The season had not begun, and the hotel was not actually open, but it received us.
As no rooms were taken, all were placed at our disposal, and we chose three in the first story, one for my aunt, one for me, and one for our trunks.
The furniture, of crazy old mahogany, had evidently been bought of some dealer in second-band furniture in Rouen, but the beds were extremely good, and the bed-linen, although "coarse as sacking," as Uncle Paul would have expressed it, was perfectly clean and white.
From our windows we looked out upon the sea and upon the little wooden hut where the safety-boat was kept, and also upon the little town park, about a hundred square yards in extent; upon the Casino, quite an imposing structure on the shore; upon the red pennons which, designating the bathing-place, made a brilliant show in the midst of the prevailing gray, and upon a host of whitewashed bath-houses waiting for the guests who had not yet arrived.
How indeed could they arrive? One had need to have come from Bohemia, not to go directly home, in such cold, damp weather as we had; but we wanted to get value from our expensive trip.
The Casino was no more open than the hotel, it was even in a decided négligé, but it was busily dressing. A swarm of painters and upholsterers were decorating it. The upholsterers hung the inside with crimson, the painters coloured the outside red and white.
The proprietor, a broad-shouldered young man answering to the high-sounding name of Raoul Donval, daily superintended the work of the--artists. He always wore a white cap with a broad black visor, and a stick in the pocket of his short jacket, and plum-coloured knickerbockers; and I think he considered himself very elegant.
They were draping and beautifying and painting our hotel too. Everything was being painted instead of scrubbed,--the stairs, the doors, the floors; everywhere the dirt was hidden beneath the same dull-red colour. Aunt Rosa declared that they seemed to her to be daubing the entire house with blood. Just at this time she was wont to make most ghastly comparisons, because, for lack of other literature, she was reading an historical romance in the Petit Journal.
She was in a far more melancholy mood than I at St. Valery. Since it had to be, I made up my mind to it, consoling myself with the reflection that I was just nineteen, and that there was plenty of time for fate, if so minded, to shape my destiny brilliantly. Unfortunately, my aunt had not this consolation, but, instead, the depressing consciousness of having given up Bayreuth. It was hard. I was very sorry for her, and did all that I could to amuse her.
I could always find something to laugh at in our visits to the empty Casino and in our walks through the town, but instead of cheering her my merriment distressed her. She had seen in the French journal which she studied faithfully every day an account of a sensitive trombone-player at the famous yearly festival at Neuilly who had broken his instrument over the head of an arrogant Englishman who had allowed himself to make merry over some detail of the festival. Therefore I could scarcely smile in the street without having my aunt twitch my sleeve and say,--