Chambres garnies, avec ou sans pension.
Bassin-douche—Jardin d’agrèment.
Table d’Hôte de 8 à 9 hs—de 1 à 2 hs—de 6 à 7 hs.
Salon de Lecture—Billard—Piano, etc.
Journaux français, allemands, americaines et anglais.
Cette établissement jadis si bien connu, somptueusement remis à neuf, se recommande aux voyageurs et aux residents par le confort d’un hôtel de 1er ordre et par les divertissements que sa situation et ses dépendances offrent au public.”
You know there are some things in this world of uncertainties of which one is sure. One is sure of certain things without ever having seen them—something like the pyramids; one takes them for granted. Just how it came about that we took the “Hotel-Casino Bellevue” for granted it would be difficult to say, but we did. It was the one established fact about Port-au-Prince. It had been passed from one to another before we made port that the “Hotel Bellevue” was the summum bonum of Haïti. Thither, never doubting, we faced about at high noon, following the small brother of our lustrous Creole beauty, and we found it, the Hotel Bellevue, as did others.
Little Blue Ribbons, Sister, and I were placed—dumped into—three waiting chairs on the white veranda. And then Daddy disappeared, with others, all with the same air of confidence, to order dinner—it was to be dinner, you know, for did not the card say: “Table d’Hôte de 1 à 2 hs?”—of course it did. And we all had those little cards and they were all alike. They were our souvenirs.
Why the Hotel Bellevue hadn’t any shade-trees in front; why it was so glaringly hot and dusty and brazen-faced, we didn’t see. Oh, yes! It was on account of the “Bellevue”—out to the ocean! “Dirigé par Fräulein Stein;” that was it. She didn’t like trees; she wanted the “Bellevue.” She had chopped down the trees—we knew she had. “Dirigé par Fräulein Stein”—we didn’t care for Fräulein Stein at all.
Some one on the other side of the veranda drops down an awning, and we drop the awning on our side. Blue Ribbons takes off her hat, and Sister wonders what keeps Daddy so long. I think of Fräulein Stein. She’s in there, of course; that’s why he’s so long. That’s why all the other men stay so. She is another Circe.
Here he comes. He looks mildly happy.
“It’s ordered. I ordered it in German first, then French, and then Fräulein Stein,”—but there he hesitated.
“Yes, it’s Fräulein Stein, of course,” I reply. “What did she have to say?”
“No, it wasn’t Fräulein Stein at all,” he answers, “it was Fräulein Stein’s manager; he’s a Norwegian, so of course he speaks English fluently.”