Chapter 47

CHAPTER XLVII [Queer European Manners]

We spent a few pleasant restful days at Geneva, that delightful city
where accurate time-pieces are made for all the rest of the world, but
whose own clocks never give the correct time of day by any accident.

Geneva is filled with pretty shops, and the shops are filled with the
most enticing gimacrackery, but if one enters one of these places he is
at once pounced upon, and followed up, and so persecuted to buy this,
that, and the other thing, that he is very grateful to get out again,
and is not at all apt to repeat his experiment. The shopkeepers of the
smaller sort, in Geneva, are as troublesome and persistent as are
the salesmen of that monster hive in Paris, the Grands Magasins du
Louvre--an establishment where ill-mannered pestering, pursuing, and
insistence have been reduced to a science.

In Geneva, prices in the smaller shops are very elastic--that is
another bad feature. I was looking in at a window at a very pretty
string of beads, suitable for a child. I was only admiring them; I had
no use for them; I hardly ever wear beads. The shopwoman came out and
offered them to me for thirty-five francs. I said it was cheap, but I
did not need them.

"Ah, but monsieur, they are so beautiful!"

I confessed it, but said they were not suitable for one of my age and
simplicity of character. She darted in and brought them out and tried to
force them into my hands, saying:

"Ah, but only see how lovely they are! Surely monsieur will take them;
monsieur shall have them for thirty francs. There, I have said it--it is
a loss, but one must live."

I dropped my hands, and tried to move her to respect my unprotected
situation. But no, she dangled the beads in the sun before my face,
exclaiming, "Ah, monsieur CANNOT resist them!" She hung them on my coat
button, folded her hand resignedly, and said: "Gone,--and for thirty
francs, the lovely things--it is incredible!--but the good God will
sanctify the sacrifice to me."

I removed them gently, returned them, and walked away, shaking my head
and smiling a smile of silly embarrassment while the passers-by halted
to observe. The woman leaned out of her door, shook the beads, and
screamed after me:

"Monsieur shall have them for twenty-eight!"

I shook my head.

"Twenty-seven! It is a cruel loss, it is ruin--but take them, only take
them."

I still retreated, still wagging my head.

"MON DIEU, they shall even go for twenty-six! There, I have said it.
Come!"

I wagged another negative. A nurse and a little English girl had been
near me, and were following me, now. The shopwoman ran to the