Monte Carlo

“ Perhaps there were other reasons.
"Why should I not come to Monte Carlo?" he enquired. "Parliament is not particularly amusing when one is in opposition, and I do not hunt. The whole world amuses itself here."
"But not you," she replied quickly. "I know you better than that, my dear Henry. There is nothing here or in this atmosphere which could possibly attract you for long. There is no work for you to do—work, the very breath of your body; work, the one thing you live for and were made for; work, you man of sawdust and red tape." ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is clear enough that at places like Monte Carlo people are prepared to have the odds unmistakably against them, apparently for the sheer pleasure and exhilaration of taking risks. Moreover, though for most people play at Monte Carlo represents a mere holiday indulgence, it would be unsafe to assume that what appeals to them there will not also appeal to them in their business affairs. But what exactly is the secret of the charm of Monte Carlo? It is the great attractive force of a small chance of a large gain, as compared with the deterrent force of a large chance of a small loss. ”

“ Monte Carlo occupies a site as beautiful as any in the world. In front the blue sea laves its lovely garden; on the east the soft coast-line of Italy stretches away in the distance; on the west is the bold curving rock of Monaco, with its castle and port, and the great cliff of the Dog's Head. Behind rises the near mountain high above; and on its top, outlined against the sky, stands the old tower of Turbia in its lonely ruined majesty, looking towards Rome. ”

“ But many women at Monte Carlo play merely because it is the correct thing so to do, and very often are careless of either loss or gain.
The usual characters were there; the wizened old man with his capacious purse; the old hag in black cashmere, with her rouged face, playing and winning; and alas! the foolish young man who staked always in the wrong place, until he had flung away his last louis. In all the world there is no stranger panorama of life than that presented at ten o'clock at night at the tables of Monte Carlo. ”

“ In the afternoon the trains and yellow busses from Nice had disgorged their tourist hordes and turned the Casino into a welter of humid humanity. There were cheap-trippers taking a flutter, skimmers from the slums of Nice, sight-seers from every land under the sun, flaunting femmes de luxe, evil faces of the underworld,—the whole mob of strange invaders which a Monte Carloite finds so little to his liking. As fourteen tables were running, Hugh soon found an opportunity to try his system. ”

“ Just after seven o’clock that same evening young Henfrey and his friend Brock met in the small lounge of the Hotel des Palmiers, a rather obscure little establishment in the Avenue de la Costa, behind the Gardens, much frequented by the habitues of the Rooms who know Monte Carlo and prefer the little place to life at the Paris, the Hermitage, and the Riviera Palace, or the Gallia, up at Beausoleil.
The Palmiers was a place where one met a merry cosmopolitan crowd, but where the cocotte in her bright plumage was absent—an advantage which only the male habitue of Monte Carlo can fully realize. ”

“ When we reached Monte Carlo it was dark. The only vehicle in waiting was the omnibus of the Hôtel de Russie; and into its well of blackness one other passenger followed us. Four hearts were at once set beating by the thought that this man might be a spy, who had already heard of our enterprise, and whose mission was to appropriate or else to thwart our secret. The following day two of us drove into Nice and deposited our notes of credit at one of the most important banks, the manager looking at us with an oddly repressed smile, as though he detected in us a new contingent of dupes. ”

“ It was not until they were nearing Monte Carlo that he spoke of anything save the slightest topics.
"You must have a little more money," he told her, in a matter-of-fact tone. "That is a necessity. There is no need to worry your husband. I shall go and bring you a thousand pounds. You can give me the cheques later."
She sat looking steadfastly ahead of her. She seemed to see her numbers spread out before her, to hear the click of the ball, the croupier's voice, the thrill of victory.
"I have taken more money from you than I meant to, already, Mr. Draconmeyer," she protested. ”

“ Besides, it were better that their unfortunate and maddened victims should blow out their brains at Nice and other places, rather than give Monte Carlo a bad name! Though, frequently, they evade the gens d'armes, and at dawn of day are found in the beautiful gardens lifeless. The glorious sun rises over the dreadful scene, lighting up the lovely coast, and makes it a paradise, in spite of man's wickedness and merciless cruelty. ”

“ He finds it restores and freshens him, after the turmoil of London, to win a few hundreds at roulette in the course of an afternoon among the palms and cactuses and pure breezes of Monte Carlo. The country, say I, for a jaded intellect! However, we never on any account actually stop in the Principality itself. Sir Charles thinks Monte Carlo is not a sound address for a financier's letters. He prefers a comfortable hotel on the Promenade des Anglais at Nice, where he recovers health and renovates his nervous system by taking daily excursions along the coast to the Casino. ”

“ They would see with their own eyes how broad is the road, and how alluring it is made, that leads to destruction, and how many there be that go in thereat. I look upon Monte Carlo as the very mouth of the pit, covered up with flowers, so that giddy creatures dance along its perilous edge till it crumbles under their feet. Thousands who come here with no intention of gambling, put down a small sum "just to try their luck," and find that "a fool and his money are soon parted." ”

“ The little valley was delightfully quiet and rural after the garish scenes in Monte Carlo, the cosmopolitan chatter, and the vulgar display of the war-rich. The old habitue of pre-war days lifts his hands as he watches the post-war life around the Casino and listens to the loud uneducated chatter of the profiteer’s womenfolk. ”

“ I saw it later in all its perfection at Pisa, Rome, Florence, Spello, Assisi and elsewhere in Italy, but here at Monte Carlo, or rather outside of it, I saw it first. I never saw it connected with anything tawdry or commonplace and wherever it grows there is dignity and beauty. It is not to be seen anywhere in immediate278 contact with this feverish Casino world of Monte Carlo. It is as proud as beauty itself, as haughty as achievement. By old ruins, in sacred burial grounds, by worn gates and forgotten palaces it sways and sighs. ”

“ Chapter Eleven. Monte Carlo. Carnival’s reign was ended. Pierrot, clown and columbine, hand in hand, had watched the flames consume him, and had danced around the dying embers. His palace had been torn down, the decorations in his honour had disappeared, the colours red and rose were no longer exhibited in the shop windows, for Nice had assumed her normal aspect of aristocratic dignity.
One afternoon a week afterwards, Liane reluctantly accompanied her father and Zertho to Monte Carlo. ”

“ Life at Monte Carlo is essentially sensational. A continual whirl of excitement seems to be the ideal of the habitué, and the class that centres there spends money recklessly, without reserve and without calculation. ”

“ Bitter tears sprang to my eyes, but I managed to preserve my self-control and enter the station-lift, making an inward vow that never again, in my whole life, would I set foot in that hated hell within a paradise called Monte Carlo.
True, I was a woman who, abandoned by the man she loved, amused herself wherever amusement could be procured; but I still remained an honest woman, as I had always been ever since those sweet and well-remembered days spent in the grey old convent outside Florence. At Monte Carlo the scum of the earth enjoy the flowers of the earth. ”

“ Monte Carlo is the headquarters of this pestilential passion, this love of gambling which dominates mankind. We are going to begin a crusade there, and fight against the most powerful troops the enemy has at command. ”

“ MONTE CARLO. ‘The Beauty Spot of the Riviera’ is the flattering title which a resident English physician has given to his book upon Monte Carlo. It is getting difficult nowadays to give a new name to a place which has been raved about, reviled, flattered, slandered, discussed, and described ad nauseam. That it is a paradise is a fact as widely advertised as that somebody’s soap is matchless for the complexion, and that somebody else’s mustard is the best. It is a paradise—a fool’s paradise. All that Nature could do to make Monte Carlo beautiful she has done. ”

“ And so many come to Monte Carlo for this selfsame purpose that the real habitués, the professionals and the "last-hopers," are rather lost sight of in the crowd of quite irreproachable people who half fill the concert-hall, and drift through the gaming-rooms throwing a few five-franc pieces on to the roulette tables "just to see what happens," or to experience the very edge of the strange fascination which leads men and women to fling away a competency in a fevered desire for wealth. ”

“ Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo was, truth to tell, a sphinx to the staff of the Casino. She looked about thirty, but probably she was older. For five years she had been there each season and gambled heavily with unvarying success. Always well but quietly dressed, her nationality was as obscure as her past. To the staff she was always polite, and she pressed hundred-franc notes into many a palm in the Rooms. But who she was or what were her antecedents nobody in the Principality of Monaco could ever tell.
The whole Cote d’Azur from Hyeres to Ventimiglia knew of her. ”

“ There was no other woman in the whole of that great restaurant with her air of quiet elegance; no other woman so faultless in the smaller details of her toilette and person. Hunterleys watched with expressionless face but with anger growing in his heart, as he saw Draconmeyer bending towards her, accepting her suggestions about the dinner, laughing when she laughed, watching almost humbly for her pleasure or displeasure. It was a cursed mischance which had brought him to Monte Carlo! ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hunterleys paused.
"I have nothing to fear from the mysterious source you have spoken of," he assured her. "The only enemy I have in Monte Carlo is Draconmeyer himself."
"Enemy!" she repeated scornfully. "Mr. Draconmeyer is much too wrapped up in his finance, and too big a man, in his way, to have enemies. Oh, Henry, if only you could get rid of a few of your prejudices, how much more civilised a human being you would be!"
He raised his hat. His expression was a little grim.
"The man without prejudices, my dear Violet," he retorted, "is a man without instincts.... I wish you luck." ”

“ How few who plunge into this maelstrom of chance ever rise again! The lure of gold, there is nothing stronger save death. Fool and rogue, saint and sinner, here they meet and mingle and change. To those who give Monte Carlo but a trifling glance, toss a coin or two on the tables, and leave by the morrow's train, it has no real significance; it is simply one of the sights of Europe. ”

“ Thousands of invalids and others of all nations yearly visit the beautiful little towns along the Riviera, and this fatal trap at Monte Carlo, whereby so many are helplessly ruined, and so many suicides result, should at least have the moral voice of the world against it—in fact, an international protest, for it is a gross scandal and disgrace to the whole of Europe. All who know anything of this gambling Hades—what is done to keep it alive, its irresistible fascination over even strong minds, and the number of its victims, will, I think, acknowledge that it is even worse than slavery. ”

“ AN OLD ROMAN POSTING TOWN AROUND Monte Carlo the mountains crowd down to the sea with such menace as to threaten to push the light-hearted town into the deep, for the sloping ledge to which it holds is narrow. Thus it is that hanging above Monte Carlo is a steep mountain side, half slope, half precipice, green wherever an olive tree or a pine can cling, grey where the rock lies bare or where the cliff soars upwards. ”

“ It was half past ten when Hugh entered the Casino.
The Rooms in the forenoon presented a very different aspect from the one with which he was familiar. The air, though stagnant, was not obnoxious. The rumble of voices was subdued to a discreet hum. Only five roulette tables were running. Every one had an air of knowing every one else. In place of the fever and scrabble of the afternoon there was a suave and amiable courtesy. The regular Monte Carloites were taking advantage of the morning calm to play their systems. Hugh stood by the table where the majority of the system-players were. ”