A Versailles Christmas-Tide | Page 4

at home. I think the logs that purred and
crackled on the hearth had much to do with its air of welcome. There is
a sense of companionship about a wood fire that more enduring coal
lacks. Like a delicate child, the very care it demands nurtures your
affection. There was something delightfully foreign and picturesque to
our town ideas in the heap of logs that Karl carried up in a great panier
and piled at the side of the hearth. Even the little faggots of kindling
wood, willow-knotted and with the dry copper-tinted leaves still
clinging to the twigs, had a rustic charm.
These were pleasant moments when, ascending from the chill outer air,
we found our chamber aglow with ruddy firelight that glinted in the
mirrors and sparkled on the shining surface of the polished floor; when
we drew our chairs up to the hearth, and, scorning the electric light,
revelled in the beauty of the leaping and darting flames.
It was only in the salle-à-manger that we saw the other occupants of
the hotel; and when we learned that several of them had lived en
pension under the roof of the assiduous proprietor for periods varying
from five to seven years, we felt ephemeral, mere creatures of a
moment, and wholly unworthy of regard.
[Illustration: Ursa Major]
At eight o'clock Karl brought the petit déjeûner of coffee and rolls to
our room. At eleven, our morning visit to the school hospital over, we
breakfasted in the salle-à-manger, a large bright room, one or other of
whose many south windows had almost daily, even in the depth of
winter, to be shaded against the rays of the sun. Three chandeliers of
glittering crystal starred with electric lights depended from the ceiling.
Half a dozen small tables stood down each side; four larger ones
occupied the centre of the floor, and were reserved for transient custom.
The first thing that struck us as peculiar was that every table save ours

was laid for a single person, with a half bottle of wine, red or white,
placed ready, in accordance with the known preference of the expected
guest. We soon gathered that several of the regular customers lodged
outside and, according to the French fashion, visited the hotel for meals
only. After the early days of keen anxiety regarding our invalid had
passed, we began to study our fellow guests individually and to note
their idiosyncrasies. Sitting at our allotted table during the progress of
the leisurely meals, we used to watch as one habitué after another
entered, and, hanging coat and hat upon certain pegs, sat silently down
in his accustomed place, with an unvarying air of calm deliberation.
Then Iorson, the swift-footed garçon, would skim over the polished
boards to the newcomer, and, tendering the menu, would wait, pencil in
hand, until the guest, after careful contemplation, selected his five plats
from its comprehensive list.
[Illustration: Meal Considerations]
The most picturesque man of the company had white moustaches of
surprising length. On cold days he appeared enveloped in a fur coat, a
garment of shaggy brown which, in conjunction with his hirsute
countenance, made his aspect suggest the hero in pantomime
renderings of "Beauty and the Beast." But in our hotel there was no
Beauty, unless indeed it were Yvette, and Yvette could hardly be
termed beautiful.
Yvette also lived outside. She did not come to déjeûner, but every night
precisely at a quarter-past seven the farther door would open, and
Yvette, her face expressing disgust with the world and all the things
thereof, would enter.
Yvette was blonde, with neat little features, a pale complexion, and tiny
hands that were always ringless. She rang the changes on half a dozen
handsome cloaks of different degrees of warmth. To an intelligent
observer their wear might have served as a thermometer. Yvette was
blasée, and her millinery was in sympathy with her feelings. Her hats
had all a fringe of disconsolate feathers, whose melancholy plumage
emphasised the downward curve of her mouth. To see Yvette enter

from the darkness and, seating herself at her solitary table, droop over
her plate as though there were nothing in Versailles worth sitting
upright for, was to view ennui personified.
Yvette invariably drank white wine, and the food rarely pleased her.
She would cast a contemptuous look over the menu offered by the
deferential Henri, then turn wearily away, esteeming that no item on its
length merited even her most perfunctory consideration. But after one
or two despondent glances, Yvette ever made the best of a bad bargain,
and ordered quite a comprehensive little dinner, which she ate with the
same air of utter disdain. She always concluded by eating an orange
dipped in sugar. Even had a special table not been reserved for her,