Page:Reminisences of Captain Gronow.djvu/139

Rh centre night and day upon the tapis vert, and at the entrance of this salon was that fatal chamber, over which might have been written the famous line of Dante, "Voi che entrate lasciate ogni speranza." The reader will at once understand that I am referring to the gambling-house, the so-called "hell" of modern society. In one room was the rouge et noir table, which, from the hour of twelve in the morning, was surrounded by men in every stage of the gambling malady. There was the young pigeon, who, on losing his first feather, had experienced an exciting sensation which, if followed by a bit of good luck, gave him a confidence that the parasites around him, in order to flatter his vanity, would call pluck. There were others in a more advanced stage of the fever, who had long since lost the greater part of their incomes, having mortgaged their property, and been in too frequent correspondence with the Jews. These men had not got to the last stage of gambling despair, but they were so far advanced on the road to perdition that their days were clouded by perpetual anxiety, which reproduced itself in their very dreams. The gambler who has thus far advanced in his career, lives in an inferno of his own