by Josep Pla
Antibes, a town neighboring on Cannes, benefited from this initial kernel of tourism. In Antibes tourism soon begins to be gray-bearded below its already longstanding wrinkles, everything is rather decrepit. The small port of Antibes is perhaps unique in the world. It is a perfectly circular saucepan surrounded by walls so high I don’t think any other port can rival them. Almost all ports have a similar system of defenses. The port of Antibes is enclosed by a screen that creates strange effects. Well, that brings all kinds of advantages: the waters are still, yachts can relax, there are no sudden gusts, and people relish a pulse of life in the fresh air as if they were in their own homes. The port of Antibes is immensely hospitable.
The population of Nice is descended from Italians. One the other hand, can one say Nice is an Italian city? I think not. The traces of Italy in Nice comprise the finest elements in the old town; they are so subterranean, however, they seem almost surreptitious and never loom large; they are buried under the Negresco-style paraphernalia of grand hotel architecture, fashioned by professional architects. The town has been the preserve of young architects for over half a century, the youngest, most dynamic, most handsome and best-connected architects in France. It is the Mecca of bourgeois architects. The results have been sensational everywhere, but in Nice the city proliferated like mushrooms, and is incomparably visual: it’s as if the real architects were the bourgeois and the bourgeois were the architects. In an era when sensitivity was prized, the city might have shown the way to the future. In the event, they have made it the capital of a permanent universal exhibition.
The spirit of its external detail belongs to that kind of festive spectacle. Nice’s internationalism cannot simply be explained by its benign climate. One senses that the city has mounted a universal exhibition that never closes and attracts people from all around. The most popular stands are the casinos. The grand hotels seem to have been purpose-built to this end. The leisured, well-dressed, Sunday-morning-style people favor exactly matches that of individuals going to or from an exhibition. That’s particularly visible on the Promenade des Anglais, because the international exhibition has clearly been mounted at the end of this magnificent avenue. Whatever the music, and whatever its quality, music in Nice becomes music for an exhibition. The theater performed there is for exhibition audiences. Churches seem built to be part of the exhibition. One sees this in the tendency things in Nice have to emphasize tinsel, a kind of glittery, shiny foil people think more genuine than reality itself. Everything tends to take on a second nature that replaces their true one.
Nice is a city of rentiers and tourists. The former rake in the dividends, while the latter admire such prestigious industry and doff their hats before their brilliant operations. In brief, a city built on such foundations has to embody the rarefied spirit of the bourgeoisie and must adopt a universal exhibition outlook, because that class’s masterpiece was naturally the universal exhibition. It was a stroke of genius to mount the astounding, dazzling enterprise here on a strip of coast that also happens to be blue. It is hardly surprising if the combination of all these wonderful features arouses waves of universal curiosity and permanent marveling.
Nice is the European city where the phenomenon of the glorification of the dividend is enacted on the vastest scale. The glorification of the dividend produces admiration for rentiers, and love for rentiers. Admiration for the man who lives on his own private income, the prestige of the finance capitalist – to speak the language of the economists – sustains the ever spiraling vitality of Nice and the Côte d’Azur. Tourists go to Nice to wallow in the contemplation of rentiers, and proclaim that nothing can beat its way of life.
I have carried out some research into the social mechanics of this admirable city. It is most unusual to find the name of a captain of industry or important entrepreneur in the local telephone book. Conversely, you will find the retired businessman, the leading renowned rentier, the widow who has managed a good sell-off, the heirs to many such glories. You will find names from everywhere. And, now that the Russian aristocracy has withdrawn from circulation and lost the aura it enjoyed on the Côte d’Azur, the place has been even more severely cut back to its strict role, namely, as we have noted, the provision of a backdrop for the glorification of the dividend.
The life of a rentier is a leisurely affair. They rise at an hour when town-hall workers are combing and polishing the palm trees in the parks. If they aren’t prey to any particular personal mania, after reading the newspaper – generally the chauvinist paper of their respective country – they sit with their backs to the sun. If they are fans of the canine species, they will walk their dogs, previously trained to defy municipal regulations and the denunciations of rentiers hostile to the canine breed. If admiration for ducks or birds warms their hearts, they go out equipped with a small bag of crumbs they scatter over the grass on the flowerbeds generally to the Olympian indifference of those august animals. Birds and ducks in Nice generally eat in the afternoon and that explains their indifference. They eat a single meal. Fond of a simpler life, other rentiers spend the morning sitting on a bench or a chair, looking at the sea or talking to friends. These conversations tend to be so deeply pessimistic they verge on the morose. Every day that passes possesses, to a greater or lesser degree, elements that enable rentiers to experience the pleasantest of pessimistic sensations. In this sense, Nice affords a wealth of magnificent raw material. Perhaps the gentleman who lives in the hotel room next to mine, whom I hear arguing with his wife, is worried because in Santiago de Chile they want to get rid of tollhouses. My neighbor on the other side is perhaps complaining about the drop in income suffered by trams in Belgrade. One never knows, and rentier pessimism, however mysterious, never ceases to be tangibly real.
In the afternoon, after taking note of the barometer’s advice, they lead the same leisurely lives as in the morning. There are concerts, family gatherings, obligatory calls to be made, sporting activities, that all help foster that necessary, indispensible lethargic atmosphere for one to be able to say the people there live on their private income. It is hardly surprising if lives so full of noble grandeur should provoke waves of universal envy. The rentier’s voluptuous languor, his morose pessimism, his life’s attractive round enthrall people. And that’s not counting the rentiers with personal manias who are the most admired. People believe manic rentiers are the aristocracy of that estate. Behind a rentier there often lurks an unknown genius, an eccentric inventor or a man exploring the oddest initiatives. That’s the burden in the rentier’s belt, the apple to bite, the apple you don’t eat because you don’t have the hunger. The pillows of these blessed aristocrats hide innumerable projects that, if carried out, would send shockwaves through the planet. However, the rentier keeps them in a putative state, and thus broadcasts his moderation and admirable spirit of self-restraint. The rentier scorns selfishness, and that is precisely what locals admire most, and tourists, even more so. Everybody suspects a genius may lurk behind the figure of the rentier. Indeed, a moderate mania becomes the most feasible manifestation of talent.
And the true rentier has no vices, apart from concealed charity. The more concealed his charity, the greater the praise in the obituary. So then, how does one explain the profusion of roulette tables in this country? I think it can only be explained in terms of a pact reached by rentiers on behalf of tourists. They reckon that admiration should be expressed through acts. The tourist has to bear the brunt so rentiers can have a clean, tidy town, a perfect police force, a good public image, and hot and cold water at a reasonable price. It’s a fine idea. The rentier declares energetically, “If they admire us, let them pay!”
And the tourist responds wistfully, after leaving his life savings on the roulette table, with a conviction that sounds deep because it is so strained, “How intelligent you are!”
This strange double game explains the glories of this city and the envy it arouses. It’s hard to think of a country with locals who are so law-abiding, so low-key in
their habits and so righteous in their ideas. Dividends insist on morality because it is the backbone of the social order. Everybody knows this, day after day it is voiced in official statements; doubt is out of the question. In parallel an opposite reality asserts itself: the roulette wheel on every street corner that tests the resistance of the family institution to which the wretched tourists belong. And everybody plays his role wonderfully. Rentiers understate their positive situation and the enthusiasm aroused by their incurable pessimism. Bankrupted tourists loudly sing the praises of the excesses of a pleasant, hospitable country that enables them to enjoy nature and social life.
And such is life, á niçoise.
Gamblers can’t be fobbed off. The spectacle of the sea’s gleaming white horses, the majestic palm trees, the warm sun exuding blissful joy, the well-dressed ladies, are all first-rate. But nothing really compares with the climate for baccarat, the atmosphere around the roulette wheel or the vista of a green beige table. To visit Nice and not wonder at these marvels is like going to Rome and not seeing the Pope. I have often settled down in a corner of the Municipal Casino and observed how people, eyes bulging and hearts thudding, come and go in that cage of fortune. The gargoyles of the gaming tables! A spectacular show.
It’s strange: anyone standing in front of a gaming table automatically ages ten years. If the person is small, he becomes a doll; if he is tall, he turns into a giant. If his nose is largish, it grows into a big schnozzle; if it’s snub, it turns into a chickpea. Your vision of people ineluctably becomes a complete caricature. How horrible we all are – really! The green beige seems to appeal to the least lovely part of our nature. The blemish expands uncontrollably and our whole body is transformed. Gambling infects our weak point. No doubt about it: we men and women are much more despicable than we seem. Roulette is proof, without a ball ever swerving from its true role, namely, to provide the bank with its five and half percent. A lateral argument provides additional evidence.
Given this progressive disfiguring of humankind, it is hardly odd if the first-order races have made sport compulsory and that this measure finds vociferous, intelligent supporters everywhere.
However, has it made any difference? It would be risky to say it had. In olden times sport, like poetry, was the preserve of the nobility. Nowadays the bulk of the bourgeoisie devotes hours each week to sport. Some sporting activities have even reached the more undernourished layers of our society. A new kind of citizen has been spawned who can fly through the air, leap from one mountain to another, and scrutinize the mysteries at the bottom of the sea. The offspring of this new kind of life, even as children, act like people who’ve retired from sport. Standing by the long, luminous sweep of the Baie des Anges – the name of Nice’s bay – their parents present a profile of undoubted sporting beauty. To my mind a sporting man, in his cyclist’s pants, knitted t-shirt, and spiked shoes could be a fully fledged Apollo; I likewise believe that this sporting gentleman, dressed like an ordinary mortal, opposite a roulette wheel, is as much a caricature as a poet at a poetry festival. And, indeed, wasn’t Apollo plotting to kill off such romantic, blood-tingling activities?
Sport would be a wonderful thing if it didn’t so damage the stomach and the mind. No sportsman has a proper appetite. There’s no sporting type who doesn’t have manias of the highest order. Sport is in the hands of doctors and health specialists whose professional business is the torture of humanity. Sport is led by doctors and hygienists when it should really be led by chefs. The purpose of sport is to create hunger and ensure that, when faced by a dozen oysters, the human species will tear its hair out and flagellate itself. These remarks of mine are old-fashioned and traditional, but I don’t believe they could be more reasonable or more right than they are. One should reject as fake all other interpretations of sport, especially scientific, sociological, or aesthetic interpretations. I know that the future of wise men in this era belongs to clouds of unknowing and silent shadows. It makes no difference. When all is said and done, before the touchstone of human physical guile, namely, a gaming table, the people who perform most brilliantly are those who can prove, quite genuinely, that they have eaten oysters by the dozen and snails by the hundred.
Leading intellectuals, after studying the different shapes of the human species, have boldly concluded that there’s nothing like being rich if you want to be ugly. It’s an amenable verdict many would willingly accept. It is, above all, a comforting conclusion. They even say that all the inventions the bourgeoisie dreams up to transform the human body into something irresistibly sweet and tempting are only clear proof of the deficiencies of that class, but these studies do have a terrible defect – they are scientific. These conclusions are lacking. Studying the shape of humanity within a public university is at the very least to follow an antiquated method. They should take the trouble to come as far as the Municipal Casino and take an unbiased look. Anatole France, who made this pilgrimage and who acquired some experience, boasted that he mistook marchionesses for bawds and vice versa. Such confusion is easily explained – no doubt about that. The fact is that in terms of three or four things – beauty, money, cruelty, and frailty – a motley human mixture is easily engineered. Finery, masks, and differences fall away. Everyone is, more or less, made of the same clay. Men and women, we are equally and fatefully deformed, lumpy and hollow-cheeked. We are ugly, unremittingly ugly …
Fortunately, now and then, never in excess, we are pleasant enough …
In Hyères, Cannes, Nice, and at many points of the Côte d’Azur something is still remiss in the way in which they interpret municipal politics and bureaucracy. It would be futile to place high hopes in the principality of Monaco where one scents the purist fragrance of a sacred union. There are no parties, no debates, no different ways of seeing things. The country’s physics are plain enough: there is roulette in Monaco. Every time the ball rolls, it produces five and a half per cent. This money must be distributed. A genuine prince oversees the bookkeeping. A small Council of Ministers looks after the bureaucracy. Roulette provides enough for the Monegasques not to pay taxes, do military service or, in a word, suffer any of the burdens that belonging to a community usually entails. Roulette pays the bureaucrat, the police force, the firemen, and park attendants. To ensure he doesn’t doze on the job, the prince is obliged to employ an expert. Administrators control the profits from gaming with immaculate honesty. Mothers and fathers bring their children up painstakingly in the hope they can make them resourceful croupiers. The weapons deployed by this aristocracy are roulette rakes and baccarat cards.
I don’t know if you know the country, it is quite wonderful. The principality is located on the back of a mountain that advances into the sea, leaving in its wake two bays as natural as a couple of seashells: W. Monaco is in the west bay, Monte Carlo in the east. An underground tunnel links the principality’s two towns. It is a very uneven configuration. From the sea, the principality seems to be on a very steep incline. Houses rise above one another, decked out in white. In the foreground palm trees and gardens hide buildings and palaces. Beyond them an Italianate terrace of houses – large stretches of wall, small green windows, and simple, pretty roofs – acts like a fan. The mountain plunges precipitously into whiteness. It is a mountain with dramatic rocks: fluorescent and purple, yellow and gray. At dusk, these rocks’ reflections in the becalmed sea give the water the most wonderful postcard hues. There are no strident notes. The houses are mirrored in the water and the palm trees and blossoming agave sway in the soft wind. In the long term, this gaming room silence nurtures enervating feverishness and a curious thirst for the impossible. To amuse the people who don’t require this kind of complex aphrodisiac in order to live, they should temper the silence with some sort of entertainment. One ought, for example, be able to hear a distant explosion. Then ordinary folk could remark, concealing their horror: “Another gambler must have committed suicide.”
Currently everything is a little too innocuous from a cinematic po
int of view. That’s an old, clichéd adjective but it is exactly right: this is a cinematic country. Magnificent gardens above a balustrade, mansions well located in their own moonlight, vistas contrived for a very special honeymoon. In my time cinema was like that and films were sublime. I imagine they still are. These luscious memories have left you a set of hidden images that spring into life at the sight of these postcards. The country appeals because it has been filmed so often.
Parallel to this conventional life is the everyday life of the locals who now live off roulette, in the same way they previously lived off fishing and in more ancient times off pirating and adventure. The people of the sea of Genoa have a long history and a passionate love of freedom. The Monegasques are the last representatives of a past that has gone forever. Even today they can afford the luxury of not paying rates or taxes, of not doing military service, of not pleasing everyone, and doing whatever they feel like. They are among the happy, blissful few left on this earth. They make you envious, but we should be frank: they deserve it. They have worked out how to evolve quickly and have tried not to upset anyone: perfect pirates or honest merchants in the days of medieval cut-and-thrust, patient, humble fishermen under absolute monarchies, and with the gradual spread of enlightenment and welfare, they have finally become the honest exploiters of human frailty.
The casino in Monte Carlo is a very important, strikingly serious institution. Few official buildings in Europe are as magnificent. As a building of its kind it is unique. People are used to losing their money in ramshackle wooden and iron buildings propped up by cardboard columns. The casino has marble columns; its rooms are severe and imposing in the best bourgeois traditions. You are inside now. A huge, opaque room opens up before you. Twelve large tables enter your purview: six roulette and six baccarat. Each is surrounded by a buzz that is drowned by the cheeky clatter of the chips and the hopping of that devilish little ball. Everybody is speaking in hushed tones as if they were embarrassed. If you are alert, now and then you will hear a sigh escape that someone was unable to suppress. It’s one way of showing you have arrived. The first hundred francs are the worst.