A young Russian, with a “bang” curl on her forehead, turned to me.
“Can you do the ‘Salome’ dance?” she asked. “I can.”
“How delightful,” I said.
“Shall I do it now? Would you like to see me?”
She sprang to her feet, executed a series of amazing contortions for the next ten minutes, and then paused, panting, twisting her long hair.
“Isn’t that nice?” she said. “And now I am perspiring so splendidly. I shall go and take a bath.”
Opposite to me was the brownest woman I have ever seen, lying on her back, her arms clasped over her head.
“How long have you been here to-day?” she was asked.
“Oh, I spend the day here now,” she answered. “I am making my own ‘cure,’ and living entirely on raw vegetables and nuts, and each day I feel my spirit is stronger and purer. After all, what can you expect? The majority of us are walking about with pig corpuscles and oxen fragments in our brain. The wonder is the world is as good as it is. Now I live on the simple, provided food”—she pointed to a little bag beside her—“a lettuce, a carrot, a potato, and some nuts are ample, rational nourishment. I wash them under the tap and eat them raw, just as they come from the harmless earth—fresh and uncontaminated.”
“Do you take nothing else all day?” I cried.