This attitude toward poverty has often been painfully brought home to me, and it was so on this occasion. Finally, I stopped a little old woman, who, for what reason I do not know, was pushing ahead of her a child's cart filled with all sorts of pots and pans; and it was she who not only pointed out the direction in which I must go, but also described the place where I could get a bus that would take me to the famous square. I could at least spare the few sous this form of transportation would cost and so I was happy to have this information. Moreover, the longer the good old woman looked at me in giving these directions, the wider her toothless mouth stretched in the friendliest of smiles. Finally, she patted me on the cheek with her hard hand, saying: 'Dieu vous bénisse, mon enfant!' This caress made me happier than many another that I was to receive in the future from fairer hands.
For the traveller who enters the streets of Paris from that particular station, the first impression of the city is not by any means enchanting; but splendour and magnificence increase apace as he nears the glittering centre. If in manly fashion I repressed the timidity I felt, it was yet with astonishment and delighted reverence that, from my narrow seat in the omnibus, my little suitcase on my knee, I looked out upon the flaming magnificence of those avenues and squares, at the confusion of carriages, crowds of pedestrians, the sparkling stores that proffered everything, the inviting cafés and restaurants, and the blinding theatre façades with their white arc lights or hanging gaslights. Meanwhile, the conductor pronounced names I had often heard lovingly uttered by my poor father: 'Place de la Bourse', 'rue du Quatre Septembre', 'Boulevard des Capucines', 'Place de l'Opéra', and many others.
The uproar, pierced by the shrill cries of newsboys, was deafening, and the lights made one's head swim. In front of the cafés, sheltered by the marquees, men in hats and coats sat at little tables, their canes between their knees, and looked out as though from a loge at the crowds hurrying by. Meanwhile, dark figures stooped to snatch cigarette butts from between their feet. To them the gentlemen paid no heed nor did they seem distressed by this creeping occupation. They obviously considered it a persistent and accepted feature of that civilization whose happy tumult they were in a secure position to enjoy.
It is the proud rue de la Paix that connects the Place de l'Opéra with the Place Vendôme. Here, then, beside the pillar surmounted by the statue of the mighty Emperor, I left the bus and went afoot in search of my real goal, the rue Saint-Honoré, which as travellers know, runs parallel to the rue de Rivoli. It proved easy to find, and from a distance, in letters of impressive size and brillance, the name of the Hotel Saint James and Albany sprang to my eyes.
There people were arriving and departing. Gentlemen about to get into carriages already loaded with their luggage, were handing tips to the servants who had looked after them; porters were carrying into the building the bags of new arrivals. I know the reader will smile when I admit that I was almost overcome by timidity at the thought of boldly entering this imposing, expensive, fashionably located edifice. But did not right and duty combine to encourage me? Had I not been directed and engaged to come here, and was not my godfather Schimmelpreester on intimate terms with the general manager of the establishment? Nevertheless, modesty bade me choose, not one of the two revolving glass doors through which the guests were entering, but rather the side entrance through which the porters passed. The latter, however, whatever they may have taken me for, motioned me back; I was not one of them. Nothing remained for me but to go in through one of those magnificent revolving doors, my little bag in my hand. In the process of negotiating it, I had, to my shame, to be helped by a page-boy in a diminutive red tail-coat who was posted there. 'Dieu vous bénisse, mon enfant!' I said to him, automatically using the words of that good old woman — at which he burst into as hearty a roar of laughter as the children with whom I had been playing on the train.
I found myself in a stately lobby with porphyry columns and a gallery circling it at the height of the entresol. Crowds surged back and forth, and people dressed for travel sat in the deep armchairs arranged on the carpeted floor beneath the columns. Among them were several ladies who held tiny, shivering dogs in their laps. A boy in livery officiously tried to take my bag out of my hand, but I resisted and turned to the right toward the easily identifiable concierge's desk. There a gentleman with cold unfriendly eyes, dressed in a gold-braided frock coat and obviously accustomed to large tips, was dispensing information in three or four languages to the crowd clustered around his desk. From time to time, smiling benignly, he would hand room keys to such of the hotel's guests as asked for them. I had to stand there a long time before I had an opportunity to ask him whether he thought the general manager, Monsieur Stürzli, was in, and where I might perhaps have the opportunity of presenting myself to him.
'You wish to speak to Monsieur Stürzli?' he asked with insolent surprise. 'And who are you?'
'A new employee of the établissement,' I replied. 'With the highest personal recommendations to monsieur le directeur.'
'Etonnant!' replied this benighted man, and added with a disdain that cut me to the quick: 'No doubt Monsieur Stürzli has been awaiting your visit with painful impatience for hours. Perhaps you would be so good as to take yourself a few steps farther on to the reception desk.'
'A thousand thanks, monsieur le concierge,' I replied. 'And may large tips come your way from every side, so that you will soon be able to retire to private life!'
'Idiot!' I heard him call after me. But that neither concerned nor disturbed me. I carried my suitcase over to the reception desk, which was indeed only a few steps away, on the same side of the lobby. It was even more densely beleaguered. Numerous travellers vied for the attention of the two gentlemen in severe morning coats who were in charge, inquiring for their reservations, learning the numbers of the rooms assigned to them, signing the register. To work my way forward to the desk cost me much patience; finally I stood face to face with one of the gentlemen, a still young man with a small waxed moustache, a pince-nez, and a sallow, indoor complexion.
'You wish a room?' he asked, since I had deferentially waited to be spoken to.
'Oh, no indeed — not that, monsieur le directeur,' I answered smiling. 'I am a member of the staff, if I may already say so. My name is Krull, first name Felix, and I am reporting here by arrangement between Monsieur Stürzli and his friend, my godfather Professor Schimmelpreester. I am to be employed as an assistant in this hotel. That is -'
'Step back!' he commanded hastily in a low voice. 'Wait! Step all the way back!' And at this a faint flush tinged his sallow cheeks. He glanced about uneasily, as though the fact of a new employee, not yet in uniform, appearing before the hotel guests as if he were a human being, had caused him the most acute embarrassment. Some of those busy at the desk were, indeed, glancing at me curiously. They interrupted their filling up of forms to look round at me.
'Certainement, monsieur le directeur!' I answered in subdued tones, and withdrew well behind those who had come after me. There were not many of them, however, and after a few minutes the reception desk was entirely clear, though it would not be for long.
'Well, now what about you?' The gentleman of the indoor complexion was finally forced to turn to where I was standing some way off.
'L'employé-volontaire Félix Kroull,' I replied without moving from the spot, for I wanted to force him to invite me to approach.
'Well, come here!' he said nervously. 'Do you think I want to keep shouting at you at this distance?'
'I withdrew on your orders, monsieur le directeur,' I replied, approaching eagerly, 'and I was just waiting for you to countermand them.'
'My orders,' he interposed, 'were only too necessary. What are you doing here? What possessed you to march into the lobby like one of our guests and mix willy-nilly with the clientele?'
'I beg a thousand pardons,' I said contritely, 'if that was a mistake. I knew of no other way to reach you except by frontal attack through the revolving door and the
lobby. But I assure you I would not have hesitated to take the dirtiest, darkest, most secret way if that had been necessary to gain your presence.'
'What kind of talk is this?' he replied, and once more a faint flush tinged his sallow cheeks. This tendency in him to blush pleased me.
'You seem,' he added, 'either a fool or possibly a little too intelligent.'
'I hope,' I replied, 'to prove quickly enough to my superiors that my intelligence functions within precisely the right limits.'
'It seems to me very doubtful,' he said, 'whether you will have the chance. I don't know at the moment of any vacancy in our staff.'
'Nevertheless, I take the liberty of pointing out,' I reminded him, 'that we are dealing with a firm agreement between monsieur le directeur général and a boyhood friend of his, who held me at the baptismal font. I have intentionally refrained from asking for Monsieur Stürzli, for I know very well that he is not dying of impatience to see me and I am under no illusions that I will see that gentleman soon or perhaps ever. But that is of minor importance. Instead, all my desires and efforts have been directed toward paying my respects to you, monsieur le directeur, and learning from you, and from you alone, where, how, and in what manner of service I can prove myself useful to the établissement.'
'Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!' I heard him murmur. Nevertheless, he took down a bulky volume from a shelf on the wall and searched angrily through it, repeatedly licking the two middle fingers of his right hand. Presently he stopped at an entry and said to me:
'At least get away from here as fast as you can and go wherever you belong! Your employment has been provided for, that much is correct -'
'But that's the important point,' I remarked.
'Mais oui, mais oui! Bob ' — he turned to one of the half-grown bellboys sitting on a bench at the back of the office, hands on knees, waiting for errands — 'show this individual to the dortoir des employés number four on the top floor. Use the service elevator! You will hear from us early tomorrow,' he added sharply to me. 'Go!'
The freckled boy, obviously English, went with me.
'Why don't you carry my bag a little way?' I said to him. 'I can tell you both my arms are lame from lugging it.'
'What will you give me?' he asked in broadly accented French.
'I have nothing.'
'Well, I'll do it anyway. Don't feel pleased about dortoir number four! It is very bad. We are all very badly housed. Also the food is bad and the pay too. But a strike is out of the question. Too many are ready to take our places. That whole crowd of pirates ought to be exterminated. I am an anarchist, you must know, voilà ce que je suis.'
He was a very nice, childish youngster. We rode up together in the service lift to the fifth floor, the garret, and there he let me pick up my bag again, pointed to a door in the ill-lit carpetless corridor and said: 'Bonne chance.'
The plate on the door showed it was the right one. As a precaution I knocked, but there was no answer. Although it was already after ten o'clock, the dormitory was still completely dark and empty. Its appearance, when I turned on the electric light bulb that hung unshielded from the ceiling, was indeed far from attractive. Eight beds, with grey flannel blankets and flat, obviously long-unwashed pillows, were arranged like bunks, two and two, one above the other, along the side walls. Between them open shelves were set against the walls to the height of the upper bunk, and on these the occupants had placed their bags. The room, whose single window seemed to open on an air shaft, offered no further conveniences, nor was there any space for them, since its width was considerably less than its length, leaving very little room in the middle. At night, obviously, one would have to put one's clothes at the bottom of one's bed or in a bag on the shelf.
Well, I thought, you need not have gone to so much trouble to escape the barracks, for it could not have been more Spartan there than in this room — probably somewhat cosier. A bed of roses, however, was something I had not been accustomed to for a long time — not since the break-up of my happy home. Moreover, I knew that a man and his circumstances usually come to a tolerable adjustment; indeed, that the latter, however difficult they may appear at the start, show, if not for everyone, then at least for the more fortunate, a certain flexibility that is not altogether a question of habit. The same situations are not the same for everyone, and general conditions, so I would maintain, are subject to extensive personal modification.
Let the reader forgive this digression on the part of a spirit that is by nature philosophically inclined and is devoted to observing life less for its ugly and brutal aspects than for its delicate and amiable qualities.
One of the shelves was empty, from which I deduced that one of the eight beds must also be vacant; only I did not know which — to my regret, for I was weary from my journey, and my youth demanded sleep. I had no choice, however, but to await the arrival of my room-mates. For a while I entertained myself by inspecting the washroom, a side door to which stood open. There were five washstands of the commonest sort, with squares of linoleum in front of them, washbowls and pitchers, with slop jars beside them, and hand towels hanging on a rack. Mirrors were entirely lacking. In place of them, thumbtacked on door and wall — and in the bedroom, too, so far as space permitted — were all sorts of enticing pictures of women cut out of magazines. Not much comforted, I return to the bedroom and in order to have something to do I prudently decided to get my nightshirt out of my suitcase. In doing so, however, I came upon the little morocco case that had slipped in so unobtrusively during the customs inspection; happy at seeing it again, I set about investigating it.
Whether curiosity about its contents may not all the time have been at work in the secret recesses of my soul and the notion of getting out my nightshirt had been only an excuse to acquaint myself with the jewel case — on this subject I offer no opinion. Sitting on one of the lower beds, I took it on my knees and began to examine it with the prayerful hope of remaining undisturbed. Its light lock was not fastened, and it was kept shut only by a small hook and eye. I found no fairy-tale treasure inside, but what it did contain was very charming and in part truly remarkable. Right at the top, in a tray that divided the satin-lined interior into two compartments, lay a necklace of several strands of large, graduated, golden topazes in a carved setting, such as I had never seen in any shop window and hardly could have, since it was obviously not of modern design but came from a past century. I may say it was the essence of magnificence, and the sweet, transparent, shimmering honey-gold of the stones enchanted me so completely that for a long time I could not take my eyes off them; it was with considerable reluctance that I lifted the tray to look into the bottom. This was deeper than the upper compartment and less completely filled than the latter had been by the topaz necklace. Nevertheless, charming items laughed up at me, each one of which I retain clearly in memory. A long string of little diamonds set in platinum lay there piled in a glittering heap. There were in addition: a very handsome tortoise-shell comb, ornamented with silver vines set with numerous diamonds, though these, too, were small; a gold double-bar brooch with platinum clasps, ornamented on top with a sapphire the size of a pea surrounded by ten diamonds; a dull-gold brooch delicately formed to represent a little basket filled with grapes; a bracelet in the shape of a bugle, tapering toward the end, with a platinum safety catch, the value of which was enhanced by a noble white pearl, surrounded by diamonds in an à jour setting, which was set in the bell; in addition, three or four very attractive rings, one of which contained a grey pearl with two large and two small diamonds, another a dark triangular ruby also set off by diamonds.
I took these precious objects in my hand and let their noble rays flash in the vulgar light of the naked electric bulb.
But who can describe the confusion I felt when, plunged in this amusing occupation, I suddenly heard a voice above my head say dryly:
'You have some quite pretty things there.' Although there is always something disconcerting about believing oneself alone and unobserved an
d suddenly discovering that this is not so, the present situation redoubled that unpleasantness. No doubt I failed to hide a slight start; nevertheless, I compelled myself to be completely calm, closed the little case without haste, casually put it back in my suitcase, and then and only then got up so that by stepping back a little I could look in the direction from which the voice had come. There, indeed, on the bed above the one I had been sitting on, someone was lying propped up on an elbow looking down at me. My earlier inspection had not been thorough enough to reveal this fellow's presence. Perhaps he had been lying up there with a blanket over his head. He was a young man who could have done with a shave, so dark was his chin. His hair was mussed from lying in bed, he had sideburns, and eyes of a Slavic cast. His face was feverishly red, but although I saw he must be sick, dismay and confusion prompted me to say awkwardly: 'What are you doing up there?'
'I?' he answered. 'It's my privilege to inquire what interesting job you're engaged in down there.'
'Don't speak familiarly to me, please,' I said irritably. 'I am not aware that we are relatives or on terms of intimacy.'
He laughed and replied not altogether unreasonably: 'Well, what I saw in your hands is likely to create a certain bond between us. Your dear mother surely did not pack that in your grip for you. Just show me your little hands — what long fingers you have, or how long you can make them!'
'Don't talk nonsense!' I said. 'Do I owe you an explanation of my property simply because you were so rude as to watch me without letting me know you were there? That's very bad form -'
Yes, you're a fine one to complain about me,' he interrupted. 'Drop this high-flown nonsense. I'm no wild man. Moreover I can tell you that I was asleep until just a little while ago. I have been lying here with influenza for two days and I have a filthy headache. I woke up and quietly said to myself: "What's the pretty boy playing with down there?" For you are pretty; even envy must admit that. Where wouldn't I be today with a phiz like yours!'