d which are daily to
be seen lying on their tables. Those journalists are not paid for
doing so: they write thus merely out of a spirit of disinterested
complaisance. For there is nothing splendid about the establishments in
question; and, not only are there no heaps of gold to be seen lying on
their tables, but also there is very little money to be seen at all. Of
course, during the season, some madman or another may make his
appearance--generally an Englishman, or an Asiatic, or a Turk--and (as
had happened during the summer of which I write) win or lose a great
deal; but, as regards the rest of the crowd, it plays only for petty
gulden, and seldom does much wealth figure on the board.

When, on the present occasion, I entered the gaming-rooms (for the
first time in my life), it was several moments before I could even make
up my mind to play. For one thing, the crowd oppressed me. Had I been
playing for myself, I think I should have left at once, and never have
embarked upon gambling at all, for I could feel my heart beginning to
beat, and my heart was anything but cold-blooded. Also, I knew, I had
long ago made up my mind, that never should I depart from Roulettenberg
until some radical, some final, change had taken place in my fortunes.
Thus, it must and would be. However ridiculous it may seem to you that
I was expecting to win at roulette, I look upon the generally accepted
opinion concerning the folly and the grossness of hoping to win at
gambling as a thing even more absurd. For why is gambling a whit worse
than any other method of acquiring money? How, for instance, is it
worse than trade? True, out of a hundred persons, only one can win; yet
what business is that of yours or of mine?

At all events, I confined myself at first simply to looking on, and
decided to attempt nothing serious. Indeed, I felt that, if I began to
do anything at all, I should do it in an absent-minded, haphazard sort
of way--of that I felt certain. Also, it behoved me to learn the game
itself; since, despite a thousand descriptions of roulette which I had
read with ceaseless avidity, I knew nothing of its rules, and had never
even seen it played.

In the first place, everything about it seemed to me so foul--so
morally mean and foul. Yet I am not speaking of the hungry, restless
folk who, by scores nay, even by hundreds--could be seen crowded around
the gaming-tables. For in a desire to win quickly and to win much I can
see nothing