“I should like to offer myself to these women at this crisis; I should like to say to them: ‘I am a humble person, without money; but if I could be useful to you in any way, I would do it with all my heart; and that is more than I would do for this gang covered with brilliants.’
“The German who eats at the next table to the family understands what is happening, and he leaves off eating to look at them, and then looks at me with his blue eyes. At last he shrugs his shoulders, lowers his head, and empties a glass of wine at one gulp.
“The three women rise and go to their rooms. One hears them coming and going in the corridor; then a waiter takes their dinner upstairs.
“And while the family are desolate up there, down here in the ‘hall’ the ‘misses’ keep on looking at one another contemptuously, exhibiting rings that sparkle on their fingers, and which would keep hundreds of people alive; and while they are weeping upstairs, down here a blond Yankee woman, with a large blue hat, a friend of Susanna’s, who flirts with a youth from Chicago, is laughing heartily, showing a set of white teeth in which there shines a chip of gold.”
SUSANNA DOES NOT UNDERSTAND
“I have spoken to Susanna about the poor English girl, who, they say, is dying; and she has bidden me not to tell her sad things. She cannot bear other people’s suffering. She says she is more sensitive than others. How very comical!
“This fine lady, who thinks herself so witty and so sensitive, has an inner skin like a hippopotamus; she is covered with a magnificent egoism, which must be at least of galvanized steel. Her armour protects her against the action of other people’s miseries and pains.
“This woman, so beautiful, is of a grotesque egotism; one understands her husband’s despising her.
“I am leaving her with her millions and going away to Spain.”