I have been nicely brought up. I never visit
places at night. You ought to be familiar with my habits after all this
time."
"True. Then it must have been some one else. Ah, these electricians'
bills!"
Or this:
"Monsieur, Monsieur! The English Consul called yesterday with his little
dog at about five o'clock. He waited in your room, but you never came
back."
"Five o'clock? I was at the baths."
"I have heard of that establishment. What do they charge for a hot
bath?"
"Three francs - - "
"Bon Dieu!"
" - if you take an abonnement. Otherwise, it may well be more."
"And so you go there. Why then - why must you also wash in the morning
and splash water on my floor? It may have to be polished after your
departure. Would you mind asking the Consul, by the way, not to sit on
the bed? It weakens the springs."
Or this:
"Might I beg you, Monsieur, to tread more lightly on the carpet in your
room? I bought it only nine years ago, and it already shows signs of
wear."
"Nine years - that old rag? It must have survived by a miracle."
"I do not ask you to avoid using it. I only beg you will tread as
lightly as possible."
"Carpets are meant to be worn out."
"You would express yourself less forcibly, if you had to pay for them."
"Let us say then: carpets are meant to be trodden on."
"Lightly."
"I am not a fairy, Madame."
"I wish you were, Monsieur."
Thrice already, in a burst of confidence, has she told me the story of
an egg - an egg which rankles in the memory. Some years ago, it seems,
she went to a certain shop (naming it) - a shop she has avoided ever
since - to buy an egg; and paid the full price - yes, the full price - of a
fresh egg. That particular egg was not fresh. So far from fresh was it,
that she experienced considerable difficulty in swallowing it.
A memorable episode occurred about a fortnight ago. I was greeted
towards 8 a.m. with moanings in the passage, where Madame tottered
around, her entire head swathed in a bundle of nondescript woollen
wraps, out of which there peered one steely, vulturesque eye. She looked
more than ever like an animated fungus.
Her teeth - her teeth! The pain was past enduring. The whole jaw, rather;
all the teeth at one and the same time; they were unaccountably loose
and felt, moreover, three inches longer than they ought to feel. Never
had she suffered such agony - never in all her life. What could it be?
It was easy to diagnose periostitis, and prescribe tincture of iodine.
"That will cost about a franc," she observed.
"Very likely."
"I think I'll wait."
Next day the pain was worse instead of better. She would give anything
to obtain relief - anything!
"Anything?" I inquired. "Then you had better have a morphia injection. I
have had numbers of them, for the same trouble. The pain will vanish
like magic. There is my friend Dr. Theophile Fornari - - "
"I know all about him. He demands five francs a visit, even from poor
people like myself."
"You really cannot expect a busy practitioner to come here and climb
your seventy-two stairs for much less than five francs."
"I think I'll wait. Anyhow, I am not wasting money on food just now, and
that is a consolation."
Now periostitis can hardly be called an amusing complaint, and I would
have purchased a franc's worth of iodine for almost anybody on earth.
Not then. On the contrary, I grew positively low-spirited when, after
three more days, the lamentations began to diminish in volume. They were
sweet music to my ears, at the time. They are sweeter by far, in
retrospect. If only one could extract the same amount of innocent and
durable pleasure out of all other landladies!...
My second joyful memory centres round another thing of beauty - a spiky
agave (miscalled aloe) of monstrous dimensions which may be seen in the
garden of a certain hill-side hotel. Many are the growths of this kind
which I have admired in various lands; none can vaunt as proud and
harmonious a development as this one. You would say it had been cast in
some dull blue metal. The glaucous wonder stands by itself, a prodigy of
good style, more pleasing to the eye than all that painfully generated
tropicality of Mr. Hanbury's Mortola paradise. It is flawless. Vainly
have I teased my fancy, endeavouring to discover the slightest defect in
shape or hue. Firm-seated on the turf, in exultant pose, with a pallid
virginal bloom upon those mighty writhing leaves, this plant has drawn
me like a magnet, day after day, to drink deep draughts of contentment
from its exquisite lines.
For the rest, the whole agave family thrives at Mentone; the ferox is
particularly well represented; one misses, among others, that delightful
medio-picta variety, of which I have noticed only a few indifferent
specimens. [1] It is the same with the yuccas; they flourish here,
though one kind, again, is conspicuous by its absence - the Atkinsi
(some such name, for it is long since I planted my last yucca) with
drooping leaves of golden-purple. You will be surprised at the number of
agaves in flower here. The reason is, that they are liable to be moved
about for ornamental purposes when they want to be at rest; the plant,
more sensitive and fastidious than it looks, is outraged by this
forceful perambulation and, in an access of premature senility, or
suicidal mania, or sheer despair, gives birth to its only flower - herald
of death. The fatal climax could be delayed if gardeners, in
transplanting, would at least take the trouble to set them in their old
accustomed exposure so far as the cardinal points are concerned. But
your professional gardener knows everything; it is useless for an
amateur to offer him advice; worse than useless, of course, to ask him
for it.
