Chapter 10

X

At spas--and, probably, all over Europe--hotel landlords and
managers are guided in their allotment of rooms to visitors, not
so much by the wishes and requirements of those visitors, as by
their personal estimate of the same. It may also be said that
these landlords and managers seldom make a mistake. To the
Grandmother, however, our landlord, for some reason or another,
allotted such a sumptuous suite that he fairly overreached
himself; for he assigned her a suite consisting of four
magnificently appointed rooms, with bathroom, servants'
quarters, a separate room for her maid, and so on. In fact,
during the previous week the suite had been occupied by no less
a personage than a Grand Duchess: which circumstance was duly
explained to the new occupant, as an excuse for raising the
price of these apartments. The Grandmother had herself carried--
or, rather, wheeled--through each room in turn, in order that she
might subject the whole to a close and attentive scrutiny; while
the landlord--an elderly, bald-headed man--walked respectfully by
her side.

What every one took the Grandmother to be I do not know, but it
appeared, at least, that she was accounted a person not only of
great importance, but also, and still more, of great wealth; and
without delay they entered her in the hotel register as "Madame
la Generale, Princesse de Tarassevitcheva," although she had
never been a princess in her life. Her retinue, her reserved
compartment in the train, her pile of unnecessary trunks,
portmanteaux, and strong-boxes, all helped to increase her
prestige; while her wheeled chair, her sharp tone and voice, her
eccentric questions (put with an air of the most overbearing and
unbridled imperiousness), her whole figure--upright, rugged, and
commanding as it was--completed the general awe in which she was
held. As she inspected her new abode she ordered her chair to be
stopped at intervals in order that, with finger extended towards
some article of furniture, she might ply the respectfully
smiling, yet secretly apprehensive, landlord with unexpected
questions. She addressed them to him in French, although her
pronunciation of the language was so bad that sometimes I had to
translate them. For the most part, the landlord's answers were
unsatisfactory, and failed to please her; nor were the questions
themselves of a practical nature, but related, generally, to God
knows what.

For instance, on one occasion she halted before a picture which,
a poor copy of a well-known original, had a mythological subject.

"Of whom is this a portrait?" she inquired.

The landlord explained that it was probably that of a countess.

"But how know you that?" the old lady retorted.