A Wedding Trip

by condesa de Emilia Pardo Bazán

The Casino was for Perico and Miranda, as for all the other idlers of the colony, house and home during the time they spent at the springs. The great edifice, taken as a whole, might be likened to a concert of voices, inviting to the enjoyment of the rapid and easy life of our age. The spacious peristyle, the principal façade with its broad roof, its private garden where exotic plants grow in graceful baskets, and its rich and fanciful ornamentation of dazzling whiteness; the tall columns of burnished porphyry that support the interior portion of the building; its luxurious arm-chairs and broad divans; the mischievous cupids (artistic symbol of the ephemeral passions that last during a two weeks’ course of the waters), that run around the cornice of the large ball-room or hover on the blue background of the broad panels of the theater; the profusion of gold, artistically disposed in touches, like points of light, or in long stripes, like sunbeams; the large window—everything, in short, contributes to give one the idea of an Athenian temple, improved and enriched with the benefits and pleasures of modern civilization. A glance at the southern façade of the Casino discovers at once the numen to whom worship and sacrifice are here paid, the nymph of the waters, gracefully inclining her urn, while from some rushes at her feet emerge two cupids, one of them supporting a shell, which receives in its hollow the sacred water that flows in a copious stream from the urn. The priests and flamens of the temple of the nymphs are the waiters of the Casino who, at a sign, a movement of the lips, hasten, swiftly and silently, to bring the desired article—cigars, newspapers, writing-materials, refreshments, even the waters, which they carry at a run, in a little tank, turned mouth downward over a plate, so that they may not lose their temperature or the gases which give them their value.

Miranda’s favorite resort was the reading-room, where were to be found various Spanish periodicals, including the organ of Colmenar, which he read with the air of a statesman. Perico was more frequently to be found in another apartment, gloomy as a cave, with hangings of a dirty gray, adorned with red fringe, in which a row of spotted guttapercha benches stood fronting a row of tables covered with the traditional melodramatic and much worn green cloth. As the out-going tide deposits on the shore fringe after fringe of seaweed, so on the backs of the red guttapercha benches had the heads and shoulders of the players deposited a series of layers of filth, signs which grew more marked in proportion as the benches receded and the play rose from harmless piquet to exciting écarté, for the row began with social games and ended with games of chance. The benches at the entrance were clean in comparison with those at the far end of the room. This apartment, in which rites so unholy were practiced in honor of the nymph of the waters, had witnessed many deeds of prowess of Perico, which, from the resemblance they bore to others of the same order, do not deserve special mention. Still less worthy of description are the scenes, dear to the novelist, that succeeded one another at the gaming tables. Play at Vichy partakes, to some extent, of the hygienic refinement characteristic of the place, whose inhabitants take pleasure in saying that no one has ever blown his brains out in their town on account of the green cloth, as constantly happens at Monaco; so that the hall of the Casino does not lend itself to descriptions of the dramatic or soul-harrowing order. There the loser puts his hands into his pockets and walks out of the room, more or less disgusted according as he happens to be of the nervous or the lymphatic temperament, but satisfied that he has been fleeced in a perfectly legitimate manner, a fact which is guaranteed to him by the presence there of government officials and agents of the company of lessees with the purpose of preventing cheating, quarreling, or disturbances of a similar kind, proper only to low gambling houses and not at all in place in those Olympic regions in which the cards are dealt with gloved hands.

It is to be adverted that although Perico was one of those who most contributed, by the pomade on his hair and the friction of his shoulders, to grease and polish the backs of the guttapercha benches, he did not correspond to the traditional type of the gambler, as portrayed in pictures of a moral and edifying character. When he lost, it never occurred to him to tear his hair, blaspheme, or raise his clenched fists to Heaven. It is true, indeed, that he took every precaution which it was possible to take not to lose. Play is like war; fortune and chance are said to decide the victory in both; but the skillful strategist knows very well that a plan which is the result at once of insight and of reflection, which is at the same time analytic and synthetic, generally secures an easy triumph. In both cases, an error in calculation may lead to ruin, and in both, if it be true that the skillful generally vanquish, it is no less true that the daring at times sweep all before them and conquer in their turn. Perico possessed a profound knowledge of the science of play, and, in addition, carefully studied the character of his adversaries, a course which seldom fails to produce happy results. There are people who grow angry or confused in playing, and act according to the mood they chance to be in, so that it is easy to surprise and vanquish them. Perhaps the enigma called luck, chance, or happy inspiration is nothing but the superiority of the man who retains his judgment and his self-possession over other men who are mad with passion. In short, Perico, who, although impulsive and loquacious to excess, had a head cool as ice, understood so well the marches and counter-marches of the battle fought every day in the Casino, that after winning many small fortunes he succeeded in winning a large fortune in the shape of a good-sized bundle of thousand-franc notes, which he quietly put into his waistcoat pocket and then walked out of the hall with his accustomed air and bearing, leaving the loser to reflect on the transitoriness of all earthly possessions. This happened on the day following that on which Lucía had manifested to Pilar so great an interest in the health of Artegui’s mother. Perico was not naturally parsimonious, at least not unless he needed money for his amusements, when he would economize a maravedi, and making a sign to Pilar, who was in the Salle des Dames, to walk with him outside on the roof, he said to her, giving her his arm:

“So that you may not be always saying that I did not buy you anything at Vichy, see, I am going to make you a present.”

“A present?” and Pilar opened wide her eyes.

“A present, yes. One would think that I had never made you a present before. Come, say what you want, say what you want.”

“But are you in earnest? How generous you are getting!” said the sick girl; “will you buy me anything I ask you?”

“Come to the shops and choose,” he said, leading the way.

Pilar hesitated long, like a child before a dish of various kinds of sweetmeats; at last she made choice of two diamonds, clear as two drops of water, for her ears, and a hand mirror, with a frame of chased gold, a novel and fanciful trinket worn hanging from the belt, a style of ornament which no one in Vichy but the Swede had yet been seen to wear. On returning home with her purchases, the sick girl’s eyes shone so brightly and her cheeks were so rosy that Perico said:

“You women are the very devil. One has only to give you a tambourine or a bell, a bell, to cure you of all your ailments. I laugh at drugs, I laugh at drugs. I wager you have no pain in the stomach, now.”