes seemed to smile on a far-off vision of hope. And
Michael, who had remained silent for a long time, spoke to give her
encouragement. Poor woman! Yes; she would see her son. At his age a man
can stand any hardship. He would return; they would both be happy once
more, talking over their present troubles, as though it had all been a
bad dream.
"Besides, I will help you. We must get busy and take steps to have your
son returned to you. I shall write to the King of Spain. I knew him. He
had lunch on my yacht once when I was in San Sebastian. I have friends
in Paris, men in politics, and diplomats; I shall write to all of them.
And if worse comes to worst, and there's no other way out of it, I shall
try through the medium of some neutral government to get a letter
through to Wilhelm II. Perhaps he may pay some attention to me. He must
remember me, and his visit to my boat."
Now it was her turn to look at him fixedly through a mist of tears,
smiling, at the same time, to express her gratitude.
"How kind you are!" she exclaimed after a long silence. "The day when I
was in Villa Sirena for the first time I was convinced that I had made a
great mistake. How little we knew each other! We needed adversity to see
each other as we really are. First you offered to relieve my poverty,
and now you are going to try to get me back my son!"
She let herself be carried away by an impulse of affection. Michael saw
her bend her head, and suddenly felt the contact of her lips on his
hand. He heard two loud kisses and a voice whispering: "Thanks ...
thanks." The Prince rose to his feet. He could not tolerate such
expression of humility. But at the same time she too stood up; their
eyes were on a level. As though desiring to complete the recent caress,
she took his head impulsively in her hands, and kissed him on the brow.
A sudden wave of human fragrance, like that which had enveloped him when
the sheet had been thrown on his face, once more stirred the depths of
his being. He realized that the caress meant nothing: that it was merely
a kiss of gratitude, a sudden outburst of feeling on the part of a
mother expressing her emotion with unusual impetuousness. In spite of
this, he felt himself dominated by passion, cruel and at the same time
voluptuous, causing him to reach out his arms to master and embrace
what he held within reach.... But his hands touched empty space.
Repenting her act, she had stepped back, retreating a few steps. She was
standing in the doorway, ready to continue her flight, mechanically
straightening her hair, and drying her tears, as a deep blush spread
over her features.
"I didn't know what I was doing!" she murmured. "Forgive me. I was so
grateful to learn that you wanted to help me!"
At the same time she pointed to the balcony. Below, in the garden, the
voice of the gardener could be heard telling his dog to stop that
barking all the time at the foot of the stairs, as though a thief were
inside the villa.
"Let us go," she commanded gravely. "The servants will soon be coming
back from mass. I shouldn't like to have them find us here in my
bedroom. They might think...."
Calming down, Lubimoff noted the unconscious modesty, and the evident
uneasiness with which she said this. He suddenly recalled the woman of
the "study" on the Avenue du Bois, and her daring theories. Was it
really the same person?
As they went downstairs she turned her head to talk to him, as though
she had read his thoughts.
"You must be amused at me. What a change from the Alicia of former
times! I'm not so bad as I seem, that much is certain, isn't it? Tell me
you don't think I'm so bad; tell me you think I'm only mad; mad, and
always unlucky."
She opened the rooms downstairs to show how orderly they looked, but the
chill of the deserted drawing room, the covers on the furniture, and the
musty odor, like that of a damp cellar, prompted them to go out into the
garden and, like two people prolonging their farewell, continue their
conversation at the foot of the stairway.
The elderly maid of the Duchess, and the gardener's wife who looked
after the cooking, passed them repeatedly on various pretexts. They
bowed to the gentleman, with a look of adoration and a pleasant smile.
They seemed to be saying to themselves: "That nice fellow is Prince
Lubimoff, the one that's so much talked about." They had often heard his
name in Villa Rosa, and they both venerated him as a providential being
who could restore the vanished days of abundance with a mere wave of the
hand.
Michael thought it best not to prolong his visit.
"Come and see me," she said in a low voice, as she accompanied him out
to the gate. "Now you know everything. You're the only one who does. It
will seem very sweet to me to talk with you, and have you console and
help me."
The Prince spent the next few hours, pensive and silent. So many new
things had come up all at once! First there had been the revelation of a
son, whose existence he never could have imagined; next, the untamable
creature of love changed into a mother; her tears, her silent suffering,
which she was bearing, like a convict's chain, in expiation of her mad
past. And the crowning surprise of all had been what he had felt within
himself, the resurrection of his former being, his new surrender to the
domination of the flesh, and the double lashing his nervous system had
received in breathing the perfume of the soft linen and feeling the
imprint of her lips on his brow.
This latter he wished to forget, and to succeed in doing so he
concentrated all his attention on the revelations she had made, and on
her maternal sorrows. Poor Alicia! Finding her impoverished and tearful,
with no other help than that which he might give, he began to feel a
lasting affection for her. It was the affection of the strong for the
weak; a paternal love which did not take into account the similarity in
their ages, nor the difference of sex; a tenderness made up for the most
part of a certain sweet pity. He was moved by the memory of the humble
kiss with which she had caressed his hands. It was the kiss, almost of a
beggar. Unhappy woman! This was enough to make him feel obliged never to
abandon her.
Alicia's pride, her desire to dominate, had formerly irritated him.
Accustomed to protecting women generously without ever submitting to
their will, considering them in the light of something agreeable and
inferior, he could not compromise with her haughty character. They were
both people too strong and domineering to be able to tolerate each
other. But now everything was changed.
He remembered her as he had seen her in the bedroom, sorrowful, weeping,
with pearls hanging from the corners of her eyes, which were tragically
beautiful, as in the images of the Virgin, where Mary is holding the
body of the crucified Christ on her knees. _Mater Dolorosa!_
But there seemed to be another person within the Prince protesting with
cold, clear-sightedness against this image. No, she was not the Mother
of Sorrows. A mother never abandons her son. She renounces all of the
vanities of this world for him. She gives up her present and her future,
as though she had no other life than that of her son, part of her own
flesh. At all hours she gives him the milk of her breast. Moment by
moment she follows his development, fighting with illness, laughing at
danger. To love him she does not have to wait for him to grow to the
full splendor of adolescence. Whereas she...!
She was the _Venus Dolorosa_. Even in the moments of deepest despair she
maintained her beauty, and her grief seemed a new means of seduction.
She was a mother; but she continued to be a woman, that terrible,
destructive woman whom the Prince had always hated. Look out, Michael!
But with a smile of superiority he replied inwardly to this reflection.
"Perhaps I am going to fall in love with her," he said to himself. "I am
fond of her as I never thought I could be, but only as a friend, a
companion worthy of pity, one whom I ought to protect."
At lunch time Spadoni did not turn up at Villa Sirena. Atilio had seen
him at the Casino with some English friends from Nice. They were
probably lunching together at the Hotel de Paris to work out some new
system or other. The last thing they had tried was for the four of them
to play at different tables, but with the same system of combinations, a
device that the pianist boasted would prove infallible.
After they had had their coffee, all the guests of the luxurious villa
seemed possessed by the same restlessness, which would not let them sit
still.
Castro was the first one to leave, announcing that he was going to the
Casino. He had a feeling that it was going to be a "great evening." He
had had his eyes on a _croupier_ who started work at half-past three. He
knew this man's style of starting the ball. Every _croupier_ has his own
mannerisms. Some do it with a long sweep, and others with a short jerky
motion of the arm. This particular one made it fall most frequently in
seventeen, and that was Castro's number.
Novoa was the next to go, but he was less frank about it. He stammered
blushingly as he said good-by to the Prince. Perhaps he would spend the
afternoon with some friends from Monaco. Perhaps he would take a short
trip on the Nice road as far as Cap d'Ail or Beaulieu. His was the
embarrassment of a man who does not know how to lie.
The Prince was left alone. He looked at the sea for a while. Then he
changed windows, and gazed at the gardens. He pressed a button to call
Don Marcos. He did not know what he was going to say to him but he felt
he must see him in order not to remain alone. One of the old women
servants appeared, and announced that the Colonel had gone to Monte
Carlo.
"He, too," the Prince said to himself.
In order to escape the tediousness of spending a Sunday afternoon alone,
he took his hat and overcoat. Some power beyond his comprehension was
impelling him toward the neighboring city. Turning away from the villa,
he walked through the gardens.
The edifice, thus deserted, appeared larger, and its frowning and angry
silence seemed to be asking him why anybody had ever been such a fool as
to waste so much money and material on a box like that.
Along the nearby road, street cars and carriages were gliding, filled
with city people who were coming out for a glimpse of the smiling sea,
or of a group of pines, or to find a height that might afford a
panoramic view.
And he, the owner of the famous gardens of Villa Sirena, was deserting
all this beauty to go to a city from which others were trying to escape.
Lubimoff recalled the splendid scheme of life he had worked out a few
months before: a community of lay brethren shut off from the world in a
spot like paradise: music, astronomy, pleasant conversations, wholesome
work. And now the monks were running away on all sorts of pretexts, and
he, who was their prior, also was feeling an unexplainable impulse to
follow their example. Even Toledo, the faithful admirer of that estate
which he had considered the best work of his life, seemed to be
suffering from the same feverish desire to get away.
Near the gate he turned to contemplate his beautiful domain as if to beg
its pardon. There was a silence like that surrounding an enchanted
palace. The gardens seemed asleep like dream woods.
He thought he saw at the end of a long avenue a flutter of two large
birds. It was Estola and Pistola, in afternoon coats too long for them,
running toward the end of the promontory. It was as though Villa Sirena
had been constructed for them. They could play with the active joy of
youth in these gardens, to the envy of those who lingered at the gate
out of curiosity. As they ran along they were free to trample on rare
plants brought from the other side of the globe; free to jump from rock
to rock in search of the little fishes left by the waves in miniature
lakes in the hollows of the rock, until their coat tails were wet and
their shoes full of holes--to the despair of the Colonel, who made the
servants pass in review before him every day.
Michael preferred not to ask himself where he was going. He surely had
some end in view when he started his walk, but he felt it a nuisance to
think about it. Suddenly he saw two currents of people coming from
opposite directions, meeting and mingling, as they both mounted a short
winding stairway which was divided by two hand-rails, and was covered by
three red carpets.
He was in front of the Casino. On one side, were arriving the people who
had just come by train, on the other, those who had been gathered in by
all the street cars from the towns on the Riviera between Nice and Monte
Carlo.
That evening a celebrated Italian tenor was singing, and many of the
people, forgetting their game for the moment, were gathering in the
theater.
Lubimoff found himself immediately attended by two solemn gentlemen in
frock coats with black ties and their heads bare. They were two
inspectors from the Casino.
"We are very sorry, Prince, but everything is full. There are people
even in the aisles."
But since it was he, one of the two men accompanied him as far as the
box belonging to the Prime Minister of Monaco. The man who governed for
the Sovereign Prince recognized him and was anxious to give him the best
seat, but Michael, disliking public curiosity, preferred to remain in
the second row.
It was a theater without any balconies. The auditorium was wider than it
was deep. The rows of comfortable seats were all alike and all sold at
the same price. The stage was used for concerts and, on rare occasions,
for plays and operas.
The architect who had built the Paris Opera House had repeated the same
dazzling display in this hall. There were gold ornaments on every side,
elaborate moldings, caryatids and immense mirrors. There was not a
hand's breadth of the wall without its gilded stucco, raised in bold
relief.
In the hall at the rear above the seats that rose at a decided angle,
were five boxes, the only ones there were.
They were reserved for the Sovereign Prince and his high officials.
While listening to the singing, Michael examined the crowded mass of
people, as well as he could, from his seat. He recognized many as he
gazed over their heads.
Toward the front he distinguished a man with gray hair that was parted
from the forehead to the nape of the neck, and brushed forward mingling
with his side whiskers, in an Austrian fashion. It was the Colonel, who
was listening with a certain air of authority, swaying his head to show
his approbation of the celebrated tenor. But he was not alone. The
Prince saw him bend toward a girl with curly hair and a string of large
amber beads. Oh, the traitor!
There was no doubt about it. It must have been the gardener's daughter.
That was why he had fled in such a hurry. The milliner's apprentice had
insisted. She was anxious to hear the singer she had heard the ladies
talk so much about.
When the huge nightingale had retired to the wings, the Colonel offered
his protegee a cornucopia full of caramels. Caramels in wartime! An
extravagance, indeed, that only a lover could allow himself.
In the intermission, the Prince slipped away, for fear that he might
meet Don Marcos and spoil his aide's pleasant afternoon by his presence.
Besides, he was not interested in the opera or in the highly praised
artist.
He crossed the large ante-room with its columns of jasper supporting a
gallery with balusters surmounted by bronze candelabras. At one end of
the room the latest news was posted on panels. The Prince read it
without any curiosity.
Nothing new. The same as ever. The monotonous trench warfare was
continuing. Ground gained and lost by the yard. There would be no end to
it.
He slipped out between the groups of people during the intermission,
taking care that the Colonel should not see him.
Poor Don Marcos! He was walking along gravely and proudly by the side of
his protegee, who might have been his granddaughter. He glanced with
hostility at all the young men, while behind his back, she made eyes at
every passing uniform.
The Prince was obliged to force his way through a motionless compact
group made up of wounded officers. French, Canadians, Australians, and
Englishmen. Mingled with them were nurses of various types--some with
nunlike veils and with a delicate appearance; others with a masculine
look, having neckties and uniforms with gold buttons, without any
feminine apparel except their skirts. Some who were older and had short
hair, red faces, and large shell spectacles had to be examined closely
before one could be convinced, from their hybrid appearance, that they
were women. They crowded together in front of the three double curtains
leading to the gambling rooms. Those who belonged in any way to the army
or navy of any nation whatsoever were not allowed to pass this limit.
Soldiers could enter only the theater and the ante-room of the Casino.
And those people who in their far-off countries had often heard of Monte
Carlo, finding themselves there by chance of war, were crowding at the
curtains with childish curiosity, admiring, for an instant, as the
draperies rapidly opened and closed, the vision of gilded rooms, all in
a row and filled with people. Afterwards they would withdraw, giving up
their places to other comrades. At last they had seen it! Now they could
say they knew all about Monte Carlo!
The employees in their black frock coats opened one of the curtains,
greeting the Prince as though he were an old acquaintance. It was the
first time Michael had entered the gaming rooms since his return. It
seemed to him as though he had awakened miraculously into the world of
things before the war. Everything that was afflicting humanity remained
on the other side of the door, as the action of a drama, unreal but
exciting, remains on the stage of a theater which we leave behind us. He
found even a certain attractiveness in the architecture of these drawing
rooms, because of their vague familiarity, recalling the pleasant days
of his life. He was in the Renaissance hall, but his whole attention was
taken by the adjoining parlor, the central rotunda of the Casino, called
the "Schmidt Drawing Room," the one on which all the other rooms
converge and which seems to be prolonged under the dividing archways to
the farthest ends of the building.
A pulsing silence arose from the mass of human beings around the green
tables. Every one was talking in a low voice as though in church. From
time to time this murmur was broken by a long swishing sound, a noise
like that of pebbles on the shore swept by a wave. It was caused by the
rakes of the employees sweeping the green cloth and carrying with them
the clashing coins and ivory ships--all the spoils of the losings. The
voices of the _croupiers_, like those of officers giving commands, arose
above the feverish silence which reminded one of a humming hive.
"_Faites vos jeux. Vos jeux sont faits?... Rien ne va plus._"
The hall gradually lost the suppressed noises which served to accentuate
its silence. People breathed more naturally, as they craned their necks
to see better over the shoulders of those in front of them. Some of the
women were standing on one foot only, with the other raised behind them
like dancers bending over to touch the ground with their hands. They all
crowded together, paying no attention to the sex of the persons against
whom they were pushing. During this pause, marked by long faces,
frowning eyebrows, drawn mouths, and converging glances, there resounded
with its noise increased by a diabolical echo, the rattling of the tiny
ivory ball as it whirled in the grooves along the wooden rim, while the
colored rows of the roulette wheel kept spinning in the opposite
direction, like a kaleidoscope. Suddenly there was a sharp click. The
ball had ended its circular flight, falling into a number. The silence
was prolonged. The spectators' necks were craned even more. There was a
nervous clenching of fists. Again there was the sound of pebbles washed
by the sea. The rakes were sweeping the green table. It was a bad number
for the players. Whenever a stifled uproar occurred, caused by a hundred
bosoms suddenly breathing freely, it took the _croupiers_ several
minutes to resume play. They had to pay the winners and settle disputes
between those who claimed the same bet. At the end of each play various
groups at a table would disengage themselves to go over to another; but
the ring of people always remained compact through the arrival of new
spectators.
From the central skylight a dim splendor descended. Outside the sun was
shining on the azure sea. This light was like that of a wine cellar, a
light, according to Castro, like that of a Hall of Congress. It was a
yellowish light gold which seemed to increase the magnificence of the
drawing rooms. The architecture was of the rich and majestic sort that
attracts the crowd and the newly rich. The columns and pillars of onyx
and bronze held up a magnificent ceiling, broken by the circular stained
glass of the skylight. In the four triangles of the vault were statues
representing _Air_, _Earth_, _Fire_, and _Water_, as though these four
elements had some relation to the business which gave the vast edifice
its reason for existence.
Four metal spiders, huge and glistening, completed the heavy
sumptuousness of the decoration. Where there were no gilded ornaments or
mirrors, the walls were covered with showy pictures. These paintings and
all of the rest that adorned the Casino were the object of Michael's
jests. Some of them were fairly acceptable. The majority appeared very
ancient in spite of the fact that they were not over forty years old.
But there was nothing noble about their antique appearance. It seemed
rather as though they had lain for centuries in scorn and oblivion.
Atilio accounted for the appearance of these canvases in a way of his
own. According to him they were the work of various patrons ruined by
gambling, whom the Casino felt obliged to advertise.
The Prince began to notice well-known faces in this crowd which was
being constantly renewed, and was changing each moment. The whole world,
sooner or later passed that way. That floor with its various inlaid
woods was one of the most frequented spots of Europe. It was something
like the ancient Roman forum, a point on which all roads of the entire
world converged. Idlers from the entire globe were attracted to this
room. They all dreamed of being able to go sometime and risk a coin in
the great Mediterranean gambling house. Men from other continents
disembarking in the old world wrote Monte Carlo on the itinerary of
their travels. But this human river which constantly glided along,
receiving new waves of arrivals, kept leaving in the crannies of its
shores, pools of stagnant waters, clogged by uprooted plants and the
naked trunks of trees.
Lubimoff nodded to certain persons, who looked at him with a sort of
cordial surprise, as though they were looking at a dead man brought to
life. An old man, with a short bristling beard on a face pale as a
corpse, bowed deeply as he passed, without seeming in his humility to be
offended at not receiving an acknowledgment. He was the man most sought
after and coaxed by the women who frequented the Casino. He wore a sort
of black cap like that of a priest, and carried a hat in one hand. On
his coat lapel was a medal of enamel work with the Sacred Heart of
Jesus. Atilio and Lewis had also sought him frequently. Michael was sure
that this man was a friend of the Duchess de Delille and that on more
than one occasion he had seen her tears. He loaned money at 5 per cent
(for every 24 hours), and spent the time, he was not busy, watching new
arrivals from a distance to see if they might turn out to be new
clients.
The Prince received smiles, also from certain respectable looking women
who were by no means ugly, though they were stout in some parts of their
body and slender in others, like persons who have taken a course to
reduce flesh without obtaining a uniform result. They were seated on the
divans in the corners, talking among themselves, and watching the groups
of gamblers, with the air of employees resting after having done their
duty. They had come to Monte Carlo many years ago with jewels, with
thousands of francs, and men who endured all the unevenness of their
tempers and in addition gave them money. And everything had vanished on
the Casino tables. But they went on clinging to the reef on which they
had been wrecked--perhaps beyond salvation, living on the jettison of
many another who had followed the same route, only to be dashed on the
same rocks and perish. They offered their services to strangers as
persons acquainted with the mysteries of the house, advising honey-moon
couples what number they should play, as though they knew the secret.
Besides they came to the Casino at the opening hour to get the best
places at the tables and later give up their chairs to wealthy players,
steady clients, who rewarded them generously if luck favored them.
He met still others also. A number of women passed close to him. They
were old, but of an age incapable yet of frankly facing the free air and
the open sunlight. Their appearance of antiquity was accentuated by
their strange apparel, which recalled no particular style--dresses of
bright colors that had faded, and which seemed to have been cut from old
curtains, and smelled like a musty old house;--and monumental hats or
spherical turbans made of mosquito netting. Some were thin as
skeletons; others were mountains of living fat; but all of them were
painted scandalously with vermilion and had blue rings around their
lightless eyes.
"A _louis_, Prince," murmured the most daring. "I am sure that you will
bring me luck." As she spoke, her false teeth, too large for her gums,
rattled; a stench of the grave accompanied the smile on the painted
lips.
Michael knew who they were, from Toledo's tales. The Colonel, as an
admirer of fallen royalty, accepted their conversation with melancholy
deference. One of them had been a sweetheart of Victor Emanuel; another,
who was older, recalled, with sighs, the days of Napoleon III, and of
Morny.
They had come to die in Monte Carlo, the last spot on earth able to
remind them of the splendors of sixty years before; some of them, in
memory of their vanished jewels, calmly displayed brass ornaments and
beads of glass. According to a paradox of Castro's, they had died many
years before, spending the night in the Monaco Cemetery dressing
themselves with the spoils from other corpses and coming to the Casino
from force of habit to contemplate once more the scenes of their remote
youth. The Prince gave them a few bank notes and went out, while they
ran to gamble this money, after having thanked him for the gift, with a
death-head grin that was the last remnant of their former professional
charm.
Suddenly Michael stopped, observing the various parasites who lived by
clinging to the gearing of the terrible machine and feeding on the
crumbs it pulverized. He became interested in the crowd which was always
apparently the same, though always with distinct individuals. There were
some who walked along leaning on canes, invalids' canes tipped with
rubber--the only kind allowed in the gaming room for fear of quarrels.
He noticed flaccid old women slowly hobbling along, paralytic gentlemen
leaning on the arm of tall, robust fellows in braided uniforms who led
them in a fatherly fashion toward the roulette wheels and eased them
into their chairs. A few paralytics arrived at the foot of the stairway
in little carriages like children's carts, and thence were carried on
hand chairs through the rooms to their favorite spot. At certain moments
it seemed as though the gambling hall were a famous health resort, or a
place of miracles, like Lourdes. They came just as incurable invalids
come to other places, impelled by a last hope; but in this case the hope
was not for health. That was the least of their cares. What galvanized
them here was the hope of fortune, and dreams of wealth, as if riches
would be of any service to these poor bodies lacking all the appetites
which make life pleasant.
Mentally the Prince summed up all human passions in two pleasures which
are the springs of all action--love and gambling. There were people who
experienced equally the attraction of them both--Castro, for example. He
himself had been interested only in love and could not understand the
pleasures of gambling. Whenever he had gotten up from the gaming tables,
each time with winnings, he had never felt any temptation to return. But
looking at these ailing people, some of them very aged, at those
incurables, all of them dragging themselves toward the roulette wheel as
though toward a miraculous bath, he condoned them pityingly. What other
pleasure was there left for them on earth? How could they fill the
emptiness of their lives prolonged so tenaciously?
What he could not understand was the intense attitude, the hard faces,
of the other gamblers who were healthy and strong. Young men moved among
the women around the tables with hostile brusqueness, quarrelling with
them harshly and treating them like enemies. Women suddenly lost their
grace and freshness, becoming masculine all at once as they looked at
the rows of cards of _trente et quarante_ or at the mad whirl of the
colored wheel. Their gestures were those of prize fighters. Their mouths
were drawn. There was a look of fierceness in their eyes. As though
warned instinctively of this transformation, no sooner did they tear
themselves away from the tables than they took out their vanity
case--the little mirror, the powder, and the rouge--to correct or efface
the passing ravages of the play. Those of more dignified and normal
appearance showed themselves at times to be the most reckless. In a
place where all the women were doing the same as they, gambling had
something official about it, something worthy of respect; it was
possible for them to indulge in a vice without fear of gossip, without
the risk of being criticized.
The Prince smiled as he remembered a story Toledo had told him a few
days before: the despair of a woman of about forty who came from Nice
with her two daughters every afternoon, and had finally lost fifty
thousand francs.
"Oh! If I had only taken a lover," the mother had groaned with tears in
her eyes. "It would have been better if I had chosen love."
Michael entered the other rooms that had no skylight. The clusters of
electric bulbs lighting them with senseless splendor made him think of
the burning sun and the azure sea just beyond those walls of gold and
jasper.
Above the tables were oil lamps with two enormous shades each one
sheltering four fixtures which hung by bronze chains several yards long,
attached to the ceiling. Thus if the electric current was cut off,
there was no danger of the patrons feeling tempted to appropriate the
money on the tables.
Occasionally a little bell would sound, rung by one of the employees in
black frock coat who directed the playing. A chip, a coin, or a bank
note had fallen under the table. Suddenly with the promptness of a scene
shifter waiting behind the stage, a lackey dressed in a blue and gold
uniform appeared, carrying a dark lantern and a hook to rummage about
among the players' feet until he found the lost object.
The discipline observable in these vast rooms was like that on a
warship, where everything is in its place and every man at his post. In
order to make sure that everything was going properly, various
respectable gentlemen with decorations on their coat lapels, walked back
and forth among the tables, with the air of officers on duty. Whenever
voices were raised, these men appeared with rapid strides, to cut short
the arguments in some tactful manner. When two gamblers claimed the same
bet, they immediately settled the dispute by paying both. The money
would finally come back to the house any way!
According to Atilio, the Casino was honeycombed in all directions with
secret galleries, hidden openings and even trap doors, like the stage
for a comedy of magic--all these for the sake of immediate service, and
to avoid any annoyance to the patrons.
Sometimes the invalid fainted at the table or fell dead through too
violent emotion. Immediately the wall would open and eject two
attendants with a stretcher who would cause the troublesome body to
disappear as though by enchantment. Those at the adjoining table would
scarcely have a chance to be aware of it.
At other times it would be a suicide. Lubimoff knew a table called the
Suicide Table, because an Englishman had killed himself there in
melodramatic fashion, shooting himself with a pistol when he had lost
his last penny. His brains had been scattered in shreds on the green
baize and on the faces of his neighbors, and even on the frock coats of
the _croupiers_. There are always people who have no tact, and who do
not know how to behave in good society! But the attendants emerged from
the wall, carried away the corpse, and cleaned the blood from the carpet
and table.
Shortly afterwards, from the oval of people crowding against the green
table, the consecrated words arose: "_Faites vos jeux.... Vos jeux sont
faits?... Rien ne va plus._"
The Prince recalled the famous suicide bench in the gardens of the
Casino. It was all a magazine yarn. No such bench had ever existed. When
several persons killed themselves on the same bench, the administration
had its position changed immediately! Besides, the number of suicides
was much exaggerated. There were two or three each year, no more.
According to Castro, it was no longer the fad to kill one's self at
Monte Carlo. It showed an unpardonable lack of taste. The proper thing
to do was to go a long way off and disappear without making any
commotion.
Besides the house police were quick to detect those who were in despair.
Such people received a railway ticket at once and they were advised to
kill themselves, like good fellows, in Marseilles, or if not so far
away, at least in Nice or Menton.
Michael was near the "Suicide Table" close to the entrance to the
private rooms, when he noticed a certain commotion in the crowd. Groups
were seeking one another to exchange news. The old patrons were moved by
professional feeling. Something important was going on. The Prince knew
the meaning of these sudden bursts of curiosity: a player was winning
or losing in remarkable fashion.
He heard indistinctly a name that brought him to attention.
"The Duchess de Delille--two hundred thousand francs!"
All those who had permission to play in the private rooms hurried toward
the large glass door which gave access to them. Michael followed this
living current.
He found himself in an enormous hall with a lofty ceiling. On one side
four large balconies opened out on the terraces, and the Mediterranean.
Because of the war they were covered with dark curtains to hide the
light from within. The wall opposite was adorned with various gigantic
mirrors. On the ceiling seventeen white, full-breasted caryatids,
bending under the weight of the roof, supported the wide bands of rock
crystal, with electrical bulbs, which shed a sort of moonlight.
Those whom curiosity had attracted, passed the first gaming tables with
an air of indifference. Everybody was crowding around the last, the
"_trente et quarante_," at the foot of a large picture, in which three
buxom lasses in the nude against a background of dark trees like those
in the Boboli Gardens, represented the _Florentine Graces_.
The great phenomenon was taking place there. Craning his neck above the
shoulders of two sightseers, Michael caught a glimpse of Alicia seated
at the table with an anxious expression on her face. All eyes were upon
her. In front of her, were heaps of bank notes and many columns of
chips. There were the five hundred franc ovals, and the one thousand
franc squares, "little cakes of soap" as they call the latter, in the
language of the Casino.
Suddenly she raised her head as though realizing instinctively the
presence of some one interesting to her. And her eyes fell straight on
Michael. She greeted him with a happy smile. There was the suggestion of
a kiss in her glance. And all the people there, with the submission of a
mob when dominated by enthusiasm or amazement, followed her eyes to see
who the man was whom the heroine was greeting in this manner. The vanity
of the Prince was flattered, as it used to be when some celebrated
actress greeted him from the stage and went on singing with her eyes
fastened upon him to dedicate to him her trills. Once, when he was a
boy, a bull-fighter had bowed to him in a friendly way before giving the
final death thrust in the arena. Alicia seemed to be choosing him as her
god of luck.
But immediately she fell back into the deep absorption of the play. She
was not alone. An invisible and powerful person was standing behind her
chair, bending over her to whisper in her ear some word of unfailing
counsel, to suggest some unlooked for resolution, some original and
daring idea. Her eyes, lighted by a mysterious fire, were gazing on
something that no one else could see. Her mute lips trembled with
nervous contractions, as though she were talking with some one who did
not need sound to be able to hear. Michael felt there was a demon-like
power beside her, the inspiration of the unforgettable hours which
reveal to artists a masterful harmony, an illuminating word, or a
supreme stroke of the brush; the inspiration which prompts the final
slaughter in battle or the decisive move in some business venture, that
means either millions or suicide.
She had begun to plunge. Her hand carelessly pushed forward a column of
twelve rectangular chips, with an extra oval one: twelve thousand five
hundred francs, the maximum amount that could be risked in "_trente et
quarante_." The crowd, with the idolatry which victors inspire, was
hoping for the Duchess, as though each one expected to share in her
winning. They all knew she was going to win. And when as a matter of
fact she did win, there was a murmur of satisfaction, a sigh of relief
from that oval of sightseers pressing against the backs of the chairs
occupied by the players. From time to time she lost, and profound
silence expressed their sympathy. Sometimes after advancing a column of
chips, she closed her eyes as though listening to some one who remained
invisible, and moving her head in sign of assent, withdrew the stakes.
Once more there arose a murmur of satisfaction, when the public saw that
she had withdrawn her money just in time, and had scored, as it were, a
negative triumph.
Many of them computed with greedy eyes the sums amassed in front of her.
"She's in the three hundred thousands already--perhaps she has more--Oh!
if she would only succeed in making it millions! What fun it would be to
see her break the bank!"
To these comments spoken in low tones were added the laudatory
exclamations of a few elderly women who looked at the conqueror with
adoring eyes. "How nice she is!--a great lady and so beautiful!--Good
luck to her!"
A dark shoulder over which the Prince was looking moved and the Prince
saw Spadoni's face close to his. The pianist did not show the slightest
surprise; as though they had separated only a few minutes before. He did
not even greet Michael. The astonishment which caused the pupils of his
eyes to dilate, the indignation and envy that this insolent fortune
inspired, made it necessary for the pianist to express his feelings in a
protest.
"Have you noticed, Highness--she doesn't know how to play--she goes
against all rules, all logic. She doesn't know the first thing about it,
not the first thing!"
Immediately his eyes returned to the table, forgetting the Prince on
hearing once more a stifled outburst from the crowd. A little more and
some of the people would be applauding the repeated triumphs of the
Duchess. Those who had lost during the previous days, were rejoicing
with the joy of vengeance. "What an evening! You don't see this every
day." They smiled and nudged each other as they noticed the coming and
going of the inspectors, the presence of high officials who strove to
hide their concern, the long faces of attendants as they returned from
the head cashier with new packages of one thousand franc chips to pay
this lady who had swept the table bare of money three times. The news of
her extraordinary run of luck circulated throughout the entire edifice.
At that moment the gentlemen of the management must have been discussing
in their offices on the top floor the bad trick that chance had dared to
play them. A mood of anticipation and excitement, akin to the whispering
of a revolution, spread through every nook and cranny. Those who had no
tickets for the private rooms asked for news from those who were coming
out, repeating what they had heard with exaggeration born of enthusiasm.
In the wardrobe, in the lavatories, in the inner corridors, in all the
subterranean and winding passageways where the servants, maids and
firemen lived under an eternal electric light, this news shook the
sleepy calm of the humbler employees. The atmosphere of excitement was
similar to that which circulates through the half deserted corridors of
the Chamber of Deputies while in the semi-circle teeming with emotion, a
Prime Minister is fighting to survive a crisis. The news gathered
momentum as it passed from group to group with that satisfaction
mingled with uneasiness which is inspired in employees by the reverses
of their employers.
"It seems that upstairs a Duchess is winning a million--no: now they say
it is two millions."
And by the time the news had circulated throughout the entire building,
the two millions had married and given birth to another. Half an hour
later they were four millions, according to the lesser servants, who had
grown old living off gambling without ever seeing it at first hand.
Michael suddenly felt a great wave of anger against the fortunate woman.
Since her smile of greeting she had not looked at him again. Several
times her eyes had glanced mechanically in his direction, without taking
any notice of him. He was merely one of the many curious spectators
witnessing her triumph. At that moment there were only two things in the
world, the pack of cards and herself.
Her indifference caused him to feel the indignation of the moralist. It
did not make any difference to him that Alicia was forgetting him. He
repeated this to himself several times: no, he did not care about that.
They were not lovers, nor was there any deep affection between them. But
how about her son! He remembered that morning a scene with her tears and
despair. And the mother was there abandoning herself completely to the
pleasures of chance and with no feeling for anything except her
perverted passion.
If some one had spoken to her about the aviator who was a prisoner, she
would have had to make an effort to recall his existence. And a few
hours before she had wept sincerely on thinking of his imprisonment!
This was too much for the Prince. His sense of dignity could not accept
this thoughtlessness! He elbowed his way through a crowd of onlookers,
after freeing himself from Spadoni's shoulder, while the latter as
though hypnotized, remained with his eyes fixed on the ever-increasing
treasure of the Duchess.
Lubimoff began to pace the drawing room. He scorned Alicia's
self-absorption, but lacked the strength to go away. It was necessary
for him to be near her, perhaps in order to see just how far her slight
of him would go.
He came across a gentleman who was walking about among the tables,
beating his hands behind his back and muttering unintelligible words. It
was his friend Lewis.
"Have you seen how she plays," he said in a tone of anger, as he
recognized the Prince; "like a fool, like a regular fool! They ought not
to allow women in here."
All afternoon he had been losing according to rule and experience. He
did not have enough money left even for his whiskies and had had to
charge them at the bar. But suddenly he remembered that the Duchess was
a relative of Lubimoff.
"I am sorry if I offended you, but she plays like an idiot."
And he turned his back to continue his furious monologue.
Don Marcos passing in a hurry without seeing the Prince opened a path in
the crowd of onlookers with all the authority of a dressy personage. He
had just left the gardener's daughter in haste. The news had crept
through the theater causing many of the spectators to give up seeing the
close of the opera in order to be present at this unheard of run of
luck, which was for them a spectacle of the greatest interest.
At one of the roulette tables he saw Clorinda who was playing
cautiously, with Castro standing behind her chair.
"The General" had witnessed the first part of her friend's triumph.
"She's going to lose: this cannot last," she thought each time. Then
she had moved away from the table, explaining her attitude to Castro and
other friends. It was impossible for her to watch Alicia tranquilly as
she risked such heavy stakes. It was more excitement than she could
endure.
"I hope she wins a great deal, a great deal, indeed," she added with the
generosity of a friend. "Poor Alicia, she needs it so much! Her affairs
are going so badly!"
She had just seated herself at another table with the faint hope that
luck would remember her, too; but the murmurings which reached her from
the trente et quarante table, announcing the news of fresh victories,
made her nervous and she attributed the loss of several twenty franc
pieces to this cause. When she found she had lost two hundred, she felt
that she must take her spite out on some one. Atilio, who followed her
everywhere, was standing there, greeting her expressions of bad humor
with an adoring smile.
"Castro, go away; don't stand there behind me. You must know you bring
me bad luck. Go somewhere else."
The Prince observed how his friend, with a look of annoyance, left the
widow and walked toward the door.
He thought he would follow him. By talking with Atilio, he might forget
the irritation which the other woman had caused him; but as he went
toward the end of the room he had a new surprise.
In one of the dimly lighted corners he saw Novoa, who was going to spend
the afternoon in Monaco or take a walk on the Nice Road. Perhaps the
latter was true. He might have been waiting for Valeria who was coming
back from her luncheon party. They must have both been there for a long
time, in the dark corner, unaware of what was going on about them and
deaf to people's comments.
The scientist, with his back turned, was unable to see the Prince. As
for the lady, her eyes were fixed on Novoa with the affectionate
seriousness of a girl who has taken advanced studies, has the bachelor's
degree, and is able to understand a man of science. Michael heard a
snatch of the young professor's conversation.
"And when the glacial currents from the pole reach that spot they take
the place of the warm waters that rise to the surface...."
He was explaining the formation of the Gulf Stream.
No one could have guessed it from observing the caressing and timidly
amorous glances behind his glasses.
She was listening with admiring fervor, but Michael, who knew women,
imagined he guessed her real thoughts. She was weighing, with the
cunning of a poor girl alone in the world, the possibilities of this man
as a husband. He was ignorant of everything not to be learned in books,
and she was calculating the modifications necessary to improve the
person of this careless male who always wore a necktie badly tied, and
never pulled up his trousers before sitting down, to keep them from
bagging in a grotesque manner.
Lubimoff spent more than an hour deeply sunk in an armchair in the bar,
listening to Castro. The branches of the large trees on the terrace wove
soft shadows like spider webs on the window panes in the twilight dusk.
Atilio was giving vent to his melancholy by lamenting the meagerness of
the afternoon tea. On account of the war, burnt almonds and potato chips
were the only gastronomic delicacies to be offered, in this place
frequented by the wealthy.
The crowd roused in him the same sad reflections. There were people
there, but very few compared with the numbers that flocked to Monte
Carlo some years before. Then they came in limited trains direct from
Vienna, Berlin, and the farthest parts of Europe. The square in front of
the Casino was a second _Babel_. Around the "Cheese," people of all
races walked up and down, speaking every known language. At present the
absence of the Russians, who were spirited gamblers, was to be lamented,
and likewise the absence of the Austrians and the Turks. The last
persons to be attracted by Monte Carlo were the Germans, but Castro had
seen them come in great numbers during the past few years, applying to
gambling the same quiet minutely scientific thoroughness of method they
used in military discipline, the organization of industries, and
laboratory work.
He was always able to recognize them as soon as they entered the rooms.
When they sat down at the table they surrounded themselves with books
and papers: statistics of the most favored numbers of past years,
manuals on how to gamble, their own calculations and logarithms that
only they themselves could understand.
"They held on to their money more tenaciously than the rest," Atilio
continued. "They were as patient and tireless as stubborn oxen; but they
lost in the end like every one else. Who doesn't lose here--even the
Casino, that always wins, is losing now. Before the war it brought in an
income of forty million francs a year. At the present time it clears not
more than three or four millions and since enormous expenses have to be
covered, it has had to ask for loans to go on living, the same as a
State."
Michael observed those who were passing through the bar. There was only
one man for every ten women.
"That's the war, too," said Castro. "You can see women, women
everywhere! Before the war, if you recall, even in peace times, the
proportion of women was always larger. There are fewer men but they play
higher stakes. They risk their money with more daring; three-fourths of
the crowd around the tables were composed of women. When women are
afraid of love, or disillusioned by it, they give themselves up to
gambling with passionate intensity. It is the only means they can find
to express their imagination. Besides, when one takes into account their
love of luxury, which is never proportionate to their means, and
considers the needs of present day women which were unknown to their
grandmothers.... Look--look over there." He pointed discreetly to a lady
advanced in years, modestly dressed and with a face that was daubed with
rouge, who was being approached with supplicating looks and gestures by
two other young and elegantly dressed ladies. It was easy to guess that
they had come in there purely for the sake of discussing some business
affair, away from the prying eyes in the gambling rooms.
"They are asking for a loan and she is refusing," Castro continued.
"Perhaps it is the second or third time in the afternoon. This lady is a
rival of the old man who wears the Sacred Heart on his lapel. He is
quite a character, that old usurer! He began as a waiter in a cafe and
must have some two millions now after thirty years of honorable toil.
Everything he owns is to be given to the village of La Turbie, which has
named him its benefactor. He pays for images of Saints and has rebuilt
the church----. Notice: the lady is softening. They are going to get the
loan."
The three women had disappeared through the mahogany door leading to the
women's lavatories. As the loan agent kept her funds in her petticoats,
it was necessary for her to pull up her skirts to carry on her
negotiations. Shortly after she came out and walked rapidly in the
direction of the gambling room. She had to go on watching several women
to whom she had loaned money, to see if they were winning. The two
young women followed her with their purses still open, hurriedly
counting the bank notes they had just received.
Castro, who had suffered the humiliation of similar operations more than
once, began bitterly to attack the vice which maintained this enormous
edifice and the whole Principality.
He played to win, played because he was poor; but so many rich people
came there and risked the foundations of their well being!
"Gambling is a functioning of the imagination. That is why you must have
noticed that men with real imagination, writers, and true artists,
seldom gamble. Many of them have caused great scandals by their
extraordinary vices, reaching the point of monstrosity. But none of them
have ever distinguished themselves as gamblers. They have other more
exciting subjects to which they may apply their imaginative powers. On
the other hand the great mass of human beings feel the charm of gambling
and the more commonplace the individual, the more strongly is he
attracted by the fascination of chance. Our acts are guided by the
desire of obtaining the maximum of pleasure with a minimum of pain and
effort; and you cannot obtain this better than by gambling. We all obey
our hopes that do what seems most advantageous. We like to exaggerate
the probability that what we most earnestly want to happen will occur,
and we end by taking our desires for reality. Every day those who come
in here have a feeling of certainty that they will come away taking a
thousand, twenty thousand, or a hundred thousand francs with them, and,
as a matter of cold fact, they come away with empty pockets. It doesn't
make any difference, they will come back the next day, guided by the
same illusions."
He stopped talking as though depressed by the thought that he was
painting his own picture. Then he added:
"What is the difference? Without these illusions, which gently stimulate
the imagination, life would overwhelm us. It is perhaps fortunate for us
that our hopes are not mathematically exact, that our destiny is largely
shaped by luck. Besides, life is short. The future is uncertain; if
fortune is to be ours, should we not prepare the way so that it may come
swiftly? And what better way than that of gambling? When we put our hope
in some far-off future time, it is not worth much. If we are to win, let
it be soon and once for all. Our life is nothing more than a game of
chance. We are gamblers all, even those of us who have never touched a
card. Professions, business, and love itself are pure gambles, pure
luck, a matter of chance. Cleverness and intelligence may cause our life
games to turn out favorably, but chance still retains its hold on us,
and the luck of an individual is what is most important. To become rich,
even in the most stable business enterprises, one must be favored by a
combination of extraordinary circumstances, a continual run of luck. A
man never has become rich or celebrated merely on his own merits."
Lubimoff, one of the world's great millionaires a few years before,
nodded his head at this statement.
"Even Governments keep up the habit of hope in the public by recourse to
chance," continued Castro. "There are very few that do not authorize a
lottery. A person who takes a ticket, buys a little hope and the
possibility, if he has any imagination, of building for a few days every
kind of wonderful dream, and feeling deeply stirred at the time of the
drawing. The betterment of our material well-being by means of our own
efforts is a laborious and difficult task; but there is a way to give
the humble a certain relative happiness: by giving them hopes of
becoming rich, of freeing themselves from every kind of servitude, and
of realizing the ideal of freedom to which they aspire. As a matter of
principle the State shows itself an enemy of games of chance; and
considers them immoral because they are based on what is uncertain; but
all classes of commercial, financial, and industrial operations
represent chance and oftentimes the ruin of one or two parties. They are
all games quite similar to the gambling that goes on here." Atilio
smiled ironically before continuing.
"Let the moralists talk against gambling until they are weary. This much
is certain. The sums that are played on horse races and in the Casino
increase each year with rapid progression, more rapidly in fact than
public wealth. The general improvement in ways of living which is
developing, exerts no influence toward decreasing gambling. On the other
hand, the complexity of modern life, with the increase of our needs and
wants, favors this passion, and even aggravates it."
The Prince interrupted him. He was quite right, perhaps, in what he was
saying, but what a degrading vice gambling was! The more reasonable
people allow themselves to be mastered by it and even lose their
ordinary intelligence.
"That's certain," confessed Atilio. "In gambling our human weaknesses
and the tendency which we all have towards superstitions are shown most
clearly. What madness.... Just as though the past could influence the
present! How many useless efforts to conquer luck! More wealth and
imagination has been wasted in the invention of new systems in gambling
than in the attempt to find perpetual motion--and just as uselessly. All
these wonderful systems lead the gambler infallibly toward ruin with
more or less rapidity, but always with certainty. And how strong our
faith is! I feel that it is greater than that of religious martyrs. When
we think we have a combination which is sure to win, there is no use
trying to persuade us to the contrary. Nothing can convince us. It is
curious that the failure of his system and the consequent losses never
discourage a good gambler. He immediately seizes upon some new
combination, a true one this time--which will enable him to make a
fortune--one hope followed by another, and thus he goes on living until
death overtakes him."
The melancholy of these last few words was brief. Castro seemed suddenly
to recall something which made him smile.
"How many inconsistencies in the lives of gamblers! They are not afraid
to risk their money and there is no class of people that is more stingy.
Notice the women who play most passionately. They are all badly dressed;
some of them are often careless about their persons. They must have
money to gamble, and postpone buying necessities until the next day.
There are men who carry their hats in their arms all afternoon in order
to save the ten cents which it costs to leave them in the vestibule of
the Casino. To-day when I came in I saw an elderly gentleman who waits
for a friend every day standing by the cloak room window. They leave
their hats and coats together and that way each one has to pay only five
cents. Later on, at the roulette table, I saw them handling rolls of
thousand-franc bills."
From the tables people called to the players who were entering the bar:
"Is she still winning?"
They referred to the Delille woman. The various reports did not agree.
Some of the people seemed indignant: "Yes, she went on winning with luck
that would make you tired." The enthusiasm of the first moment had
vanished. There was a note of envy concealed in words and glances.
Others moved by some selfish sentiment were pleased to point to a
decline in her marvelous luck. She was losing and winning. Her runs of
luck were not so frequent as in the beginning, but at all events if she
were to stop at once, she might well take away three hundred thousand
francs.
Atilio and the Prince noticed Lewis standing at the bar, drinking the
whisky which always restored his peace of mind, and permitted him to
resume the complicated systems that were to give him back his paternal
inheritance and restore his castle.
They called to him to inquire about the luck of the Duchess. Lewis
shrugged his shoulders with an expression of indignation and protest. It
was absurd to win like that, playing so badly.
"She must have the Count's rosary hidden in her skirts," said Atilio,
gravely.
Lewis was puzzled for the moment as though he took the words seriously.
Later he blushed like a proper Briton, as he remembered the strange
ornaments on his friend's rosary. Suddenly he burst into a violent fit
of laughter. "Oh, Mr. Castro!----" Mr. Castro's supposition seemed to
him so witty that he laughed till he nearly choked himself coughing, and
then he decided to get another whisky to regain his serenity.
The two friends returned to the drawing room of the _Florentine Graces_.
The Prince saw Novoa and Valeria on the same divan continuing their
conversation, but constantly becoming dreamier as they gazed into each
other's eyes, as though in some deserted spot.
He came near them without their seeing him, and was able to hear some of
what Alicia's companion was saying.
"I don't know Spain, but I am so interested in it. I adore all of the
romantic countries where love is everything, and men are disinterested,
where dowries don't exist, and a woman may marry even if she is poor."
The Prince, in passing, gave the scientist a casual glance of pity.