u will want to go
at once from the large, nobly colonnaded reception-hall or atrium, into
that series of salons where wickeder visitors than yourself are already
closely seated at the oblong tables, and standing one or two deep round
them. The salons of the series are four, and the tables in each are from
two to five, according to the demands of the season; some are Trente et
Quarante-tables, and some, by far the greater number, are
Roulette-tables. Roulette seems the simpler game, and the more popular;
I formed the notion that there was a sort of aristocratic quality in
Trente et Quarante, and that the players of that game were of higher
rank and longer purse, but I can allege no reason justifying my notion.
All that I can say is that the tables devoted to it commanded the
seaward views, and the tops of the gardens where the players withdrew
when they wished to commit suicide. The rooms are decorated by several
French painters of note, and the whole interior is designed by the
famous architect Gamier, to as little effect of beauty as could well be.
It is as if these French artists had worked in the German taste, rather
than their own, and in any case they have achieved in their several
allegories and impersonations something uniformly heavy and dull. One
might fancy that the mood of the players at the tables had imparted
itself to the figures in the panels, but very likely this is not so, for
the players had apparently parted with none of their unpleasing dulness.
They were in about equal number men and women, and they partook equally
of a look of hard repression. The repression may not have been wholly
from within; a little away from each table hovered, with an air of
detachment, certain plain and quiet men, who, for all their apparent
inattention, may have been agents of the Administration vigilant to
subdue the slightest show of drama in the players. I myself saw no
drama, unless I may call so the attitude of a certain tall, handsome
young man, who stood at the corner of one of the tables, and, with
nervously working jaws, staked his money at each invitation of the
croupiers. I did not know whether he won or lost, and I could not decide
from their faces which of the other men or women were winning or losing.
I had supposed that I might see distinguished faces, distinguished
figures, but I saw none. The players were of the average of the
spectators in dress and carriage, but in the heavy atmosphere of the
rooms, which