Alone | Page 9

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. Théophile 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. Indeed, the flowers,
even the wild ones, might almost reconcile one to a life on the Riviera.
Almost.... I recall a comely plant, for instance, seven feet high at the
end of June, though now slumbering underground, in the Chemin de
Saint Jacques--there, where the steps begin----
Almost....
And here my afternoon musings, up yonder, took on