Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-04-30
MAETERL1NcK A TMoNTE CARLO
Where Nervous Force and Human Pas sion Accumulate

sion Accumulate.
 Around the tables crowd the faith ful. Each of them carries within him. self hopes, belief, different and invisi- ble tragedies and comedies. This, l think is the spot in which more ner- vOus force and more human passions are accumulated and sheerly squan-~ dered than in any other in the world. This is the ill-omened spot where the peerless and perhaps, divine substance of substances, which, in every other place works pregnant miracles, prodi- gies of strength, of beauty, and Of love, this Is the fatal spot where the flower of the soul, the most precious fluid on the plant, leaks away into nothingness! No more criminal waste can be conceived. This unprofitable force which knows neither where to go nor what to do, which finds neither door nor window, no direct object nor manner of transmission, hovers over the table like a mortal shadow, falls back upon itself, and creates partic- ular atmosphere, a sort of sweating si- lence which somehow expresses the fever of true silence. In this unwhole- some stiffness the voice of fate's little quill-driver snuffles out the sacred for mula: Faites vos jeuX. messieurs, faites vos jeux! That Is to say, make to the hidden god the sacrifice which he demands before he shows himself. Then, somewhere from the crowd, a hand bright with certainty places inn periously the fruit of a years work of numbers that cannot fail. Other ador- CTS. more cunning, more circumspect, | less confident, compound with luck, distribute their chances. compute illu- sive probabilities and, having studied the mood and peculiarities of the gen. ius of the table, lay complex and know | ing traps for it. Others. again, hand over a considerable portion of their happiness of their life, at random, to the caprice of numbers.
 But now the second formula re- sounds: Rien ne va plus! That is to say, the god is about to speak! At this moment an eye that could pierce the easy veil of appearances would r distinctly see scattered on the plain green cloth If not actually then at least potentially. for a single stake is rare, and he who plays of his super f1uity to-day will risk his all to-mor- row. a medical dreamer's hobby; 1t needed, and miles away, or again, 1n other souares, a meadow, a wood, a moonlit country house, a shop in some | little market town, a stair or DOCK l keepers and accountants bending over 1edgers in their gloomy offices, peasants | laboring in the rain, hundreds of work 1 girls slaving from morn to night Ill deadly factories, miners in the mines, sailors on their ship; the jewels of de bauchery. love, or glory; a prison, a dock yard; joy, misery, injustice, cruel ty, avarice; crimes, privations, tears. All this lies there, very peacefully, ] in those little heaps of smiling gold, In those fimsy scraps of paper which or dain disasters that even lifetime would be powerless ever to efface. The slightest timid and hesitating move ments of these yellow counters and blue notes will rebound and swell out | in the distance. in the real world. in the streets, in the plains. in the trees in mems blood and in their hearts. They will demollsh the house that saw the parents die, carry off the old mans chair, give d new squire to the aston ished village, close a workshop. take away the bread from the children of a hamlet divert the course, of a river stay or break life; and through an infnity of time and space burst the links of an uninterrupted chain ot cause and effect. But none of those resounding truths utters an indiscreet whisper here.-Harper's Weekly.