The witnesses having given testimony to the same effect, the accused
was acquitted.
[THE SPASM]
The hotel guests slowly entered the dining-room and took their places.
The waiters did not hurry themselves, in order to give the late comers
a chance and thus avoid the trouble of bringing in the dishes a second
time. The old bathers, the habitués, whose season was almost over,
glanced, gazed toward the door whenever it opened, to see what new
faces might appear.
This is the principal distraction of watering places. People look
forward to the dinner hour in order to inspect each day's new
arrivals, to find out who they are, what they do, and what they think.
We always have a vague desire to meet pleasant people, to make
agreeable acquaintances, perhaps to meet with a love adventure. In
this life of elbowings, unknown strangers assume an extreme
importance. Curiosity is aroused, sympathy is ready to exhibit itself,
and sociability is the order of the day.
We cherish antipathies for a week and friendships for a month; we see
people with different eyes, when we view them through the medium of
acquaintanceship at watering places. We discover in men suddenly,
after an hour's chat, in the evening after dinner, under the trees in
the park where the healing spring bubbles up, a high intelligence and
astonishing merits, and a month afterward we have completely forgotten
these new friends, who were so fascinating when we first met them.
Permanent and serious ties are also formed here sooner than anywhere
else. People see each other every day; they become acquainted very
quickly, and their affection is tinged with the sweetness and
unrestraint of long-standing intimacies. We cherish in after years the
dear and tender memories of those first hours of friendship, the
memory of those first conversations in which a soul was unveiled, of
those first glances which interrogate and respond to questions and
secret thoughts which the mouth has not as yet uttered, the memory of
that first cordial confidence, the memory of that delightful sensation
of opening our hearts to those who seem to open theirs to us in
return.
And the melancholy of watering places, the monotony of days that are
all alike, proves hourly an incentive to this heart expansion.
* * * * *
Well, this evening, as on every other evening, we awaited the
appearance of strange faces.