The Enemies of Women Part 26

And he turned his back to continue his furious monologue.

Don Marcos pa.s.sing 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 att.i.tude 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 gla.s.ses.

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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sionate 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 Princ.i.p.ality.

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 ma.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sion, 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 superst.i.tions 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 cla.s.s of people that is more stingy.

Notice the women who play most pa.s.sionately. 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 d.u.c.h.ess. 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.