path—though lined with flowers—led headlong to the Pit. From the many
romances which deal with Monte Carlo I gathered that it was the seat of
an intensive culture in iniquity, that it specialised in subtle forms of
evil doing and that in its pleasances vice blossomed as the rose. Among
what writers always term “the motley crowd” in this fictitious borough
were men of quite exceptional depravity, women more accomplished than
Delilah and crafty foreigners of the yellow-skinned and black-haired
variety who are far too foreign to be real. Suicide, I understood,
prevailed as an endemic disease.
I arrived at the principality on Christmas Eve and, owing to some train
derangement, at an hour a little short of midnight. I approached this
place—which those who are careless of terms describe as “a Hell”—with
anxious interest. When the train came to a standstill I found myself in
a quiet, ill-lit station, precisely like fifty other stations on the
line. I resented this. I resented even the fact that the magic name
“Monte Carlo” was portrayed in quite homely and decorous letters. I
expected to see a number of peculiarly evil men alight from the train;
but they were not in evidence. They probably “slipped away in the
gloom,” as they do in the books. The only passengers I noticed were a
very weary old lady and her maid. The lady was respectable almost to
extinction and was absorbed by concern for her many hand bags and her
obtuse dog.
I had been led to think that at midnight the grosser revels of Monte
Carlo would be at their height; so in the drive to the hotel I expected
to be shocked and grieved. I found myself, on the contrary, passing
through pleasant streets as silent as those that encircle a cathedral
close. The streets, moreover, were practically empty and for the
morality and integrity of the few who passed by I was prepared to vouch
even in the dark.
I thought I might see through some open window a room glaring with light
and reeking with the ill odours, the ribald sounds and the drunken
antics of a supper table. Possibly, through another window, I should
behold wild-haired men and shamelessly dressed women bending over a
green cloth speckled with cards. I saw only sleeping villas and drowsy
gardens that breathed nothing but content and peace. With the romances
working in my mind it would have been hardly a matter of surprise had I
come upon a man in dress clothes, lying on his back in the pathway, with
a wet crimson patch spreading over the front of his white shirt. Happily
I saw no such thing. Monte Carlo, so far, had failed; failed in that it
was not the place I had been led to expect by the writers of fiction.
Next morning, before the sun rose, I stepped out of my bedroom window on
to the balcony to take a first look at the amazing city. It was now
Christmas Day and still very dark. From the height at which I stood I
appeared to be looking into a limitless vault with above a dome of the
deepest blue, dotted with stars, and below a floor flooded by a sea
whose surface was as ruffled metal.
The only light came from a gap in the east, at the uttermost limit of
the vast water. It was a rare and tender light that seemed to be
reflected up from the depths. A level band of orange stretched along the
sea and over it was a wash of cowslip yellow that, fading into the
half-suggested green of an opening leaf, was lost higher still in a
flood of blue. Against this ineffable glow stood up, in a black, hard
silhouette, the tops of houses.
It was evident that on the slope below me was a town and, at the foot of
the town, a harbour. The town was a mere dark mass, so confused that it
might have been a jumble of black rocks, save that, here and there, were
tiny lights—lights evidently in upper windows. From one hidden casement
near by, that must have been open and uncurtained, a gleam fell upon the
side of a villa revealing every detail of shutter and balcony as well as
a strip of bright ornament painted on the wall. The harbour was made
manifest by two black piers with a light at the end of each—one green,
one red—by a sheen, like that of quicksilver, on the water in the basin
and by a row of lamps upon the three sides of the quay.
Beyond the harbour was a towering dull mass that I knew to be Monaco. It
was picked out by a few dots of light which came, no doubt, from
scattered rooms and by vague towers scarcely visible before the sullen
curtain of the sky.
To the east there stood out, very cleanly cut against the delicate light
of the coming day, certain black pinnacles and domes. They looked like
the peaks of some fantastic oriental temple but I recognised them as
belonging to the Casino and the great hotel.
Clear in the heaven, above these pinnacles and domes, blazed one large,
brilliant star. It was, I imagine, the very Star in the East that two
thousand years ago shone over the stable at Bethlehem.
XXVI
MONTE CARLO
MONTE CARLO[40] lies on the very edge of the sea at the foot of a broken
range of grey hills as if it were a patch of flowers at the foot of an
ancient wall. As a town it takes the form of a sloping pile of houses
and terraces which, when the sun falls on them, are a brilliant
maize-yellow with splashes of white, of russet-red for the roofs and of
green for the palms and the gardens. Viewed at sundown, from a long way
off, it would seem as if the foot of the cliff, where it touches the
sea, had been gilded with dull gold.
Compared with the old towns around it Monte Carlo is so new, so fresh,
so bright that it may be the city of youth, an embodiment of youth
itself, of careless, reckless, sensuous youth. It is so young that there
is not a wrinkle on its face, although the cheek may be a trifle tinted
and the lips unduly red. Its streets recall the gaiety of youth, its
lavish gardens proclaim the indulgence and the luxury of youth, its
crags and ravines the spirit of adventure, its clear sky the far vision
of youth and its blazing sun the fierce passion of youth.
The gorgeous white Casino would seem to realise, in such a city, the
fantasy of youth. It is so immense, so impossible, so unlike any
conception of sober middle age, so unreal, so daring. It conforms to the
type of no ordinary building. Its architecture is not of this world of
common things, although it may possibly approach that of the exuberant
temple in white on the top of a wedding cake.
The Casino, in its extravagance, is indeed just such a castle in the air
as a young man would build, a fabric of his dream, his palace of
delight. The very town tingles with life, with excitement, with
restlessness, with the playfulness of everything. It is a butterfly
town, for it lives only for a few gay months. The air is laden with the
scent of flowers, while the honeymoon wind lies asleep on the heaving
bosom of the deep.
Moreover it is a town of the south, of the warm, indolent south, where,
as Sancho Panza would say, there is—whatever happens—“still sun on the
wall.” Here in the south, as compared with the north, the seasons are
reversed. The winter is the time for pleasure; the summer for rest, for
seclusion within shut doors and, it may be, for forgetfulness of things.
The winter in the north is symbolic of the closing days of life and of
the weariness of old age; for the world has then become cold, dark and
cheerless, as well as indifferent and possibly unkind. The summer in the
south is, in its turn, the symbol of the end of the pageant of youth.
The gardens are faded and parched up, the flowers are withered and dead,
the grass is a waste of arid brown, the fountains are dry and the very
earth is cracked with thirst. The world, spent and panting, has sunk
into a drugged sleep like a man exhausted by a fever. The days of
riotous living have come to an end; passion has burnt itself out; the
rivers of pleasure are now beds of stone and the Dead Sea apple is the
only fruit left on the tree.
[Illustration: MONTE CARLO FROM MONACO.]
As the southern winter begins again the freshly-sown grass springs up;
the lawns become green; the buds open; the roses, the heliotrope, the
geraniums and the mimosa break into flower and the world is as gay as
the sun and a caressing wind can make it.
It is then a tempting time to think of the drab, mist-shrouded island of
England with its sodden fields and the rain dripping from the thatch, of
London, of those sad houses and those awful streets, of the
slush-covered roads, of the muffled faces and the blue hands, of the
hours of semi-darkness, of the sun that is seen as a red disc in a fog.
Because Monte Carlo, as a town, appears to be symbolic of all that is
young it must not be assumed that its inhabitants have acquired eternal
youth. Many attempt it, many struggle to attain it with an eagerness
which is pathetic and pitiable. They are like gaily-dressed ghosts, a
little stiff in movement, following a figure that dances before them
like a faun. There is a butterfly called “The Painted Lady” and perhaps
it will suffice to say that the existence of this fluttering thing will
come often to the minds of those who stroll along the Terrace in the
sun.
Apart from its suggestion of youthfulness Monte Carlo is a town full of
remarkable contrasts as extreme as the black shadow of a cypress on a
marble wall. On one side of the haven, with its chapel to Ste. Dévote,
rises the great rock of Monaco. On its summit stand the palace, the
fortress and the little town—all three so staid, so grey, so very, very
old—just as they have stood in company through some six hundred years.
On the other side of the chapel, on rising ground, lies Monte Carlo,
modern in every fibre of its being, a town that has sprung up in a night
like a gaudily-tinted fungus, a brilliant, vivid place, slashed with
colour like a jester’s coat, as ephemeral as a rainbow, since any change
in the public taste may cause it to fade into nothingness.
On the crest of the hill above Monte Carlo there stands, against the
skyline, the massive monument in stone set up by the Emperor Augustus to
mark the victory of Rome over a horde of savages; while below, by the
edge of the sea, are the pinnacles of the Casino, a monument in papier
mâché to mark the subjection of a cultured folk to the mastery of a
passion.
Climbing the mountain behind the town is still the ancient road that,
more than two thousand years ago, led from the Roman forum into Gaul;
while, by the water’s edge, on the other hand, are the railway, the
motor track and a hydroplane that has just flown over from Corsica.
All around Monte Carlo, from the east to the west, are the
cave-dwellings of prehistoric men, a brutish people clad in wolf skins;
while in the town itself are hotels of unparalleled luxury and, on the
Terrace, a company of pampered men and women decked in all the “purple
and fine linen” that the world can provide.
Still more curious is it that the great modern forts of Mont Agel and
the Tête de Chien actually look down upon a line of fortified camps and
stone strongholds built by the Ligurians before the dawn of history.
-----
[40] The name Monte Carlo is derived from Prince Charles III. of Monaco.
XXVII
SOME DIVERSIONS OF MONTE CARLO
THE _General Atmosphere._—The atmosphere of Monte Carlo is the subject
of some comment. It is in fact complained of. The air over the town is
not said to be unpleasant in colour; it is not, for example, stated to
be green or yellow. The charge is that the atmosphere is “vitiated.” Now
in the dictionary “to vitiate” is said to mean “to corrupt, debase or
contaminate” and therefore the accusation is a grave one.
In defence it can be claimed that the moral atmosphere in Monte Carlo is
not so vitiated as it is in London or in Paris. There are visitors to
the principality—both men and women—who are indulgently described as
“undesirable”; but they are not peculiar to Monte Carlo, nor do they
form even a conspicuous item in its holiday population.
Moreover the innocent visitor to the town is not of necessity thrust
into the society of these people. If they are not desired they can be
avoided as easily as they can be at Trouville or at Brighton. Monte
Carlo may not be sanctimonious, but it does not flaunt its vices as some
towns do their virtues.
Moreover so well is Monte Carlo controlled that the young lady, when
necessity demands, can walk from the Opera House to her hotel without
fear of being incommoded, a venture that she would not essay in either
London or Paris; while she will see less to offend her on the Casino
Terrace than in the Bois de Boulogne. As for the young man he is more
free from molestation in the boulevards of Monte Carlo than he would be
in Regent Street.
Those who wish to live the plain, unemotional life of a French country
town will find that Monte Carlo fulfils their needs. They will meet with
neither shocks nor distractions unless they seek them; for the circle
within which the florid society of the town revolves is—like the
roulette wheel—extremely small; whereas the quiet streets of Monaco,
the olive groves, the hill paths, the lonely walks form a world that
opens far.
_The Gambling._—The strictures bestowed upon the gaming rooms are apt
to be a little violent and sweeping. I assume that no one can say a word
in favour of gambling, nor even excuse it. It is no doubt a feeble
apology to claim that there are degrees of gambling, that every
race-course and every Bourse exhibits a more pernicious and more
damaging form of “play” than can be laid to the charge of the Casino.
The gambler at Monte Carlo injures no one directly but himself. He knows
at least that the Administration is above suspicion and that the same
virtue cannot be claimed for the whole body of bookmakers. Gambling on
the public markets may implicate innocent people to their undoing and
when it deals with the necessaries of life and leads to the making of
“corners” in this commodity or in that it may involve a whole community
in loss and distress. There is indeed a wide difference between gambling
with plaques on a green cloth and gambling with corn.
[Illustration: MONTE CARLO: THE TERRACE, CHRISTMAS DAY.]
Play at the Casino is for the reckless rich and the foolish and these
happen to be two varieties of mankind peculiarly difficult to control.
When once it is understood that, in the long run, the Tables _must_ win
and do win then let the poor man be advised. The fool will not accept
advice, the rich man does not need it and so the game goes on.
It is, no doubt, an equally feeble defence to point out that the Casino
does great good with its gains. It keeps the little principality in
perfect order and makes it a reliable health resort. It is no vain boast
to say that Monte Carlo is the cleanest and trimmest town in France,
that it is dustless and that its sanitation is good. The Casino provides
the police and the public officers, maintains the roads and a garden
which is the delight of many, while it affords to its people a degree of
comfort and security which is not to be belittled at the present day.
Moreover through funds derived from the Administration churches and
museums are built, schools and hospitals are maintained and real poverty
is abolished. These facts do not make gambling a virtue, but they serve
to temper a slashing and wholly destructive criticism.
A large proportion of people gamble for what they call “the fun of the
thing.” The term is difficult to define, but if they find amusement and
can afford that amusement there is little to be said.
It is unnecessary to describe the _salles de jeu_. They have been
pictured—with exact or inexact details—a hundred times and have
figured more often in works of fiction than have any other actual
apartments in the world. The miscellaneous people who cluster round the
tables are said to provide an interesting study in faces. The study is
limited. All are supposed to be “playing”—playing, it may be assumed,
as children play at a game—but their countenances are so sad and so
serious that a stranger to the “games” of modern life might think that
they were sitting round a post-mortem table with a deceased person laid
out on the cloth. An observer, endowed with especial gifts might detect
evidences of greed, of anxiety, of despair, of forlorn hope, but to an
ordinary looker-on there is little to note beyond a general expression
of uneasy boredom.
_The Pigeon Shooting._—There is one blot on Monte Carlo—a large,
crimson blot—in the form of the pigeon shooting. This diversion takes
place on a pleasant green just below the terrace of the Casino, between
it and the sea. There lies a level lawn upon which one might expect to
see lads and lasses playing croquet; but in the centre of the grass are
certain slabs of concrete arranged in a curve with horrible precision.
They may be the marks upon which blindfolded criminals are stood when
ranged out to be shot, but this execution yard is used for a different
purpose.
On the concrete disks, when the sport is in progress, iron traps are
placed and into each of these a pigeon, half-crazed with fright, is
stuffed. The trap drops open with a clatter, the bird sees before it the
quiet blue of heaven, rises on its wings, and in a second is either
maimed or dead. If not too badly wounded it may flutter over the fence
and fall into the sea to be grabbed by a man in a boat, for some
half-dozen boats are always waiting under the lee of the rock for such
choice windfalls.
People in some numbers watch this vile massacre from the terrace, but
their concern—almost to a man—is with the pigeon. If the pigeon
escapes unharmed, as occasionally happens, there is a gasp of relief and
gratification. The bird so saved generally alights on the Casino roof
and, in course of time, no doubt joins the fearless crowd of pigeons who
haunt the roadway and strut among the out-of-door tables of the Café de
Paris. There is a curious bond uniting this community of birds, the
common tie of having been condemned to death and of having been by
accident reprieved.
In pigeon shooting from traps there is not the faintest element of
sport. It is merely an exhibition of mean brutality which is totally
opposed to the British conception of sport and it is gratifying to note
that among the competitors in this contemptible game an English name is
uncommon. The terrified pigeon pegged out to be shot at has practically
no chance, while the skill displayed by the most apt of the
pseudo-sportsmen is of a paltry order.
To realise a turning of the tables it should happen one day that the
sides of the trap would drop and reveal, not a shivering pigeon, but a
live man-eating tiger who, with his yellow and black stripes showing
well against the green, would stalk, snarling, towards the firing party.
It would be interesting to see these deadly marksmen bolt screaming
right and left and throw themselves into the sea to be picked up by the
boatmen on the look-out for wounded pigeons.
_The Theatre._—The opera, the concerts and the minor entertainments at
Monte Carlo are famous and are allowed to be of very high order. A
series of ballets also occupies the season and these too are approved by
heads of families. It is to be owned that in most of the ballets a love
element is prominent, but the love-making is conducted on such formal
and gymnastic lines that it is not likely to encourage imitators.
The young man, according to accepted practice, pursues the lady. In
doing so he revolves like a top, while she also gyrates after the manner
of that toy. He rubs his chest with his hand to show that his heart is
affected. She then lifts her foot above her head to show that she is
unmoved by the information. He pursues her again but this time with
bounds. She retreats with tiny steps and ultimately takes refuge in the
extreme corner of the stage by the footlights. Here she wriggles her
shoulders and puts a forefinger in the corner of her mouth. He is much
encouraged by these evidences of a dawning amiability and leaps
repeatedly into the air. They then dance together with some exuberance
and finally he grasps her by the waist and turns her upside down, so
that her head rests on the boards. This shows that they are engaged; a
conclusion which is approved by a sudden crowd of lightly clad villagers
in antics of bewildering violence.
_The Dog Show._—A feature of the season at Monte Carlo is the Dog Show.
It is held on the terrace and is unique of its kind. It is not really a
dog show but rather a dogs’ afternoon party or conversazione, where dogs
of both sexes meet, renew acquaintances, gossip after their fashion with
much tail-wagging and at times cut one another or quarrel. There are no
stands upon which the dogs are staged, no kennels, no baskets with rugs
in which they lie curled up and bored to death, no posts to which they
can be tied and howl. There are no placards, no cards, no advertisements
of dog biscuits, no straw and, indeed, none of the paraphernalia of an
actual dog show.
The affair is, in reality, a Show of Dog Owners held for the edification
and amusement of the dogs and, incidentally, of others. The dog owners
(mostly ladies) are dressed in their very best, as they should be when
on show, and are led about by the dogs through a cheerful, rambling
crowd. At intervals a man with a megaphone shouts from the bandstand the
names of certain dog owners. Whereupon the dogs lead their owners, thus
selected, into a circle beneath the megaphone and some judging takes
place. There is a general hubbub, much chattering and barking and some
craning of necks when an exceptionally pretty owner occupies the ring.
At the end rosettes, as badges of merit, are handed to the fortunate and
are affixed to the dogs’ collars. The dog who is pleased with what his
owner has won trots off with contentment and with the lady; but the dog
who is dissatisfied sits obstinately down, in spite of all protests, and
proceeds to remove the offensive emblem with his foot.
_Golf._—In the early hours of the day there is often a spectacle
provided in Monte Carlo which is difficult to appreciate. A number of
persons—young, middle-aged and ancient, male and female—will arise at
an unwonted hour, scramble through breakfast and start to climb up a
cliff of 3,000 feet. They cannot be making this arduous ascent to see
the sun rise, for the sun is already up. They can hardly be
contemplating a view from the height, for the hill may be hidden in
mist. They could not be hastening to a pilgrimage church to pray,
because they do not look devotional enough; nor is there a suggestion of
piety in their dress, for they wear boots heavy with nails,
knickerbockers and a reckless type of hat.
They are ascending some 3,000 feet under arduous conditions for the
purpose of knocking a ball—a small and expensive ball—along the ground
with a stick. This is golf; a proceeding that is with many one of the
rare joys of life. Golf has many charms and not the least is that it is
a game for everyone. It fires the youth with ambition and comforts the
aged, for it fosters the delusion that the end of their days is not yet.
The inefficient can play with the expert, without heartburnings and
without reproach and receive sympathy in the place of sarcasm. The lamb,
indeed, can lie down with the lion and now and then bleat, in the
golfer’s tongue, “like as we lie.” The man who wishes to be alone can
play alone. The man who loves company can “go round” in a party of four
and chatter to them all at once and all the time. Golf too is a
discipline, for the spirit of golf is hope. The golfer who has abandoned
hope is lost. Lost too is the fatalist who knows he is in a bunker
before he gets there.
[Illustration: MONTE CARLO: THE CASINO GARDEN.]
Golf, moreover, is played under pleasant conditions in the open air,
among sand dunes, or by sea beaches, or on breezy downs and in
light-hearted surroundings; for there are few links that are not
picturesque and cheery. It is besides a pleasant game to watch for the
human element in it is so interesting. There is, for example, that
fascinating disproportion between the effort made and the result that
may be attained. The man at the tee stands with rigid limbs, with every
muscle tense, with clenched teeth and a fixed glare in the eye. Then
comes a swish with a club that—if a sword—would decapitate an ox and,
as a result, the ball dribbles languidly a few mocking feet. If the man
fails by misapplied violence the lady is apt to fail by moulding her
action on the photographic pose of lady players in the society journals.
She wants to get to the “follow through” attitude, when her club will be
in the air, her face in a good light and the tip of her right shoe just
touching the ground.