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. At a
psychological moment it suddenly came to me in their presence, that if
there was such a place as hell, it must be very dull, like that, and
that the finest misery of perdition must be the stupid dulness of it.
For some unascertained reason, but probably from a mistaken purpose of
ornament, there hung over the centre of each table, almost down to the
level of the players' heads, lengths of large-linked chains, and it was
imaginable, though not very probable, that if any of the lost souls rose
violently up, or made an unseemly outcry, or other rebellious
demonstration, those plain, quiet men, the agents of the Administration,
would fling themselves upon him or her, and bind them with those chains,
and cast them into such outer darkness as could be symbolized by the
shade of the terrace trees.
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