Tokens carry no value
The tokens are counters and nothing more. They cannot be bought, sold or exchanged for money, goods or credit, and no cash is handled in the salon at any point.
Home / Card Salon
Green cloth, and nothing staked
When the kitchen closes, the library on the first floor becomes a salon for cards as a sociable pastime. It is played with symbolic tokens: no money is staked, no winnings are paid, and no gambling is carried on.
Symbolic tokens only
The card salon
An old custom, given a proper room
The custom is old and very Viennese: after the meal nobody leaves. An apricot brandy is ordered, the cards are laid out and the evening draws on. We have simply given that custom a proper room — two tables with cloth, eight places each, warm light from above and a door that closes.
The game is a pretext for company. Whoever has never played finds a beginners' table on Thursday; whoever has played for years prefers Saturday, when the tempo turns more serious but the tone stays the same.
“What is won is a conversation, not a prize.”
How the salon works
Three things worth knowing
We describe the salon plainly, because the plain description is the whole point of it.
Sixteen places, no more
Two tables of eight. Because the number is small, a place is set aside in advance rather than found on the night.
One room among many
The salon is a room, not the reason the house exists. Most guests spend an evening here without ever going upstairs, and that is exactly the idea.