win caused this gambling for gain, in spite of its attendant
squalor, to contain, if you will, something intimate, something
sympathetic, to my eyes: for it is always pleasant to see men
dispensing with ceremony, and acting naturally, and in an
unbuttoned mood. . . .

Yet, why should I so deceive myself? I
could see that the whole thing was a vain and unreasoning
pursuit; and what, at the first glance, seemed to me the ugliest
feature in this mob of roulette players was their respect for
their occupation--the seriousness, and even the humility, with
which they stood around the gaming tables. Moreover, I had
always drawn sharp distinctions between a game which is de
mauvais genre and a game which is permissible to a decent man.
In fact, there are two sorts of gaming--namely, the game of the
gentleman and the game of the plebs--the game for gain, and the
game of the herd. Herein, as said, I draw sharp distinctions.
Yet how essentially base are the distinctions! For instance, a
gentleman may stake, say, five or ten louis d'or--seldom more,
unless he is a very rich man, when he may stake, say, a thousand
francs; but, he must do this simply for the love of the game
itself--simply for sport, simply in order to observe the process
of winning or of losing, and, above all things, as a man who
remains quite uninterested in the possibility of his issuing a
winner. If he wins, he will be at liberty, perhaps, to give vent
to a laugh, or to pass a remark on the circumstance to a
bystander, or to stake again, or to double his stake; but, even
this he must do solely out of curiosity, and for the pleasure of
watching the play of chances and of calculations, and not
because of any vulgar desire to win. In a word, he must look