With the bombardment of Paris the population of the Riviera had increased considerably in a few weeks. The trains were arriving packed with fugitives. The streets of Nice were filled with strangers just as in peace times, when the Carnival was celebrated. Monte Carlo found its crowds largely increased and new gambling rooms were opened in the Casino.
Toledo spent the afternoon and the early evening hours in the anteroom, always expecting good news, and accepting the bad with an easy optimism which found excuse and justification for everything.
The circle of his friends was gradually increasing. Every day he came across well known faces that he had not seen for a long time. He shook hands, and returned greetings. "You here!" The cannon firing on Paris from an extraordinary distance filled the gambling rooms with a well-dressed crowd, almost as numerous as that of peace times.
Don Marcos continued to announce the reaction, the counter-offensive for the following day, as though he were in touch in some mysterious way with the General Staff. And the anger aroused by the daily failure of his predictions was taken out on the gamblers. "What a life, what an indecent life! Appetites that know no morals! The selfishness of brutes!"
The people around the Colonel seemed to be sorry for a moment as they read the bad news. Then, the majority entered the Casino. Perhaps it was a lack of thoughtfulness on their part, or perhaps it showed a desire to forget, to seek in gambling the illusions of alcohol. But the tiny ivory ball whirled tirelessly in the many roulette wheels. The cards did not cease to fall in double row on the trente et quarante tables, and the crowds around the green boards kept on increasing.
The people were nervous, argumentative, and irritable, and lost their manners over a mere gambling incident. The activity on the far-off battle line spread like a fierce wind, around the tables; there was an aggressive look in the eyes of the women. Every cannon shot fired on far-away Paris reverberated like an echo in the rain of money falling in Monte Carlo.
When Toledo, the strategist, attempted to put forth his opinions and plans in Villa Sirena, he found a less attentive audience than in the ante-room of the Casino. The Prince had much more interesting things to think of. Novoa displayed a certain selfish joy, as though considering this period the best in his life, and the world's misfortunes merely something which gave a keener zest to his secret happiness. Spadoni listened to war talk as though people were talking of some ancient fiction.
As for him, reality was what he wanted, and he interrupted the Colonel to tell him about more interesting matters. At present he scorned the Casino, and was frequenting the Sporting-Club, where there gathered the boldest gamblers who preferred to use chips of five thousand francs. A Greek, who had been a common sailor in his youth, reigned there like a hero of epic legends, admired by the ladies in ball-room dresses and the solemn gentlemen in evening clothes who gathered together in that aristocratic club. He had learned to read and write after he had grown up, but he possessed an immense fortune. The night before, after dealing for three hours, he had won a million two hundred thousand francs. Spadoni had seen it with his own eyes, and imitated the hero's gestures as he rose from the table, with a little wicker basket held in both hands, a miserable little basket containing, as so much sweepings, heaps of blue bills, and piles of five thousand franc chips. Why should they talk to him about Generals and battles? There was a man for you!
Castro had been listening to the Colonel in a silence that augured ill, and with a coolly aggressive look. Suddenly, he interrupted the plans of strategy of Don Marcos.
"And when are they going to promote you?"