Last Days in a Dutch Hotel | Page 6

to hibernate in the basement of
the hotel. Not all, but most of them, were taken; though I dare say that
on fine days throughout October they will go trooping back to the sands
on the heads of the same men, like a procession of monstrous,
two-legged crabs. Such a day was last Sunday, and then the beach
offered a lively image of its summer gayety. It was dotted with
hundreds of hooded chairs, which foregathered in gossiping groups or
confidential couples; and as the sun shone quite warm the flaps of the
little tents next the dunes were let down against it, and ladies in
summer white saved themselves from sunstroke in their shelter. The
wooden booths for the sale of candies and mineral waters, and beer and
sandwiches, were flushed with a sudden prosperity, so that when I went
to buy my pound of grapes from the good woman who understands my
Dutch, I dreaded an indifference in her which by no means appeared.
She welcomed me as warmly as if I had been her sole customer, and
did not put up the price on me; perhaps because it was already so very
high that her imagination could not rise above it.
The hotel showed the same admirable constancy. The restaurant was
thronged with new-comers, who spread out even over the many-tabled

esplanade before it; but it was in no wise demoralized. That night we
sat down in multiplied numbers to a table d'hote of serenely
unconscious perfection; and we permanent guests--alas! we are now
becoming transient, too--were used with unfaltering recognition of our
superior worth. We shared the respect which, all over Europe, attaches
to establishment, and which sometimes makes us poor Americans wish
for a hereditary nobility, so that we could all mirror our ancestral value
in the deference of our inferiors. Where we should get our inferiors is
another thing, but I suppose we could import them for the purpose, if
the duties were not too great under our tariff.
We have not yet imported the idea of a European hotel in any respect,
though we long ago imported what we call the European plan. No
travelled American knows it in the extortionate prices of rooms when
he gets home, or the preposterous charges of our restaurants, where one
portion of roast beef swimming in a lake of lukewarm juice costs as
much as a diversified and delicate dinner in Germany or Holland. But
even if there were any proportion in these things the European hotel
will not be with us till we have the European portier, who is its spring
and inspiration. He must not, dear home-keeping reader, be at all
imagined in the moral or material figure of our hotel porter, who
appears always in his shirt- sleeves, and speaks with the accent of Cork
or of Congo. The European portier wears a uniform, I do not know why,
and a gold-banded cap, and he inhabits a little office at the entrance of
the hotel. He speaks eight or ten languages, up to certain limit, rather
better than people born to them, and his presence commands an instant
reverence softening to affection under his universal helpfulness. There
is nothing he cannot tell you, cannot do for you; and you may trust
yourself implicitly to him. He has the priceless gift of making each
nationality, each personality, believe that he is devoted to its service
alone. He turns lightly from one language to another, as if he had each
under his tongue, and he answers simultaneously a fussy French
woman, an angry English tourist, a stiff Prussian major, and a
thin-voiced American girl in behalf of a timorous mother, and he never
mixes the replies. He is an inexhaustible bottle of dialects; but this is
the least of his merits, of his miracles.
Our portier here is a tall, slim Dutchman (most Dutchmen are tall and
slim), and in spite of the waning season he treats me as if I were

multitude, while at the same time he uses me with the distinction due
the last of his guests. Twenty times in as many hours he wishes me
good-day, putting his hand to his cap for the purpose; and to oblige me
he wears silver braid instead of gilt on his cap and coat. I apologized
yesterday for troubling him so often for stamps, and said that I
supposed he was much more bothered in the season.
"Between the first of August and the fifteenth," he answered, "you
cannot think. All that you can do is to say, Yes, No; Yes, No." And he
left me to imagine his responsibilities.
I am sure he will hold out to the end, and will smile me a friendly
farewell from the door of his office, which is also