CHAPTER THREE
THE POISONED PARADISE
AN amiable, early morning sun was irradiating that great theatre which is Monte Carlo, and a regiment of stage hands were preparing the scene for another day. Hawk-eyed bands of them with brush and pan were grooming the cleanest streets in the world, pouncing triumphantly on burnt matches and unsightly cigarette ends. Other bands invaded the beautiful gardens, trimming each blade of grass to the same size and meticulously barbering each bud and flower. They moved with nonchalant grace, these brown-skinned Monegascans, as became the servitors of that great, benevolent institution, the Casino.
As Hugh passed through the gardens, breathing the perfumed air, a great delight glowed in him. His first impression was of the theatric quality of the place, its note of unreality. It was a fit setting for the pleasure-seeking hordes, for the legions of luxury, for these dreaming of fortune and those dead to hope. He never lost his sense of its unreality, of its being a stage scene, on which was played a daily drama in three acts: Morning, Afternoon, and Evening.
Passing between the Casino and the Hotel de Paris, he descended in the direction of the Condamine. At the top of a long hill, a little way past the post office, he paused with a joy that thrilled him to ecstasy....
He saw a little U shaped harbour shielded from the sea. It was as delicate as a pastel, a placque of sapphire set in pearl. In the crystal air the red-roofed houses crowded close to it. The terraced town rose on tip-toe to peer at it. It was all glitter and gleam, and radiant beauty. And yonder in sombre contrast rose the Rock, monstrous, mediæval,—so scornful of that hectic modernity across the bay....
He climbed the long steep hill, crossed the sunny square in front of the palace and plunged into the cool gloom of the narrow streets. Wandering idly along he came to a low brown house with a tiny porch, and four pepper-trees in front. He looked at it carelessly enough, then turned and wandered into the garden of the Prince. He gazed curiously at a broken pillar covered with ivy. There was a spring sunk deep in the rock; the flowers bloomed there; and bees and butterflies made the nook gay and tuneful. He found a bench that overlooked the glimmering sea and rested awhile.
As he sat pensively dreaming, two pale ghosts may have been watching him; a man strong and tall, a girl sweet and fragrant as a flower. Perhaps wrapt in that great love to which he owed his being, they were drawing near to him with wistful pain, with adoring tenderness. Who knows?...
Filled with a strange melancholy Hugh rose and went his unheeding way. Again he looked carelessly at the house in which his mother was born, in which her mother still lived....
But he remembered nothing. He did not know. He never knew.…
The chief recommendation of the Pension Paoli was its cheapness. For twenty francs a day Hugh had his board and a chamber that overlooked the red roofs and the blue sea beyond. He had a tiny balcony, too, and in the lazy, limpid days he cultivated a cheerful lethargy.
It was one of those Bohemian establishments peculiar to the Principality. People came and went without exciting interest. The clientele was imperturbably cosmopolitan, the cuisine piquantly Italian. At the table d’hôte one heard half a dozen tongues and no one was concerned about the respectability of his neighbour. Every one seemed to gamble, and to think of little but the Casino.
Hugh’s first evening was typical. He was trying to go to sleep, when about midnight some one entered the next room. He heard the sound of money being emptied on the table, counted, then a sigh of satisfaction. Every night this happened, only some nights there was no money and curses took the place of content. On such nights he would say to himself, “The Twitcher’s been loosing.”
The Twitcher was a tall weedy man, who, owing to some nervous malady, had a trick of raising and lowering his eyebrows. He had a friend whom Hugh called the Sword-Swallower, on account of his way of eating ravioli. The S. S. was small and brisk, with tiny, cropped head, and a large but carefully groomed moustache. His trousers were striped and of the same width all the way down.
The S. S. and the Twitcher were allies and united in a dislike for a third man, whom Hugh dubbed the Rat. This was a sturdy, bandy-legged fellow with a bulging jaw, a broken nose and close-set, beady eyes. His skin had a curious pallor, a prison pallor, Hugh thought. He decided that the Rat had just finished doing time and was now spending the swag.
One day he overheard a conversation between the Twitcher and the Sword-Swallower which referred to the Rat.
“Yes,” said the Twitcher, “the fellow’s as crooked as a ram’s horn. I saw him do it again.”
“Do what?”
“He puts a louis on one of the dozens then watches the ball. Just as it drops he shifts his stake to the winning dozen. He is quick as a flash and nine times out of ten the croupier doesn’t notice it. So he gets paid.”
“He’s a shady one. If you leave your money in the table at night, be sure to lock your door.”
“I’ve never done so yet, but in future I’ll be more careful.”
At this moment the Rat entered and greeted them with a twinkle in his beady eyes.
“Well,” he said briskly, “I’ve just made my ‘day,’—five louis. Now I can rest.”
“You’re easily satisfied,” said the Twitcher; “if I don’t clear twenty, I think I’m out of luck.”
“Not me,” said the Sword-Swallower. “If I can make the bank cough up a couple of louis I quit. But I never fail.”
“What’s your system?” demanded the Rat.
“Oh, I play for a paroli. And yours?”
“I always play between the dozens,” answered the Rat; “it’s the safest.”
“Yes,” said the Twitcher. “You play a safe game all right. As for me, give me the traversals....”
Here the conversation became too technical for Hugh to follow. Presently the Twitcher said to the S. S.:
“Come on. Let’s go and scratch.”
As they went away, the Rat installed himself in a comfortable chair and called for a Dubonnet. Then he lit a cigarette from a yellow packet, blew the smoke blissfully through his nostrils, sipped his apéritif, and seemed content with all the world.
“A sinister chap,” Hugh thought, and ceased to look at him. Suddenly he heard a gasp of dismay.
The Rat was staring out of the window, his sallow face livid, his hands clutching the table edge. Then he dived through the little door at the back of the restaurant and disappeared. Astonished, Hugh followed the direction of the man’s gaze. All he saw was a mild old priest peering rather curiously at the house. Hugh watched wonderingly; but the priest, after lingering a little, went slowly away, and the Rat did not finish his apéritif.
Among the other boarders were two Swedish women, mother and daughter. The mother was short and fat, and the daughter, tall and thin; but both were blonde and had shiny, red faces. They dressed in black satin, with gold chains round their necks and diamond rings on every available finger. They ate gluttonously, and spoke a harsh, gabbling tongue. Although they were evidently rich, they gambled greedily for five franc pieces.
Occasionally Hugh saw the girl with the bright, heaping hair. Sometimes at meals he would see her slip into a remote corner, quiet as a mouse. She looked at no one, kept her head down, ate very little and stole out again as softly as she had come.
One day he questioned Terese, the waitress, about her.
“Ah,” said Terese, “you’re asking me something. All I can tell you is that her name on the register is Margot Leblanc. She’s a queer one. Never speaks to a soul. She spends her time between the church and the Casino, between praying and gambling. I can’t make her out.”
Hugh’s curiosity was aroused. But the girl’s manner discouraged any attempt at acquaintance. Once when he chanced to encounter her on the stair, his polite greeting was met by such a sullen silence that his interest in her faded.
His health was improving daily. It seemed quite wonderful. Instead of watching the tennis-players, he wanted to join them. The distance of his walks lengthened. He joined the little English library and changed his books frequently. On the heights above the town, sitting under an olive tree with the vast shimmer of the sea below him, he read through long sunny hours. Sometimes he got out his box of water colours, and made some sketches.
At half past nine every morning he sauntered down the palm-lined avenue that descends to the Casino. Even at that hour it was packed with luxurious motors, and he christened it “Limousine Lane.” Dozens of gardeners were valeting the lawns on either hand to an unheard of greenness and trimness. The air was always delicious.
At the foot of “Limousine Lane” was the “Cheese,” a round grassy mound diagrammed with flowers. It was shaded by four proud palms and a great rubber tree. Around it were seats for spectators. Lounging there Hugh saw the world of fashion parade. Women exquisitely dressed, and men immaculate sauntered past like actors on a stage. They mounted the seven carpeted steps of the Casino, paused for a moment as if conscious that every detail of their costumes was perfect; then turned and were swallowed by the Temple of Chance.
While Hugh never wearied of this constant swirl of elegance, his main interest was in the swinging doors of the Casino itself. He never tired of watching the players come and go. One day Bob Bender came down the steps looking rustier and more mildewed than ever. He recognized Hugh.
“What, sir,—not playing yet?”
“No, I have no money to lose. Are you doing all right?”
The old gambler shook his head in a melancholy way.
“Not exactly. I’m transversing a bad time. I was expecting a gentleman from America who wanted me to play for him, but he is delayed,—a Mr. Fetterstein. Maybe you’ve heard of him?”
“No.”
“Well, his not comin’ has deranged me. I’ve been playin’ a little game of my own but I ’aven’t got capital enough. This mornin’ I came up against zero three times. A man can’t do anything against that. Now I’m off to get a bite of lunch. Maybe things will come my way this afternoon.”
He shambled off. Before going to his own luncheon Hugh strolled around the gardens. Nurses were watching beautiful, well-behaved children. The round pond mirrored the palms and pink geraniums; the little stream was fringed by ferns and flowers and starred with water-lilies. The green sweep of the sward was like a carpet, set with strange exotic trees, agave and cactus and dwarf oranges. Midway there was a little artificial ford, with gold-fishes glancing in the lazy ripples.
Yet there were jarring notes in this harmony. An old man for instance who sat on a bench reading discarded journals. He wore eye-glasses and had an air of dignity quite at variance with his rags. His boots were altogether disreputable and his coat would have disgraced a decent ash-bin. Yet it was easy to see that he had been a person of education and refinement who had lost a fortune at the tables. Hugh took a seat beside him.
“Well,” said the old fellow, “what do you think of it?”
“It’s beautiful,” said Hugh with fervour.
The other looked at him sarcastically.
“Beautiful, yes ... and it’s to me and the likes of me you owe it; we pay for it; we keep it up. Take a good gaze at me, young chap, and you’ll enjoy it all the more.” He laughed so disagreeably that Hugh rose and left him. But the gardens did not seem as lovely as before.
Hugh’s favourite walk was along the highroad that led to the Tête du Chien. It crossed a dizzy bridge over a deep gorge in which the washerwomen hung their linen to dry. At the mouth of this gorge, framed in the arches of the railway bridge, was a tiny chapel, and behind it, like a slab of lapis lazuli, the harbour. Climbing still higher the road passed the Persian villa and reached the top of the hill. Almost directly below were the red roofs of the Condamine.
Continuing still further the road swung into a great curve high above Monaco, disclosing both the Rock and the sweet serenity of the sea. Terrace upon terrace of olive trees rose to the base of the mountain.
Hugh was walking along this road one morning, admiring the beauty that surrounded him, when suddenly he glanced down. In the dust at his feet, fresh and glistening, was a crimson patch. “Curious,” he thought; “those marks look as if a heavy body had fallen here.” He examined the stone-wall and found a slight spatter of blood. A little further on, he picked up something that made him look very thoughtful, a bit of bony fibre, to which adhered a few dark hairs. Strange! He looked downwards, and saw that he stood just above the Cemetery of Monaco. He found the path and slowly descended.
He searched for some time for the suicide’s section of the cemetery which he had been told was cunningly concealed. A great high wall separated the lower from the upper graveyard, and built half the way up the face of it, was another wall, the space between the two forming a narrow shelf. There was no access to this shelf except through a broken place in the balustrade of the stairway just large enough to pass a coffin. As he looked down from the upper wall, Hugh saw that the whole length of the shelf was closely packed with nameless graves. In one place where the earth had been thrown carelessly up a rusty shovel leaned against the wall. The air had the smell of a charnel pit.
He climbed the hill again. The place where he had seen the blood was now quite clean. There was no trace of any disturbance. Some one had come in his absence and tidied things up. The sky had suddenly grown grey, grey too and sinister the mountains. He had an uneasy sense that somewhere in the olive trees unseen eyes were watching him; that he was being spied on and shadowed.
Another day when he took this solitary walk, twilight was gathering and the roofs of the Condamine were softened to a coral mist. The space between the rock of Monaco and the Tête du Chien was filled with sunset after-glow as a cup is filled with wine. The olive trees lately twinkling in the sunshine were now mysteriously still.
When Hugh came to the highest point overlooking the town, he stopped to rest. The rock of Monaco rose like a monster from the sea, and was as dim and silent as a tomb. He could distinguish the courtyard of the Palace, greyly alight, and a black stencilling of windows. A solitary lamp revealed a turret and an ancient archway, all else was gloom. In its austere mediæval strength the rock seemed the abode of mystery and silence.
And Monte Carlo! Looking towards it Hugh could see nothing but light. The mountains were pricked with patterns of light, the great hotels were packed with light. And all seemed to concentrate in one dazzling centre, the source from which this luxury of light flowed,—the Casino.
Then he noticed that on a bench near him was a stooping figure. To his surprise he recognized it as that of Professor Durand. The old man was clutching in his hands a number of the Revue of Monte Carlo with its columns of permanencies.
“What a pity!” thought Hugh. “So fine, so venerable a head bent over those wretched figures. This man who might be taken for a preacher, a prophet,—a slave to this vulgar vice, puzzling over systems, trying to outwit the Goddess Chance. Le calcul peut vaincre le jeu ... that is the lying phrase that lures them. Fools!”
Then he turned for the Professor was addressing him. Hugh saw a flashing eye, a noble brow.
“Young man, you will excuse me, but I claim the privilege of age. At the Sorbonne I have lectured to thousands like you. I speak because I noted in your passing glance something of disdain.”
Hugh made a gesture of protest.
“No, I do not blame you. You see me with these numbers. But you misjudge me.... Listen....”
The old man seemed to grow taller. He stretched his hand to where the Casino glittered like a crown of gems.
“I am eighty years old to-day. I have a feeling that I shall never see another birthday. But there is one thing I hope to do before I die ... to ruin that accursed place.”
Hugh stared at him.
“I speak for the good of humanity, I speak because of the evil it has done in the past, the harm it can do in years to come. I speak in behalf of its thousand of blasted homes, its broken hearts, its shameful graves. Ah! you only see the beautiful surface. You do not see below. But I do. And to my eyes yonder rock on which it stands, is built of human skulls, the waves that lap it are tears and blood. Look at the loveliness of earth and sky, the purple mountain rising from the silver sea, the dreamlike peace, the soft and gentle air. No painted picture was ever half so beautiful. How happy all might be here! A paradise, a human paradise; but because of that place, a poisoned paradise.”
Hugh stared harder. The old man’s voice was tense with passion.
“You think I am a fanatic, a madman. Wait and see. I am going to destroy that place. For years I have worked on my great plan. It is the crown of my life. In a few weeks I will begin to play. I shall win and win. By mathematics I will frustrate chance. I will compel them to close their doors, for my system is invincible. God has given me this task to do, and I will complete it before I die. Into my hands He has delivered them. I am His instrument of vengeance. Let them beware!”
In a magnificent gesture he shook his clenched fists at the Casino. When Hugh left him he was still standing like a prophet on the heights, staring down on his poisoned paradise.