Chateaubriands smothered in mushrooms were being served by hurrying waiters. Roast ducks and patés came from the busy kitchen. Champagne frappéed itself in silver coolers, and older wines slumbered in cradles.
Beneath the veranda flowed the Seine, inky black in the night, and framed by a mass of towering trees that would have graced a Corot. Now and then a returning fishing-boat wrinkled the surface of the dark water, while the boat-lantern was reflected in ribbons of light in the depths of the stream.
The next morning I passed the tiny villa where the jolly breakfast had occurred. It was closed; roses still bloomed in the tangled garden; a sign over the porch read: “À louer.”
The Bouffes-Parisiennes had opened.
Twilight found me at the Mureaux at the opening of a pale blue-and-gold hotel with a pretty, formal garden running to the river’s edge and a banquet grove in the rear. I was informed by the maître d’hôtel that “tout Paris” would be present the next day. There was to be a grand regatta and speeches by eminent Parisian sportsmen for whom sixty covers were to be laid in the grove. Madame ran the hotel, continued this important personage; he had nothing to do with that, he had charge of the restaurant only, but that was enough. Parbleu! He flew about, pale and distracted, his shining bald pate in odd contrast to his black side-whiskers, which I presumed were dyed, since he had easily passed through sixty years, most of them in watching other people’s dinners. The place was in a state of demoralization. The maître d’hôtel swore: waiters hired for the coming event pottered around, picking up this and that and letting it drop—as useless as the clown in the circus who gets in every one’s way. All the furniture in the hotel seemed to have been unloaded at once and distributed by the delivery man. There were Louis XVI. clocks in the bedrooms, ornaments placed in impossible places, gorgeously carved canopied bedsteads for which the mattresses had been forgotten. It grew dark; and there had been trouble with the gas company—and there were no candles. A small printed sign on my door read,
Touch the button:
Once for the lights;
Twice for the femme de chambre;
Thrice for the garçon.