Delphi complete works of.., p.1325

Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells, page 1325

 

Delphi Complete Works of William Dean Howells
Select Voice:
Brian (uk)
Emma (uk)  
Amy (uk)
Eric (us)
Ivy (us)
Joey (us)
Salli (us)  
Justin (us)
Jennifer (us)  
Kimberly (us)  
Kendra (us)
Russell (au)
Nicole (au)


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062 1063 1064 1065 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1077 1078 1079 1080 1081 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 1087 1088 1089 1090 1091 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 1129 1130 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 1167 1168 1169 1170 1171 1172 1173 1174 1175 1176 1177 1178 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1211 1212 1213 1214 1215 1216 1217 1218 1219 1220 1221 1222 1223 1224 1225 1226 1227 1228 1229 1230 1231 1232 1233 1234 1235 1236 1237 1238 1239 1240 1241 1242 1243 1244 1245 1246 1247 1248 1249 1250 1251 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 1258 1259 1260 1261 1262 1263 1264 1265 1266 1267 1268 1269 1270 1271 1272 1273 1274 1275 1276 1277 1278 1279 1280 1281 1282 1283 1284 1285 1286 1287 1288 1289 1290 1291 1292 1293 1294 1295 1296 1297 1298 1299 1300 1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307 1308 1309 1310 1311 1312 1313 1314 1315 1316 1317 1318 1319 1320 1321 1322 1323 1324 1325 1326 1327 1328 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 1334 1335 1336 1337 1338 1339 1340 1341 1342 1343 1344 1345 1346 1347 1348 1349 1350 1351 1352 1353 1354 1355 1356 1357 1358 1359 1360 1361 1362 1363 1364 1365 1366 1367 1368 1369 1370 1371 1372 1373 1374 1375 1376 1377 1378 1379 1380 1381 1382 1383 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 1390 1391 1392 1393 1394 1395 1396 1397 1398 1399 1400 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 1415 1416 1417 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 1424 1425 1426 1427 1428 1429 1430 1431 1432 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 1449 1450 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 1456 1457 1458 1459 1460 1461 1462 1463 1464 1465 1466 1467 1468 1469 1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1511 1512 1513 1514 1515 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 1529 1530 1531 1532 1533 1534 1535 1536 1537 1538 1539 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621

Larger Font   Reset Font Size   Smaller Font  

  The time was in Genoa, it seems, as the time is now with us, when a great many people did not know what to do with their money. There were sumptuary laws which forbade their spending it, either they or their wives or daughters, in dress; apparently they could not even wear Genoa velvet, which had to be sold abroad for the corruption of the outside world; and this is said to be the reason why there were so many palaces built in Genoa in the days of the republic. People who did not wish to figure in that hall of fame put their surplus into the immense and often ugly edifices which we still see ministering to their pride in the wide and narrow streets of the city. Now and then a devout family built or rebuilt a church and gave it to the public; but by far the greater number put up palaces, where, after the house-warming, they dwelt in a cold and economical seclusion. Some of their palaces are now devoted to public uses; they are galleries of pictures and statues most worthy to be seen, or they are municipal offices, or museums, or schools of art or science; but part are still in the keeping of the families that contributed them to the splendor of their city. The streets in which they stand are loud with transit and traffic, but the palaces hold aloof from the turmoil and lift their lofty heads to the level of the gardens behind them. Huge, heavy they are, according to the local ideal, and always wanting the delicacy of Venetian architecture, where something in the native genius tempered to gentleness the cold severity of Palladio, and where Sansovino knew how to bridge the gulf between the Gothic and the Renascent art that would have been Greek but halted at being Roman.

  The grandeur of those streets of palaces in Genoa cannot be denied, but perhaps, if the visitor quite consulted his preference or indulged his humor, he would wander rather through the arcades of the busy port, up the chasmal alleys of little shops into the tiny piazzas, no bigger than a good-sized room, opening before some ancient church and packed with busy, noisy people. The perspective there is often like the perspective in old Naples, but the uproar in Genoa does not break in music as it does in Naples, and the chill lingering in the sunless depths of those chasms is the cold of a winter that begins earlier and a spring that loiters later than the genial seasons of the South.

  X. EDEN AFTER THE FALL

  A few years ago an Englishman who had lived our neighbor in the same villa at San Remo, came and said that he was going away because it was so dull at San Remo. He was going with his wife to Monte Carlo, because you could find amusement every day in the week at the tables of the different games of chance, and Sundays there was a very nice little English church. He did not seem to think there was anything out of the way in his grouping of these advantages, but he did not strongly urge them upon us, and we restricted ourselves in turn to our tacit reflections on the indifference of the English to a point of morals on which the American conscience is apt to suffer more or less anguish if it offends. So far as I know they do not think it wrong to take money won at any game; but possibly their depravity in this matter rather comforted us than offended. At any rate, I am sure of the superiority of our own morals in visiting Monte Carlo after we left Genoa. If we did not look forward with our Englishman’s complacency to the nice little church there, we certainly did not mean to risk our money at the tables of Roulette, nor yet at the tables of Trente et Quarante, in the Casino. What we really wished to do was to look on in the spiritual security of saints while the sinners of both sexes lost and gained to the equal hurt of their souls. We perhaps expected to hear the report of a pistol in the gardens of the Casino, if we did not actually see the ruined gambler falling among the flowers, or if not so much as this, we thought we might witness his dramatic despair as the croupier drew in the last remnant of his fortune and mechanically invited the other Messieurs and Mesdames to make their game; secretly, we might even have been willing to see something hysterical on the part of the Mesdames if fate frowned upon them, or something scandalously exuberant if it smiled. If our motives were not the worst, they were, at any rate, not the best; I suppose they were the usual human motives, and I am afraid they were mixed.

  We found it rather long from Genoa to Monte Carlo, but this was not so much because of the distance as because of the delays of our train, which, having started late, grew reckless on the way, and before we reached the Italian frontier at Ventimiglia, had lost all shame and failed to connect there with the French train for the rest of our journey. So, instead of having barely time to affirm our innocence of tobacco, spirits, or perfumes to the customs officers, and to wash down a sandwich with a cup of coffee at the restaurant, we had an hour and forty minutes at Ventimiglia, which I partly spent in vain attempts to buy the poverty of the inspector so far as to prevail with him not to delay the examination of our baggage, but to proceed to it at once, in order that we might have it all off our minds, and devote our long leisure to the inquiry by what steps the ancient Ligurian tribe of the Intemelii lost their name in its actual corruption of Ventimiglia. It is a charming old town, far more charming than the stranger who never has time to walk into it from the station can imagine, and there is a palm-bordered avenue leading from the railway to the sea, with the shops and cafes of Italy on one side and the shops and cafes of France on the other. So late as six o’clock in the evening those cafes and shops preserved a reciprocal integrity which I could not praise too highly, but after dark there must be a ghostly interchange of forbidden commodities among them which no force of customs officers could wholly suppress. At any rate, I should have liked to see them try it, though I should not have liked to be kept in Ventimiglia overnight for any less reason; it seemed a lonesome place, though mighty picturesque, with old walls, and a magnificent old fort toward the sea, and a fine bridge spanning, though for the moment superfluously spanning, the perfectly dry bed of a river.

  I wished to ask what the name of the river was, but out of all the files of people coming and going I chose an aged man who could not tell me; he excused himself with real regret on the ground that he was a stranger in those parts. Then there was nothing for me to do but go back to the station and renew my attempt on the inspector, who still remained proof against me. What added to the hardship of the situation was that it was Italy at one end of the station and France at the other, and in one extremity it was an hour earlier than it was at the other, by the time of Central Europe at the east and by the time of Paris at the west, so that I do not know but we were two hours and forty minutes at Ventimiglia instead of one hour and forty minutes. Of this period little could be employed at tea, and we were not otherwise hungry; we could give something of our interminable leisure to counting our baggage and suffering unfounded alarms at failing to make it come out right, but we could not give much.

  The weather had turned chilly, the long station was full of draughts, and the invalid of the party, without whom no American party is perfectly national, was rapidly taking cold. We were quite incredulous when the examination actually began, but at last it really did, and it began with our pieces, with such a show of favoring us on the inspector’s part, that when it was over, in about two minutes, one trunk serving as a type of the innocence of all, I furtively held up a piece of five francs in recognition of his kindness. But he slowly shook his head, whether in regret or whether in stern refusal I shall never know. He was an Italian, but in the employment of the French republic, and I have not been able since to credit with certainty his incorruptibility to his native or his adoptive country; I might easily be mistaken in deciding either way.

  What I am certain of, and certainly sorry for, is the superiority of the French company’s railway carriage, from Ventimiglia on, to the Italian carriage which had brought us so far, and it is still with unwillingness that I own the corporation’s greater care for our comfort. If we had been in the paternal care of the administration of the gambling-house. at Monte Carlo, we could not have been more tenderly or cleanly cushioned about, or borne away on softer springs; and very possibly a measure of wickedness in the means is a condition of comfort in the end to which we are so tempted to abandon ourselves in a world which is not yet so sternly collectivist as I could wish. It was not quite dark when we arrived at Monte Carlo and began to experience, in the beautiful keeping of the place, how admirably a gambling-house can manage the affairs of a principality when it pays all the taxes. There were many two-horse landaus waiting our pleasure outside the station, and the horses were all so robust and handsome that we were not put to our usual painful endeavor in seeking the best and getting the worst. All those stately equipages were good, and the one that fell to us mounted the hill to our hotel by a grade so insinuating that the balkiest horse in Frascati could hardly have suspected it.

  In our easy ascent we were aware of the gray-and-blond houses behind their walls among their groves and gardens, among flowers and blossoms; of the varying inclines and levels from which some lovely difference of prospect appeared at every step; of the admirably tended roadways, and the walks that followed them up hill and down, and crossed to little parks, or led to streets brilliant with shops and hotels, clustering about the great gambling-house, the centre of the common prosperity and animation. The air had softened with the setting sun, and the weather which had at Leghorn and Genoa delayed through two weeks of rain and cold, seemed to confess the control of the Casino administration, as everything else does at Monte Carlo, and promised an amiability to which we eagerly trusted.

  It was of course warmer out-doors than in-doors, and while the fire was kindling on our hearth we gave the quarter hour before dinner to looking over our garden-wall into the comely town in the valley below, and to the palace and capital of the Prince of Monaco on the heights beyond. Nothing by day or by night could be more exquisite than the little harbor, a perfect horseshoe in shape, and now, at our first sight of it, set round with electric lights, like diamonds in the scarf-pin of some sporty Titan, or perhaps of Hercules Monoecus himself, who is said to have founded Monaco. In the morning we saw that the waters arranged themselves in the rainbow colors of such a scarf round the shores, and that there were only pleasure-craft moored in them: the yacht of the Prince of Monaco and the yacht of some American Prince, whose title I did not ascertain, but whose flag was unmistakable. There must have been other yachts, but I do not remember them, and possibly there were some workaday craft, of which I do not now recall the impression; but I am certain of the festive air of disoccupation pervading the port from the adjacent towns, both Monte Carlo and Monaco, which its wicked suburb has cleansed in corrupting, and rendered attractive by the example of its elegant leisure. There remains from both places, and from Condamine in the plain between them the sense of a perpetual round of holidays. There seemed to be no more creative business in one place than another, but I do not say there is none; there is certainly a polite distillery of perfumes and liqueurs in Condamine, but what one sees is the commerce of the shops, and the building up of more and more villas and hotels, on every shelf and ledge, to harden and whiten in the sun, and let their gardens hang over the verges of the cliffs. On the northeast, the mountains rise into magnificent steeps whose names would say nothing to the reader, except that of Turbia, which he will recall as the classic Tropaea of Augustus, who marked there the bounds between Italy and Gaul. But we were as yet in no mood to climb this height, even with the help of a funicular railway, and I made my explorations at such convenient elevations as I could reach on foot, or by the help of one of those luxurious landaus peculiar to Monte Carlo.

  One such point was undoubtedly the headland of Monaco, where the Greeks of Marseilles, long enough before Augustus, built a temple to Hercules Monoecus. The Grimaldi family which gave Genoa many doges, came early into the sovereignty of Monaco, by the hook or crook those days, but whether it was they who fostered its piracy in the fourteenth century, does not distinctly appear, though it seems certain that one of the Grimaldi princes served against the English under Philip of Valois, and was wounded at Crecy. In 1524 a successor went over to the empire under Charles V. Still later the principality returned to the sovereignty of France, and in 1793 the French republicans frankly annexed it, but it was given back to the Grimaldi in 1814.

  The Grimaldi on the whole were a baddish line of potentates, and only lacked largeness of scene to have left the memory of world-tragedies. They murdered one another, at least in two cases; in another, the people killed their ruler by publicly drowning him in the sea for insulting their women; the princes were the protectors of piracy, and in the very late times following their restoration by the Congress of Vienna, the reigning prince confiscated the property of the churches for his own behoof, and took into his hands the whole trade of the principality. He alone bought and ground the grain, and baked the bread, which he sold to his people at an extortionate price; he bought damaged flour in Genoa and fed it to his subjects at the same rate as good. When they murmured and threatened rebellion, he threatened in turn that he would rule them with a rod of iron, as if their actual conditions were not bad enough. Some of his oppressions were of a fantasticality bordering on comic opera: travellers had to give up their provisions at the frontier and eat the official bread of Monaco; ships entering the port were confiscated if they had brought more loaves than sufficed them for their voyage thither; no man might cut his own wood without leave of the police, or prune his trees, or till his land, or irrigate it; the birth and death of every animal must be publicly registered, with the payment of a given tax, and nobody could go out after ten at night without carrying a taxed lantern. When Nice was annexed to France in 1860 Monaco passed under French protection again, and now it is subject to conscription like the rest of France. Ten years after the beginning of this new order of things the great M. Blanc was expelled from Hombourg, and the Prince of Monaco rented to him the-gambling privilege of Monte Carlo.

  Then the modern splendor of the place began. The entire population of the three towns, Monaco, Monte Carlo, and Condamine, is not above fifteen thousand, and apparently the greater part of the inhabitants depend upon the gay industry of the Casino for their livelihood. I should say that the most of the houses in Monte Carlo were hotels, or pensions, or furnished villas, or furnished apartments, and if one could be content to live in the atmosphere of the Casino, which is not meteorologically lurid, I do not know where one could live in greater comfort. It is said that everything is rather dearer than in Nice, for instance, but such things as I wanted to buy I did not find very dear. The rates at the most expensive hotels did not seem exhorbitant when reduced to dollars, and if you went a little way from the Casino the hotels were very reasonable, so that you could spend a great deal of money at the tables which in America you would spend in board and lodging. I fancy that a villa could be got there very reasonably, and as the morals of all the inhabitants are scrupulously cared for by the administration of the Casino, and no one living in the principality is allowed to frequent the gaming-tables, it is probable that domestic service is good and cheap. If I may speak from our experience at our very simple little hotel, it is admirable, one waiter sufficing for ten or twelve guests, with leisure for much friendly conversation in the office, between the breakfasts served in our rooms and the excellent dinners at the small tables in the salon. If you liked, he would speak French or Italian, though he spoke English as well as any one, and he was of that excellent Piedmontese race which has been the saving salt of the whole peninsula. As for the food, it was far beyond that of our cold-storage, and it must have been cheap, since it was provided for us at the rate we paid.

  The cost of dress varies, according to the taste of and the purse, everywhere. White serge seemed the favorite wear of most of the ladies one saw in the street at Monte Carlo, especially in the region of the Casino. This may have expressed an inner condition, or it may have been a sympathetic response to the advances of the flowers in the pretty beds and parterres so fancifully designed by the gardeners of the administration, or it may have been a token of the helpless submission to which the windows of the milliners and modistes reduced all comers of the dressful sex. Many of the men with the women, or without them, were also in white serge, but they seemed more variably attired; there was a prevailing suggestion of yachting or automobiling in their dress, though doubtless most of them had not sailed or motored to the spot. Some few, say four or five, may have motored away from it, for in the centre of the charming square before the Casino there was an automobile of some newest type being raffled for in the interest of that chiefest of the Christian virtues which makes its most successful appeals in the vicinity of games of chance. Some one must have won the machine and carried a party of his friends away, and triumphantly turned turtle with it over the first of the precipices which abound at Monte Carlo. More than the tables within this opportunity of fortune tempted me, and it was only by the repeated recurrence to my principles that I was able to get away alive. In spite of myself, I did not get away without, however guiltlessly, having yielded to the spirit of the place. It was at the Administrational Art Exhibition, where there were really some good pictures, and where, on my entering, I was given a small brass disk. On going out I attempted to restore this to the door-keeper, but he went back with me to a certain piece of mechanism, where he instructed me to put the disk into a slot. Then the disk ran its course, and a small brass ball came out at the bottom. The door-keeper opened this, and showed me that it was empty; but he gave me to understand that it might have been full of diamonds, or rubies, or seed-pearls, which might have implanted in me a lust of gambling I should never have overcome. Monte Carlo was in every way tempting. A vast oblong, brilliant with flowers in artistic patterns, stretched upward from the Casino, and there was an agreeable park where one might sit. On every other side there were costly hotels and costly restaurants, including that of the unexampled, the insurpassable Giro, where one saw people eating and drinking at the windows whenever one passed, by day or night. Beyond the Casino seaward were the beautiful terraces, planted with palms and other tropic growths, where people might come out and kill themselves when they had nothing left to lose but their lives; and against the dark green of their fronds the temple of fortune lifted a frosted-cake-like front of long extent. I do not know just what type of architecture it is of, but it distinctly suggests the art of the pastry cook when he has triumphed in some edifice crowning the centre of the table at a great public dinner. What mars the pleasing effect most is a detail which enforces this suggestion, for the region of the Casino is thickly frequented by a species of black doves, and when these gather in close lines of black dots along the eaves, they have exactly the effect of flies clustering on the sugary surfaces of the cake. At intervals are bronze statues of what seem a sort of adolescent cherubs, but which have, I do not know why, a peculiarly devilish appearance. No doubt they are harmless enough; but certainly they do nothing to keep the flies off the cake.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449 450 451 452 453 454 455 456 457 458 459 460 461 462 463 464 465 466 467 468 469 470 471 472 473 474 475 476 477 478 479 480 481 482 483 484 485 486 487 488 489 490 491 492 493 494 495 496 497 498 499 500 501 502 503 504 505 506 507 508 509 510 511 512 513 514 515 516 517 518 519 520 521 522 523 524 525 526 527 528 529 530 531 532 533 534 535 536 537 538 539 540 541 542 543 544 545 546 547 548 549 550 551 552 553 554 555 556 557 558 559 560 561 562 563 564 565 566 567 568 569 570 571 572 573 574 575 576 577 578 579 580 581 582 583 584 585 586 587 588 589 590 591 592 593 594 595 596 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 604 605 606 607 608 609 610 611 612 613 614 615 616 617 618 619 620 621 622 623 624 625 626 627 628 629 630 631 632 633 634 635 636 637 638 639 640 641 642 643 644 645 646 647 648 649 650 651 652 653 654 655 656 657 658 659 660 661 662 663 664 665 666 667 668 669 670 671 672 673 674 675 676 677 678 679 680 681 682 683 684 685 686 687 688 689 690 691 692 693 694 695 696 697 698 699 700 701 702 703 704 705 706 707 708 709 710 711 712 713 714 715 716 717 718 719 720 721 722 723 724 725 726 727 728 729 730 731 732 733 734 735 736 737 738 739 740 741 742 743 744 745 746 747 748 749 750 751 752 753 754 755 756 757 758 759 760 761 762 763 764 765 766 767 768 769 770 771 772 773 774 775 776 777 778 779 780 781 782 783 784 785 786 787 788 789 790 791 792 793 794 795 796 797 798 799 800 801 802 803 804 805 806 807 808 809 810 811 812 813 814 815 816 817 818 819 820 821 822 823 824 825 826 827 828 829 830 831 832 833 834 835 836 837 838 839 840 841 842 843 844 845 846 847 848 849 850 851 852 853 854 855 856 857 858 859 860 861 862 863 864 865 866 867 868 869 870 871 872 873 874 875 876 877 878 879 880 881 882 883 884 885 886 887 888 889 890 891 892 893 894 895 896 897 898 899 900 901 902 903 904 905 906 907 908 909 910 911 912 913 914 915 916 917 918 919 920 921 922 923 924 925 926 927 928 929 930 931 932 933 934 935 936 937 938 939 940 941 942 943 944 945 946 947 948 949 950 951 952 953 954 955 956 957 958 959 960 961 962 963 964 965 966 967 968 969 970 971 972 973 974 975 976 977 978 979 980 981 982 983 984 985 986 987 988 989 990 991 992 993 994 995 996 997 998 999 1000 1001 1002 1003 1004 1005 1006 1007 1008 1009 1010 1011 1012 1013 1014 1015 1016 1017 1018 1019 1020 1021 1022 1023 1024 1025 1026 1027 1028 1029 1030 1031 1032 1033 1034 1035 1036 1037 1038 1039 1040 1041 1042 1043 1044 1045 1046 1047 1048 1049 1050 1051 1052 1053 1054 1055 1056 1057 1058 1059 1060 1061 1062 1063 1064 1065 1066 1067 1068 1069 1070 1071 1072 1073 1074 1075 1076 1077 1078 1079 1080 1081 1082 1083 1084 1085 1086 1087 1088 1089 1090 1091 1092 1093 1094 1095 1096 1097 1098 1099 1100 1101 1102 1103 1104 1105 1106 1107 1108 1109 1110 1111 1112 1113 1114 1115 1116 1117 1118 1119 1120 1121 1122 1123 1124 1125 1126 1127 1128 1129 1130 1131 1132 1133 1134 1135 1136 1137 1138 1139 1140 1141 1142 1143 1144 1145 1146 1147 1148 1149 1150 1151 1152 1153 1154 1155 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160 1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1166 1167 1168 1169 1170 1171 1172 1173 1174 1175 1176 1177 1178 1179 1180 1181 1182 1183 1184 1185 1186 1187 1188 1189 1190 1191 1192 1193 1194 1195 1196 1197 1198 1199 1200 1201 1202 1203 1204 1205 1206 1207 1208 1209 1210 1211 1212 1213 1214 1215 1216 1217 1218 1219 1220 1221 1222 1223 1224 1225 1226 1227 1228 1229 1230 1231 1232 1233 1234 1235 1236 1237 1238 1239 1240 1241 1242 1243 1244 1245 1246 1247 1248 1249 1250 1251 1252 1253 1254 1255 1256 1257 1258 1259 1260 1261 1262 1263 1264 1265 1266 1267 1268 1269 1270 1271 1272 1273 1274 1275 1276 1277 1278 1279 1280 1281 1282 1283 1284 1285 1286 1287 1288 1289 1290 1291 1292 1293 1294 1295 1296 1297 1298 1299 1300 1301 1302 1303 1304 1305 1306 1307 1308 1309 1310 1311 1312 1313 1314 1315 1316 1317 1318 1319 1320 1321 1322 1323 1324 1325 1326 1327 1328 1329 1330 1331 1332 1333 1334 1335 1336 1337 1338 1339 1340 1341 1342 1343 1344 1345 1346 1347 1348 1349 1350 1351 1352 1353 1354 1355 1356 1357 1358 1359 1360 1361 1362 1363 1364 1365 1366 1367 1368 1369 1370 1371 1372 1373 1374 1375 1376 1377 1378 1379 1380 1381 1382 1383 1384 1385 1386 1387 1388 1389 1390 1391 1392 1393 1394 1395 1396 1397 1398 1399 1400 1401 1402 1403 1404 1405 1406 1407 1408 1409 1410 1411 1412 1413 1414 1415 1416 1417 1418 1419 1420 1421 1422 1423 1424 1425 1426 1427 1428 1429 1430 1431 1432 1433 1434 1435 1436 1437 1438 1439 1440 1441 1442 1443 1444 1445 1446 1447 1448 1449 1450 1451 1452 1453 1454 1455 1456 1457 1458 1459 1460 1461 1462 1463 1464 1465 1466 1467 1468 1469 1470 1471 1472 1473 1474 1475 1476 1477 1478 1479 1480 1481 1482 1483 1484 1485 1486 1487 1488 1489 1490 1491 1492 1493 1494 1495 1496 1497 1498 1499 1500 1501 1502 1503 1504 1505 1506 1507 1508 1509 1510 1511 1512 1513 1514 1515 1516 1517 1518 1519 1520 1521 1522 1523 1524 1525 1526 1527 1528 1529 1530 1531 1532 1533 1534 1535 1536 1537 1538 1539 1540 1541 1542 1543 1544 1545 1546 1547 1548 1549 1550 1551 1552 1553 1554 1555 1556 1557 1558 1559 1560 1561 1562 1563 1564 1565 1566 1567 1568 1569 1570 1571 1572 1573 1574 1575 1576 1577 1578 1579 1580 1581 1582 1583 1584 1585 1586 1587 1588 1589 1590 1591 1592 1593 1594 1595 1596 1597 1598 1599 1600 1601 1602 1603 1604 1605 1606 1607 1608 1609 1610 1611 1612 1613 1614 1615 1616 1617 1618 1619 1620 1621
Add Fast Bookmark
Load Fast Bookmark
Turn Navi On
Turn Navi On
Turn Navi On
Scroll Up
Turn Navi On
Scroll
Turn Navi On
183