The Land of Cockayne: A Novel

by Matilde Serao

'With your permission,' said Cesare Fragalà, coming in smiling.

'My honoured patron, how are the wife and child?'

'Very well indeed, Don Gennaro. They are Fragalàs, a strong house, with no bad luck. You keep well, do you not?'

'Quite well; but Naples bores me. Cesare, this is a beggarly country. In a week I go off to Nice and Monte Carlo; after that I go to Paris.'

'Do you play at Monte Carlo?' Fragalà asked, with a scrutinizing look.

'Yes, a little. I often win; I have luck; I am learning to play.'

'How will that serve you?'

'It is good to know everything,' Parascandolo answered modestly. 'Have you never been there?'

'No,' said Cesare thoughtfully, 'I have a wife and daughter; still, it is a fine thing to gain twenty-five or a hundred thousand francs in an evening!' One could read in his eyes, that filled at once with melancholy avarice, a great passion for heavy, immediate gains, depending on luck, and for the most part unlawful.