Letters of Anton Chekhov (Tchekhov) - Penn State University

Anton ChekhovTO HIS BROTHER MIHAIL.NICE, Monday in Holy Week, April, 1891.We are staying in Nice, on the sea-front. The sun is shining, it iswarm, green and fragrant, but windy. An hour’s journey from Nice isthe famous Monaco. There is Monte Carlo, where roulette is played.Imagine the rooms of the Hall of Nobility but handsomer, loftier andlarger. There are big tables, and on the tables roulette—which I willdescribe to you when I get home. The day before yesterday I wentover there, played and lost. The game is fearfully fascinating. Afterlosing, Suvorin fils and I fell to thinking it over, and thought out asystem which would ensure one’s winning. We went yesterday, takingfive hundred francs each; at the first staking I won two gold pieces,then again and again; my waistcoat pockets bulged with gold. I hadin hand French money even of the year 1808, as well as Belgian,Italian, Greek, and Austrian coins.... I have never before seen so muchgold and silver. I began playing at five o’clock and by ten I had not asingle franc in my pocket, and the only thing left me was the satisfactionof knowing that I had my return ticket to Nice. So there it is, myfriends! You will say, of course: “What a mean thing to do! We are sopoor, while he out there plays roulette.” Perfectly just, and I give youpermission to slay me. But I personally am much pleased with myself.Anyway, now I can tell my grandchildren that I have played roulette,and know the feeling which is excited by gambling.Beside the Casino where roulette is played there is anotherswindle—the restaurants. They fleece one frightfully and feed onemagnificently. Every dish is a regular work of art, before which oneis expected to bow one’s knee in homage and to be too awe-strickento eat it. Every morsel is rigged out with lots of artichokes, truffles,and nightingales’ tongues of all sorts. And, good Lord! how contemptibleand loathsome this life is with its artichokes, its palms,and its smell of orange blossoms! I love wealth and luxury, but theluxury here, the luxury of the gambling saloon, reminds one of aluxurious water-closet. There is something in the atmosphere thatoffends one’s sense of decency and vulgarizes the scenery, the soundof the sea, the moon.241