He thought of himself as
one of the few, the very few, people within a wide range of Monte Carlo
for whom the Casino meant nothing. For surely there were few indeed.
Even the peasants among the mountains owed their living indirectly to
the Casino. Because of its existence they were able to command large
prices for their fruit and flowers and vegetables, or anything they
could produce which pleasure-lovers drawn by the Casino could possibly
want. Over there on the Rock, where red roofs of houses crowded closely
together, everybody lived in one way or other by the Casino. No one,
Vanno had been told, who was not Monegasque by birth or nationalization
was allowed to live on the Rock. Probably many of the croupiers in the
Casino and their families had houses there, and perhaps many were
shopkeepers down in the Condamine, where the cheap hotels and
lodging-houses were. Few of those hotels, or the more luxurious ones at
Monte Carlo itself, would exist if it were not for the Casino, and the
whole Riviera would be less prosperous. But Vanno was persuaded that he
cared nothing for the gold of the dragon.
Once before, when he was almost a boy, he had come here with his brother
Angelo for a few days. They had gone to see the Prince, whose ancient
family, the Grimaldis, was older and more important even than the house
of Rienzi. Vanno had promised Angelo that he would call at the palace
this time, and he decided to do so formally in the afternoon; the
morning he resolved to spend in walking up to La Turbie and down again.
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