by Josep Pla
First surprise: women are undoubtedly in the majority. Generally they are quite mature women with a sternly respectable demeanor. Almost all play scientifically, that is, clutching a card and a pencil. They conduct complicated, cabalistic exercises on paper. Once that’s completed they lay their bet with deep conviction and a confidence that is disconcerting. It is amazing how many people think that losing at roulette is down to the player’s lack of ability. People imagine that the mysteries of chance can be tamed by studying higher mathematics, calculating probabilities, or sharpening one’s natural wit. Everyone has their formula, their brilliant trick to guarantee a win. Ninety-five percent of the people crowding into Monte Carlo are in the grip of the most amusing superstitions. People often defend their childish beliefs stubbornly and take stands that are grotesque in the extreme.
“Now it will be the red five,” you hear them whisper, in front of you, with professorial, academic circumspection.
It’s a black seven. Brief consternation. The gambler consults her papers. Adds up, takes away, multiplies, subtracts, square roots. Roulette is a mathematical progression. Pascal, ladies and gentlemen, the distinguished Reverend Pascal, knew about all that. The time comes to make a decision. They adopt a serious, elegant pose.
“It will be the red twenty-four. It can’t fail …”
It’s a zero as round as a watermelon. The cycle of movements is repeated indefinitely. Chance slithers like a snake. They don’t get a single one right. Pockets spew out papers covered in figures and projections. Hands quiver. Noses elongate absurdly. Sad eyes look at the croupier as if to say: “What did I do to be treated so badly?”
The ball jumps joyfully over metal. The yellow, green, red, white chips soften in the diffuse, matte light. The croupier solemnly tweaks his mustache. Jam seems to be trickling down the long faces of the gamblers. There is a dull buzz, like an angry bumblebee’s, in the large room. Chance under pressure stutters like a distant engine. Painted in nineteenth-century style, the ceiling is an allegory with rather faded nymphs representing Agriculture, Industry, Commerce, Science, and the Arts. A severe matriarch, seated on a cloud – plump bosom and bottom – presides over the symbolic, Olympian dance. This matriarch represents natural order in the style of liberal, evolutionary philosophy. She is Mrs Stuart Mill. The croupier is still twirling his mustache. The ball leaps over the metal. The men with the rakes stand to attention, waiting for the moment to make their move. Finally, the scientific gambler wearily leaves the table with a bitter, knowing expression, grasping papers and projections.
This roulette wheel is fixed, she thinks.
In Barcelona our chemistry lecturer who was naïve enough to predict the color of the reaction in process frequently put his foot in it. If he said green, it would inevitably come out white or black. The students gave him standing ovations.
“It was slightly black,” the poor man would say, trembling like a tree leaf. “Next year, God willing, it will work out better …”
So too hopes the roulette player and in general the savvy gambler. “Next year, God willing, it will work out better. This year it was slightly black. I can’t complain,” says the gambler who inevitably loses. If the world is six million years old, this show has been running for six thousand years – in round numbers. And won’t it run and run!
I’m reading a journal, sitting on a willow chair between two palm trees with the sun on my back.
“What are you reading? What are you reading?” asks a nosy Barcelonan I’ve met by chance.
“La Revue de Monte Carlo?”
“That must be full of saucy comedy?”
“Not at all! It is a scientific journal.”
And that’s the truth. Everybody who knows La Revue de Monte Carlo must have noticed the secondary title, according to which the publication is a scientific journal. It is printed under a dedication to Napoleon I, whose maxim is quoted: “Calculation will win the game.” A lovely, enthusiastic, optimistic maxim, worthy of a great general! A maxim to bear in mind when educating young people! It is from his Memoirs of Saint Helena and is one of those declarations that give testimony to the depth of thought of that hero who fought so many famous battles. Such a pity his dictum is expressed in the form of a prophecy.
This scientific journal comes out every Sunday in winter and once a month in summer, and contains, apart from the real timetable for roulette and trente et quarante, a profound study of the games played and unpublished methods. The frontispiece carries a wheel of fortune that superimposes the elements that make up a roulette wheel under a photograph of the majestic casino, framed by palm trees and more or less tropical plants. The journal has been going for twenty-three years and vast numbers have been published. J. de Suresnes, the editor-in-chief, must be pleased. On the second page, the journal advertises a “Theoretical-Practical Treatise on the Interesting Game of Trente et quarante.” One regrets, however, that the same page carries a shamelessly sentimental advert that ruins the healthy drift of the first: “Madame Maxima gives the best prices for jewels and furs,” goes its slogan. The first thought that comes to mind is that Madame Maxima could very well be the wife of Monsieur Suresne. That would explain the juxtaposition of the two adverts.
The journal comprises two parts: statistics and wonders. The pages devoted to the former carry the numbers that have won in the gaming room during the previous week. This list includes, moreover, an indication as to the reds and blacks, evens and odds, dozens of losses and infringements – generally every feature of the games played. These statistics are rather tiresome and of little interest to the layman. Connoisseurs, however, must find these numbers a pure joy. They bother to assemble these statistics in order to invite the public as a whole to put into practice Napoleon the First’s advice: “Calculation will win the game.” Calculate, citizens, calculate! Calculate until your eyes droop. After all, while you are calculating, you’re not hurting anyone.
The wonders are wondrous. The main dish comprises a scientific article that is usually incomprehensible to people with a scant mathematical background. Algebra and calculation sing there like birds on the Rambla at twilight. Between formulas you find the odd observation of a very basic psychological nature. La Revue de Monte Carlo invites its readers to keep calm and collected. In the magazine, calm is the unknown quantity implicit in the higher mathematics of the locality. It’s what is demonstrated in a book by an anonymous author entitled Games of Chance Won With Sangfroid, in French and English. “This serious publication,” says the book’s author in a candid moment, “should be in the hands of every gambler who wishes to apply a method or system with calm and moderation without which all possibility of winning vanishes.” The article is padded out with a third element: the statement the author repeatedly makes in respect to the serious nature, the notoriously scientific character of his research. You feel like exclaiming: “Well, well! Let’s do it! All you need is …”
The journal carries a highly turgid summary of the main articles published. A new world opens before your eyes. You are surprised misfortune is such a crucial aspect of mathematics. There’s a bit of everything: from the note on the study of the main instances when gambling can be a reasonable activity and a learned account of the philosophy of gambling, via “The pre-science of natural developments usually attributed to chance” to “Differential gambling with progressions, repayments, and simple and multiple withdrawals on optimum transversals” and “The American multiplier within the reach of the average gambler and generally of every pocket.” I have merely copied a few rubrics, hoping that the reader will agree with me that this material is rather subtle and worthy of consideration in the academy. Reading the summary, as ignorant as the first man, I can only regret that in order win at roulette you need so much study and knowledge, and I wholeheartedly wish that a period of synthesis might predominate and come both to simplify and clarify the exuberant morass thrown up by these exercises in research. When everyone, poor and rich, foolish and wise, young and old, a
re in a more reasonable position of equality, there can be no doubt that the world, that now leaves much to be desired, will appear before our eyes in more appealing, attractive colors. We should work for equality in matters of culture and scientific thought.
You could diagnose the present state of the problem by exclaiming emphatically: lots of analysis and not much synthesis! Besides, there is another aspect to all this: researchers in the field daily give renewed proof of their selfless humanitarianism. Indeed, it is well known that the researchers with their admirable persistence are tearing away the veils of happenstance, demonstrating in unexpected ways their grip on Pythagorean knowledge par excellence, and yet they are still finding time to write journal articles. They know how to win and, instead of sitting by the gaming tables like roués, driven by the virtues of a sage, they insist on telling others how. Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that sublime? Vade retro, specters of pessimism!
If you imagine that gamblers could live in any paradise whatsoever, it is probable that the Côte d’Azur is most like the paradise gamblers might aspire to. It is a place where gamblers have social status and even enjoy a romantic aura. Obviously all that lasts only as long as a gambler’s money. When your money is gone, you join the ranks of the has-beens. It’s natural. Be that as it may, gamblers are esteemed in this country, as smugglers are in Andorra. When you arrive in Andorra and write on your hotel registration form that your usual employment is smuggling, they treat you like a celebrity. Here there’s no need to write anything, because everyone is sure that, come what may, you will leave your financial contribution on one gaming table or another.
After all, it is so exciting! Few people have lingered hereabouts and not, sooner or later, at one moment or another, voluntarily or dutifully, entered a casino and bet a hundred francs. Let’s be sincere: which game do you prefer: roulette, chemin de fer, trente et quarante, or baccarat? Roulette enjoys a long tradition and Pascal took the trouble to calculate probabilities. What a strange fascination! Naturally the pleasurable elements afforded by such excitement diminish and shrink when you think how games of chance give the banker five and a half per cent every game. Everything is so expensive! Nothing we can do about that!
Every country is affected by the nature of its main interests and, consequently, here one is allowed to talk perfectly naturally about gambling, as if it were really important. People here attend to gambling problems as elsewhere they talk about wine, cotton, or iron. From time to time the dailies publish solemnly serious articles against baccarat. There was a time when everyone railed against baccarat. A newcomer thinks: Good God! It was about time they decided to put an end to this immorality, to this abject business of gambling!
The campaign against baccarat is waged on a broad front. Towns that derive lots of money from taxes on gambling – Biarritz, Vichy, Deauville – support it enthusiastically. You are tempted to think a very influential lady must be behind this campaign, one whose husband was bankrupted playing baccarat – a lady with enough energy to orchestrate a general predisposition against the devilish game. But that turns out to be pure fantasy.
The campaign against baccarat stems from its low profit levels. To use the technical terms: baccarat doesn’t leave much lucre in the kitty. The statistical services of the city of Nice have calculated that the city collected two million francs less simply because people played baccarat rather than other games of chance. By playing baccarat tournant, with an open bank, a gambler can make some headway. If people had decided to play roulette, boule, or trente et quarante, those millions of francs would have ended up in the municipal coffers.
What then is the hostility towards baccarat all about? At the end of the day it means that the last game of chance is suppressed, because there isn’t much chance in the others. They are games where eventually you will be fatally fleeced – literally! In the games we have mentioned, the banker has a real, undeniable advantage, because he automatically collects a percentage of all the money that crosses the table. As we have stated repeatedly, this percentage is stipulated. Then there is what the municipality and the state take: the taxman, in a word. If we imagine a set of gamblers rooted round a table, with a limitless bank, after a certain amount of time, all the gamblers will be bankrupted. If the only chance a game permits is the chance to be destined to lose, where does chance come in?
What will the gambler do? Of course, the gambler will continue to play. The gambler pursues what he thinks is his and respects no holidays. To imagine that the accumulation of continual losses will make him stop and ponder for a moment is to have a partial view of his character. Gamblers gamble, whatever the weather, even though good fortune allows a win from time to time …
In my view, Mentone is the most unforgettable spectacle on the Côte d’Azur. The old town is pure Italian and sits on a small promontory that juts out into the sea. On both sides of the town two slopes open out against the gigantic, purple, fluorescent backdrop of the towering end of the Alps. Covered in mansions, palm, rose, pine and olive trees, these baroque, sunny inclines have a lushness that rather sours in the mouth. The old town, on the other hand, brings a minty freshness to the lips.
These old towns by the sea of Genoa are gracious places. Terraced on either of the church – that’s always at the highest point – precipitously poised over the sea, theirs is a proud, active profile. From out to sea you see houses bunched together, the skylights and windows of the houses of the poor and the loggias of ancient palaces. Pigeons fly in and out of the loggias and circle round the belfry. This bronzed panorama of the town, with its green windows and whitewashed terraces is unforgettable and sparkles with charm. These towns, generally, rise up over a natural port that is its infinitely becalmed and silent with sleepy waters. Four old boats sun themselves by the shore, opposite a street of taverns. Out-of-date advertisements hang on the walls and you can often read loud political exclamations on the walls. Viva l’anarchia or Il Papa è … In the afternoon the whole town is reflected in the port, and the occasional school of small fish leaps over the still waters gleaming like a scattered handful of silver coins. At sunset a limp sail sits in the harbor mouth like a fly in a glass of orange juice. And a bell tinkles and a girl’s voice shouts from a terraced roof: Irmaa sei tuu?
Following the pattern of Genoa, the Italians have created a kind of unmistakably Mediterranean city. They are all the same: a network of the narrowest streets formed by tall tenements, with dark entranceways and windows with shutters that rise up like eyelids. From the street you can see a strip of blue sky despairing between two parallel roofs. A system of ropes helps to hang out the clothes between one window and the next, lo straccio. Rags of every color and shape often blot out the view of the sky. This narrowness creates a concentrated, bustling style of life: it’s simply impossible to describe the lively scenes you encounter on these streets. It’s as if people don’t really know where they live, they all seem to belong to the same house. People bicker from window to window and sometimes you hear epic arguments. Down below, those who are coming and going must take care not to bump into a cot, tread on a child or a dog’s tail that’s splayed over a doorstep. Now and then, suddenly and quite simultaneously, children start bawling, dogs bark, cats miaow, women tear their hair out, men brawl, and girls scream. A hellish din is unleashed that lasts until the carabinieri arrive, then everybody dives into their den and only orange peel dots the street. While the carabinieri are about there is a dull, subterranean hum; people mumble and mutter behind their doors and behind every window two livid eyes follow the shadows from the tails of the carabinieris’ coats. However, this ferment almost always dies down one way or other. People emerge from their hiding-places as quiet as can be, dogs and cats shush, children laugh, women comb their hair in the window and men sit on the doorstep reading Avanti! When peace is restored, you see baskets descend, touching the wall, tied to a rope used to hoist them up or down from the flats. Sometimes the girl pulling the rope, between a carnation and a fiasco of red wine,
tugs too brusquely and the basket leaps and twists like a scalded cat and macarrone is scattered over the ground to general lamentations. If you pass by an hour later, people are still sighing.
Mentone was once a town with this kind of street life. Today it has become too elegant for that hustle and bustle to survive in the old town. The old carcass remains, but preserved, like a relic. Quiet reigns on the narrow streets and it’s difficult to see a basket lowered from a window by rope. The warm charm of life in Mentone gives it a nineteenth-century air. One feels the shade of Garibaldi, with mustache, squib, and red shirt should emerge from the dark stairways.
If you ever go to Mentone, look for the Place de la Tête, go up the street of the Loggette – partly covered by arches – continue along the very narrow Rue Longue, where you’ll find the ancient palace of the princes of Monaco. If you don’t want to walk so far, take the slope up to the church of Saint-Michel, refurbished in Jesuit style. By the church, look for the path hewn out of the rock that leads to the town’s old cemetery, located in one of its highest points. The cemetery is like a kind of amphitheater on four levels, one above the other, and one per religion. You will enjoy wonderful vistas before you and a great expanse of sea; the Italian coast on the left, and the French south-facing coast on the right, covered in olives and pine trees and gardens. Your blue-filled eyes will follow the flight of a seagull or pigeon. You will see the wind gently gyrate the weathervane on the belfry. And if you smoke, you can sit on a half worn gravestone and smoke a cigarette.