The Malady of the Century

by Max Simon Nordau

After a long and tiresome journey, not made pleasanter by having to change four or five times, he arrived late in the evening at Eu, where he spent the night. The next morning, an hour's drive in a hotel omnibus brought him to Ault, a small market-town in the department of Somme, which the Americans had recommended to him as the quietest, cheapest, most unpretending, and at the same time picturesquely situated of any of the seaside places on the north coast of France, at least as far as Dieppe.

Wilhelm found Ault to be all it had been described. The little place presented a well-to-do, self-respecting appearance. The High Street, at right angles with the shore, and rising gently toward the higher, billowy country beyond, was wide and straight as a dart, and scrupulously clean; the roadway was macadamized, and a flagged pavement ran along the two rows of houses. At its upper end, broad and defiant, was a wonderful mediaeval church in the earliest Gothic style, with high pointed windows, a severely beautiful west door, and a mighty square tower. The church blocked the way, and forced the street to make a bend in order to pass round it. This building, which would have adorned a capital, stood there haughty and arrogant like a gigantic knight in full tilting armor in the midst of the common people, and seemed to wave the simple, unpretentious provincial houses to right and left with a lordly gesture so that nothing might intercept his view of the sea. Beside the High Street there were a few little side alleys, mostly inhabited by locksmiths, who worked with untiring industry from morning till night, keeping up a cheerful but far from unpleasing din which, mingled with the roar of the breakers below, reached the ear as a soft musical ring of metal. The only prominently ugly features in the charming picture were the few villas on the neighboring heights, built by retired Paris grocers and haberdashers; liliputian, pretentious, with blatant, highly-colored facades, ludicrous imitations of baronial fortresses, Venetian palaces, or Renaissance chateaux.

The inhabitants of Ault were a peaceable, sober-minded people. No one was ever drunk, nor was the sound of quarreling ever to be heard. There were few public-houses; several places, however, dignified by the name of cafes. The natives were so far accustomed to summer visitors that they did not take much notice of them, but happily not so much as to direct their whole thought and energy to fleecing them. It seemed as if the people of Ault had merely arranged a bathing place for the purpose of deriving a little amusement out of the strangers, not in order to make a living out of them, that being quite unnecessary, as their comfortable figures, good clothes, and well-filled shops could testify.

Wilhelm took up his quarters in the Hotel de France, situated just where the High Street swept round the side of the church. As the house was separated from the sea by the whole opposite row of houses, one only caught a glimpse of it as a narrow, glittering streak across the intervening roofs from the second-floor windows. The view from the front windows was the more remarkable. They looked out upon the churchyard which lay behind the Gothic cathedral. Not that there was anything depressing in the sight; it made, on the contrary, a cheerful impression, with its carefully tended flower beds and magnificent old trees, which almost hid the modest headstones they overshadowed, and in whose branches count less singing birds had built their nests, while noisy troops of children played under them at all hours of the day.

Wilhelm directed his steps at once to this churchyard, where, beside the modern iron crosses, there were marble headstones showing dates that went back to the seventeenth century. In the oldest as well as the newest inscriptions the same name occurred over and over again, speaking well for the settled habits of the population. And, according to the inscriptions, most of those buried here had lived to be eighty or ninety years of age. Had Ault been a professedly fashionable bathing place, one might have been tempted to think that this churchyard, with its cheering records in stone and iron of the longevity of the natives, had been set down in the very center of the town to encourage the visitors.

The Hotel de France recommended itself by extreme cleanliness, but otherwise it was very simple. The rooms contained only such furniture as was absolutely necessary, the dining-room was bare of decoration, and therefore happily free of those gruesome colored prints which the commercial traveller delights to sow broadcast over the unsuspecting country towns. Only the so-called salon boasted the luxury of a cottage piano, a polished table, a few cane chairs, and a looking-glass over the chimneypiece, on which lay a box of dominoes and a backgammon board, eloquently suggestive of mine host's ideas as to the most suitable occupation for his guests.

The hotel proprietors were as simple and homely as their house. The man wore a seaman's cap and a blue coat with brass anchor buttons, and was more than delighted if you took him for a seafaring man. He had, in fact, been to sea once, as ship's cook, or steward, or something of the sort. Now he sat most of the time in the cafe of the hotel, supplied the neighbors with little drams of cognac, and told the visitors endless stories of the buying and selling of property in the little town. His wife was the soul of the establishment. She possessed the gift of omnipresence. At one and the same moment you might see her in the kitchen and in the outhouses, in the hotel and in the cafe. The servants, of whom there was a considerable number, answered to a look, a bock of her finger. You could hear her clear voice from morning till night in the courtyard or on the stairs. Everywhere she lent a helping hand, and her busy fingers accomplished as much as all the men and maids put together. With it all she was never out of temper, always had a word or a smile for every passer-by, took a personal interest in each of her guests, took instant notice of a diminished appetite or a pale cheek, and always sent up lime-flower tea to anybody who happened to come rather later than usual to breakfast.

The hotel was pretty full when Wilhelm arrived, but he made no attempt to mix with the company he met twice a day at the table d'hote. His French had grown somewhat rusty for want of practice, and he did not trust himself to join in the exceedingly lively and general conversation till he had regained something of his old fluency in long daily talks with the landlord. Beside which, he did not feel greatly drawn toward his fellowguests. Their high-sounding and pompously-expressed platitudes bored him, their absurd views on politics, their parrot-like and yet self-satisfied remarks on literature and art filled him with compassion. One guest in particular, who sat at the head of the table, and generally led the conversation in the loudest tones, succeeded in making him very impatient, in spite of the mildness with which Wilhelm usually judged his fellows. He did business in sewing machines in Paris, but here gave himself out as an "ingenieur constructeur," and belonged to that class of persons who cannot endure not to be the center of observation wherever they happen to be. It has been said of a man of that stamp, that if he were at a wedding he would wish to be the bridegroom, and if at a funeral to be in the place of the corpse. At the dinner table of the Hotel de France he reigned supreme. His strong point lay in the perpetration of the most ghastly puns, which he would discharge first to the right and then to the left, and finally, with a roar of laughter, over the whole table. In his outward appearance, too, he sought to create a sensation. He was not dressed, he was costumed. He wore long stockings, knickerbockers and a tight-fitting jacket, and when he stood up, tried to produce effects with his calves, spread his legs wide apart as if, like the Colossus of Rhodes, ships were to pass beneath, and affected sporting and athletic attitudes generally. He was accompanied by a lady who had at first roused the horrified disgust of the others by her appetite, which surpassed every known human limit, and then proceeded to make herself still more hateful by a frequent change of costume.

Wilhelm's immediate neighbor was a lady of somewhat exuberant outline, but extremely plainly dressed, and without a single ornament, of whom at first he took no more notice than of the rest of the company. She returned his silent bow at coming and going, and acknowledged the little attentions of the dinner table—the handing of salt or entrees, of bread or cider (the table beverage)—with a low "Merci, monsieur," accompanied by a pleasant smile and an inclination of the head. The acquaintance began with a look. It was after a more than usually exasperating pun from the man in the knickerbockers, and involuntarily their eyes met, after which they exchanged glances each time he came out with a particularly blatant piece of idiocy. They could not long remain in doubt that their opinion on the prevailing conversation was identical, and the unanimity of their tastes was still further demonstrated by the fact that the lady was as silent during the meals as Wilhelm.

The interchange of looks was presently followed by words. It was the lady who broke the ice by alluding to a somewhat peculiar incident. It happened to be market day, and Wilhelm had been watching with interest the cheerful bustle in the High Street, and the new type of country people: the men with their carts bringing in calves, pigs, and grain, fine-looking fellows, with tall sturdy figures, and shrewd, clean-shaven faces above the blue cotton white-embroidered blouses and severely stiff snow-white shirt collars; and the women in round dark-brown cloaks reaching to their feet; the drum-beating, yelling tooth-drawers and patent medicine venders praising their remedies against tapeworm and ague with incredible volubility, and the couple of majestic gendarmes in their imposing uniforms, with yellow leather belts and cocked hats, who found no occasion to exhibit their stern official side to the noisy, laughing, but well-behaved crowd. After strolling for awhile among the carts and people, Wilhelm had caught sight of a large and handsome donkey, had gone up to him and stroked him, and said a variety of friendly things to him.