The Little Hotel Read Online Free PDF

new linen curtains, the other must have the best of the older curtains; if one guest has a new plush armchair, the other must have a cane lounge, if one has an extra table to write on, the other must have a footstool. I sometimes let Charlie fetch things from the attic or even from my own room to be sure of this equality; but I cannot allow others to make changes; I have a plan of it all in my mind. Take the cane lounge in Mrs Trollope’s room. The next time the two women quarrelled, Madame Blaise would come down to me and shout that I grovelled to the English and trampled on the Germans (she being like myself, Swiss-German), because I allowed Mrs Trollope to have a plush armchair and a cane lounge; and that this was because the Germans lost the war owing to the intervention of the Jews, and that Mrs Trollope was most likely a Jew. I am very firm. It is the only way to manage these disorderly people. They are just like spoiled children. It’s funny, isn’t it? Here I am, only twenty-six, and I am running men and women of forty, fifty, sixty and seventy, like schoolchildren. The secret is simple. You must have your own rules. We have another simple secret. Our hotel, the Swiss-Touring, which is near the station and near the esplanade, is the cheapest hotel in town for visitors. Cheaper than us are only the workmen’s pensions and students’ lodging-houses. No one ever mentions this fact, among our guests; but it is this thing that keeps them from boiling over.
    They are counting their pennies. They have some money, some are rich, all are getting on and getting anxious about their years; and besides them there are a few poor travellers, people without a home who go from one cheap place to another, all over Europe; there are some refugees now settled with us; some collaborators who escaped in time after the war; then the night-club people and, in winter, the people going up to the snowfields.

Chapter 2
    Mrs Powell was there for the first time then. She had taken a house in another canton, in Thun, and then gave it up when she found out she had to pay heavy residence taxes. Mrs Powell had the little table near the radiator. This table was next to the corner table occupied by Mrs Trollope and Mr Wilkins. Mr Wilkins sat with his back to the wall and under a large mirror. They both could look out upon Acacia Passage and the gardens of the next villa. We kept the side-shutters closed in really cold weather, with long curtains; in those early days we had old curtains which had come to us with the hotel. Mrs Trollope sat facing Mr Wilkins and the mirror in which she saw reflected all the guests in the dining-room, and the kitchen when the service door or the trapdoor opened. She spent a good deal of the mealtime looking into it. She slept badly on account of her sciatica and had stomach pains due to her nervousness. She ate very lightly and very often would not finish her soup or her salad. Mr Wilkins spent most of his mealtimes reading the Financial Times , the Spectator or some popular book on science or politics. Mrs Trollope felt humiliated and complained; but he did just as he pleased and answered either with a derisive smile or a remark such as, ‘I assure you no one notices it, Lilia, but yourself.’
    If he was not reading, Mrs Trollope would talk about her diet or the new car Mr Wilkins wanted her to buy. She did not want to buy it. She was tired of travelling and she was afraid of motoring in such mountainous country. Mr Wilkins said, ‘Very well, we shall strap a coffin to the roof.’
    Sometimes, when he opened his book, she would go up to her room at once, saying that she had a headache or that her back was aching. Mr Wilkins would rise politely as she left the table and would tranquilly go back to his reading. On these occasions he would stay at the table and read till they were clearing the tables. Mrs Trollope was very sensitive to appearances. If she came down first, she would go and sit at the neighbouring