Alone Part 2

One fact suffices. Symonds, driving over from Nice, at last found himself at the door of "the inn." The inn.... Are there any inns left at Mentone?

a propos of inns, here is a suggestive state of affairs. At the present moment, twenty-two of the princ.i.p.al hotels and pensions of Mentone are closed, because owned or controlled or managed by Germans. Does not this speak rather loudly in favour of Teuton enterprise? Where, in a German town of 18,000 inhabitants, will you find twenty-two such establishments in the hands of Frenchmen?

The statistical mood is upon me. I wander either among the tombs of that cemetery overhead, studying sepulchral inscriptions and drawing deductions, from what is therein stated regarding the age, nationality and other circ.u.mstances of the deceased, as to the relative number of consumptives here interred. Sixty per cent, shall we say? Or else, in the streets of the town, I catch myself endeavouring--hitherto without success--to count up the number of grocers' shops. They are far in excess of what is needful. Now, why? Well, your tailor or hatter or hosier--he makes a certain fixed profit on each article he sells, and he does not sell them at every moment of the day. The other, quite apart from small advantages to be gained owing to the ever-shifting prices of his wares, is ceaselessly engaged in dispensing trifles, on each of which he makes a small gain. The grocery business commends itself warmly to the French genius for garnering halfpennies. Nowhere on earth, I fancy, will you see b.u.t.ter more meticulously weighed than here. Buy a ton of it, and they will replace on their counter a fragment of the weight and size of a postage stamp, rather than let the balance descend on your side.

And so the days, the weeks, have pa.s.sed. Will one ever again escape from Mentone? It may well be colder in Italy, but anything is preferable to this inane Riviera existence....

I am not p.r.o.ne to recommend restaurants, or to discommend them, for the simple reason that, if they have proved bad, I smile to think of other men being poisoned and robbed as well as myself; as to the good ones--why, only a fool would reveal their whereabouts. Since, however, I hope so to order my remaining days of life as never to be obliged to return to these gimcrack regions, there is no inducement for withholding the name of the Merle Blanc at Monte Carlo, a quite unpretentious place of entertainment that well deserves its name--white blackbirds being rather scarcer here than elsewhere. The food is excellent--it has a cachet of its own; the wine more than merely good. And this is surprising, for the local mixtures (either Italian stuff which is dumped down in shiploads at Nice, Ma.r.s.eille, Cette, etc., or else the poor though sometimes aromatic product of the Var) are not gratifying to the palate. One imbibes them, none the less, in preference to anything else, as it is a peculiarity of what goes under the name of wine hereabouts that the more you pay for it, the worse it tastes. If you adventure into the Olympic spheres of Chateau Lafite and so forth, you may put your trust in G.o.d, or in a blue pill. Chateau Ca.s.sis would be a good name for these finer vintages, seeing that the harmless black currant enters largely into their composition, though not in sufficient quant.i.ty to render them wholly innocuous. Which suggests a little problem for the oenophilist. What difference of soil or exposure or climate or treatment can explain the fact that Mentone is utterly deficient in anything drinkable of native origin, whereas Ventimiglia, a stone's throw eastwards, can boast of its San Biagio, Rossese, Latte, Dolceacqua and other n.o.ble growths, the like of which are not to be found along the whole length of the French Riviera?

Having pastured the inner man, to his complete satisfaction, at the hospitable Merle Blanc, our traveller will do well to pasture his eyes on the plants in the Casino gardens. Whoever wants to see flowers and trees on their best behaviour, must come to Monte Carlo, where the spick-and-span Riviera note is at its highest development. Not a leaf is out of place; they have evidently been groomed and tubbed and manicured from the hour of their birth. And yet--is it possible? Lurking among all this modern splendour of vegetation, as though ashamed to show their faces, may be discerned a few lowly olive trees. Well may they skulk!

For these are the Todas and Veddahs, the aboriginals of Monte Carlo, who peopled its sunny slopes in long-forgotten days of rustic life--once lords of the soil, now pariahs. What are they doing here? And how comes it that the eyesore has not yet been detected and uprooted by those keen-sighted authorities that perform such wonders in making the visitor feel at home, and hush up with miraculous dexterity everything in the nature of a public scandal?

In exemplification whereof, let me tell a trivial Riviera tale. There was an Englishwoman here, one of those indestructible modern ladies who breakfast off an ether c.o.c.ktail and half a dozen aspirins and feel all the better for it, and who, one day, found herself losing rather heavily at the tables. "Another aspirin is going to turn my luck," she thought, and therewith swallowed surrept.i.tiously her last tabloid of the panacea.

Not un.o.bserved, however; for straightway two elegant gentlemen--they might have been Russian princes--pounced upon her and led her to that underground operating-room where a kindly physician is in perennial attendance. He brushed aside her explanations.

"It would be a thousand pities for so charming a lady to poison herself.

But since you wish to take that step, why choose the Casino which has a reputation to keep up? Are there not hotels----"

"I tell you it was only aspirin."

"Alas, we are sufficiently familiar with that tale! Now, Madam, let us not lose a moment! It is a question of life and death."

"Aspirin, I tell you----"

"Kindly submit, or the three of us will be obliged to employ force."

The stomach-pump was produced.

It is the drawback of all sea-side places that half the landscape is unavailable for purposes of human locomotion, being covered by useless water. Mentone is more unfortunate than most of them, for its Hinterland is so cloven and contorted that unless you keep on the main roads, or content yourself with short but pleasant strolls, you will soon find all progress barred by some natural obstruction. And one really cannot walk along the esplanade all day long, though it is worth while, once in a lifetime, continuing that promenade as far as Cap Martin, if only in memory of the inspiration which Symonds drew therefrom. Who, he asks--who can resist the influence of Greek ideas at the Cape St.

Martin? Anybody can, nowadays. The place is encrusted with smug villas of parvenus (wherein we include the Empress Eugenie), to say nothing of that preposterous hotel at the very point, which disfigures the country for leagues around.

On other occasions you may find your way towards evening up to Gorbio and stay for supper, provided you do not mind being cheated. Or wander further afield, over Sospel to Breil by the old path--note the lavender: they make a pa.s.sable perfume of it--or else to Moulinet (famous for bad food and a mastodontic breed of mosquitoes) and thence along the stream--note the bushes of wild box--and over a wooded ridge to the breezy heights of Peira Cava, there to dream away the daylight under the pines. These are summer rambles. At present the snow lies deep.

One of my favourite excursions has been up the so-called Berceau, the cradle-shaped hill which dominates Mentone on the east. I was there to-day for a solitary luncheon, resting awhile in the timbered saddle between the peaks. The summit is only about five minutes' walk from this delectable grove, but its view inland is partially intercepted by a higher ridge. From here, if you are in the mood, you may descend eastward over the Italian frontier, crossing the stream which is spanned lower down by the bridge of St. Louis, and find yourself at Mortola Superiore (try the wine) and then at Mortola proper (try the wine).

Somewhere in this gulley was killed the last wolf of these regions; so a grey-haired local Nimrod told me. He had wrought much mischief in his time. That is to say, he was not killed, but accidentally drowned--drowned in one of those artificial reservoirs which are periodically filled and drawn off for irrigating the gardens lower down; an ign.o.ble death, for a wolf! A goat lay drowned beside him. The event, he reckoned, must have taken place half a century ago. Since then, the wolf has never been seen.

This afternoon, however, I preferred to repose in that shady dell, while a flock of goldcrests were investigating the branches overhead and two buzzards cruised, in dreamy spirals, about the sunny sky of midday; to repose; to indulge my genius and review the situation; to profit, in short, by that sense of aloofness peculiar to such aerial spots, which tempts the mind to set its house in order. What are we doing, in these empty regions? Why not wander hence? That cursed traveller's gift of sitting still; of remaining stationary, no matter where, until one is actually pushed away! And yet, how enjoyable this land might be, were it inhabited by any race save one whose thousand little meannesses, public and private, are calculated to drain away a man's last ounce of self-respect! Not many are the glad memories I shall carry from Mentone.

I can think of no more than two.

There is my landlady, to begin with, who spies out every detail of my daily life; of decent birth and richer than Croesus, but inflamed with a peevish penuriousness which no amount of plain speaking on my part will correct. Never a day pa.s.ses that she does not permit herself some jocular observation anent my spendthrift habits. The following is an example of our matutinal converse:

"I fear, Monsieur, you omitted to put out the light in a certain place last night. It was burning when I returned home."

"Certainly not, Madame. I have been nicely brought up. I never visit places at night. You ought to be familiar with my habits after all this time."

"True. Then it must have been some one else. Ah, these electricians'

bills!"

Or this:

"Monsieur, Monsieur! The English Consul called yesterday with his little dog at about five o'clock. He waited in your room, but you never came back."

"Five o'clock? I was at the baths."

"I have heard of that establishment. What do they charge for a hot bath?"

"Three francs----"

"Bon Dieu!"

"--if you take an abonnement. Otherwise, it may well be more."

"And so you go there. Why then--why must you also wash in the morning and splash water on my floor? It may have to be polished after your departure. Would you mind asking the Consul, by the way, not to sit on the bed? It weakens the springs."

Or this:

"Might I beg you, Monsieur, to tread more lightly on the carpet in your room? I bought it only nine years ago, and it already shows signs of wear."

"Nine years--that old rag? It must have survived by a miracle."

"I do not ask you to avoid using it. I only beg you will tread as lightly as possible."

"Carpets are meant to be worn out."

"You would express yourself less forcibly, if you had to pay for them."

"Let us say then: carpets are meant to be trodden on."

"Lightly."

"I am not a fairy, Madame."

"I wish you were, Monsieur."

Thrice already, in a burst of confidence, has she told me the story of an egg--an egg which rankles in the memory. Some years ago, it seems, she went to a certain shop (naming it)--a shop she has avoided ever since--to buy an egg; and paid the full price--yes, the full price--of a fresh egg. That particular egg was not fresh. So far from fresh was it, that she experienced considerable difficulty in swallowing it.

A memorable episode occurred about a fortnight ago. I was greeted towards 8 a.m. with moanings in the pa.s.sage, where Madame tottered around, her entire head swathed in a bundle of nondescript woollen wraps, out of which there peered one steely, vulturesque eye. She looked more than ever like an animated fungus.

Her teeth--her teeth! The pain was past enduring. The whole jaw, rather; all the teeth at one and the same time; they were unaccountably loose and felt, moreover, three inches longer than they ought to feel. Never had she suffered such agony--never in all her life. What could it be?

It was easy to diagnose periost.i.tis, and prescribe tincture of iodine.

"That will cost about a franc," she observed.

"Very likely."

"I think I'll wait."