This Form Is Apparently To Make Sure That You Are Not A Resident Of The Principality, And That If You Suffer In Your Morals From Your Visit To The Casino You Shall Not Be A Source Of Local Corruption Thereafter.

They bow you away, first audibly pronouncing your name with polyglottic accuracy, and then you are free to wander where you like.

But probably you 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 was very hot and very bad, they all alike looked dull.

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