When you first take up your brief residence in the private hotel, as
they term it--though I believe it is still called boarding-house in
the plain-spoken island--your attitude towards your fellow-guests is
perfectly clear; I mean your secret attitude, of course. Your secret
attitude is that you have got among a queer and an unsympathetic set of
people. At the first meal--especially if it be breakfast--you glance at
them all one by one out of the corners of your eyes, and in that shrewd
way of yours you add them up (being a more than average experienced
judge of human nature), and you come to the conclusion that you have
seldom, if ever, encountered such a series of stupid and harsh faces.
The men seem heavy, if not greedy, and sunk in mental sloth. And,
really, the women might have striven a little harder to avoid resembling
guys. After all, it is the duty of educated people not to offend the
gaze of their fellow-creatures. And as for eating, do these men, in
fact, live for naught but eating? Here are perhaps fifty or sixty
immortal souls, and their unique concern, their united concern, seems to
be the gross satisfaction of the body. Perhaps they do not have enough
to eat at home, you reflect ironically. And you also reflect that some
people, when they have contracted for bed and full board at so much per
day, become absolutely lost to all sense of scruple, all sense of what
is nice, and would, if they could, eat the unfortunate landlord
right into the bankruptcy court. Look at that man there, near the
window--doubtless, he obtained his excellent place near the window
by the simple, colonizing method of grabbing it--well, he has already
apportioned to himself four Manx herrings, and now, with his mouth full,
he is mumbling about eggs and flesh meat.
[Illustration: 0397]
And then their conversation! How dull!--how lacking in point, in
originality! These unhappy people appear to have in their heads no ideas
that are not either trivial, tedious, or merely absurd. They do not
appear to be interested in any matters that could interest a reasonable
man. They babble, saying over and over again the same things. Or if they
do not babble they giggle, or they may do both, which is worse;
and, indeed, the uproarious way in which some of them laugh, upon no
sufficient provocation, is disagreeable, especially in a woman. Or, if
they neither babble, giggle, nor deafen the room with their outrageous
mirth, they sit glum, speaking not a word, glowering upon humanity. How
English that is--and how rude!
Commonplace--‘that is what these people are! It is not their fault, but
it is nevertheless a pity; and you resent it. Indubitably you are not in
a sympathetic environment; you are not among kindred spirits. You grow
haughty, within. When two late comers enter breezily and take seats near
to you, and one of them begins at once by remarking that he is going
to Port Erin for the day, and asks you if you know Port Erin, you reply
“No”; the fact being that you have visited Port Erin, but the fact also
being that you shirk the prospect of a sustained conversation with any
of these too commonplace, uncomprehending strangers.
[Illustration: 0401]
You rise and depart from the table, and you endeavour to make your exit
as majestic as possible; but there is a suspicion in your mind that your
exit is only sheepish.
You meet someone on the stairs, a woman less like a guy than those you
have seen, and still youthful. As you are going upstairs and she is
coming down, and the two of you are staying in the same house,
you wonder whether it would not be well to greet her. A simple
“Good-morning.” You argue about this in your head for some ten years--it
is only in reality three seconds, but it seems eternal. You feel it
would be nice to say good-morning to her. But at the critical point, at
the psychological moment, a hard feeling comes into your heart, and a
glazed blind look into your eyes, and you glance away. You perceive
that she is staring straight in front of her; you perceive that she is
deliberately cutting you. And so the two of you pass like ships in the
night, and yet not quite like ships in the night, because ships do not
hate, detest, and despise.
You go out into the sunshine (if sunshine there happens to be), between
the plash of the waves and the call of the boatman on the right hand,
and the front doors of all the other boarding-houses on the left,
and you see that the other boarding-houses are frequented by a
much superior, smarter, more intelligent, better-mannered set of
pleasure-seekers than yours. You feel by a sure premonition that you are
in for a dull time.
*****
Nothing occurs for about forty-eight terrible hours, during which time,
with the most strict propriety, you behave as though the other people in
the boarding-house did not exist. On several occasions you have meant to
exchange a few words with this individual or that, but this individual
or that has not been encouraging, has made no advance. And you are the
last person to risk a rebuff. You are sensitive, like all fine minds, to
a degree which this coarse clay in the boarding-house cannot conceive.
Then one afternoon something occurs. It usually does occur in the
afternoon. You are in the tram-car. About ten others are in the
tram-car. And among them you notice the man who put a pistol to your
head at the first meal and asked you if you knew Port Erin; also the
young woman who so arrogantly pretended that she did not see you on the
stairs. They are together. You had an idea they were together in the
boarding-house; but you were not sure, because they seldom arrived in
the dining-room together, or left it together, and both of them did a
great deal of talking to other people. Of course, you might have
asked, but the matter did not interest you; besides, you hate to seem
inquisitive. He is considerably older than she is; a hale, jolly,
red-faced, grey bearded man, who probably finds it easier to catch sight
of his watch-chain than of his toes. She is slim, and a little arch. If
she is his wife the difference between their ages is really excessive.
The car in its passage gradually empties until there is nobody in it
save you and the conductor on the platform and these two inside. And
a minute before it reaches the end of its journey the man opens his
cigar-case, and preparing a cigar for the sacrificial burning, strolls
along the car to the platform.
“We’re the last on the car,” he says, between two puffs, and not very
articulately.
“Yes,” you say. It is indubitable that you are the last on the car.
You needed nobody to tell you that. Still, the information gives you
pleasure, and the fellow is rather jolly. So you add, amiably, “I
suppose it’s these electric motors that are giving the tram-cars beans.”
He laughs. He evidently thinks you have expressed yourself in an amusing
manner.
And inspecting the scarlet end of his cigar, he says in a low voice:
“I hope you’re right. I’ve just bought a packet of shares in that motor
company.”
“Really!” you exclaim. So he is a shareholder, a member of the investing
public! You are impressed. Instantly you imagine him as a very wealthy
man who knows how to look after his money, and who has a hawk’s eye for
“a good thing.” You wish you had loose money that would enable you to
pick up a casual “packet of shares” here and there.
The car stops. The lady gets out. You raise your hat; it is the least
you can do. Instead of pretending that you are empty air, she smiles on
you charmingly, almost anxiously polite (perhaps she wants to make up
for having cut you on the stairs), and offers you some remark about the
weather, a banal remark, but so prettily enveloped in tissue paper and
tied with pink ribbon, that you treasure it.
Your common home is only fifty yards off. Obviously you must reach it in
company.
“My daughter here--” the grey-bearded man begins a remark.
So she is his daughter. Rather interesting. You talk freely, exposing
all the most agreeable and polite side of your disposition.
*****
While preparing for dinner you reflect with satisfaction and joy that
at last you are on friendly terms with somebody in the house. You
anticipate the dinner with eagerness. You regard the father and daughter
somewhat as palm trees in the desert. During dinner you talk to them
a great deal, and insensibly you find yourself exchanging remarks with
other guests.
They are not so bad as they seemed, perhaps. Anyhow, one ought to make
the best of things.
*****
A whisky that night with the father! In the course of the whisky
you contrive to let him gather that you, too, keep an eye on the
share-market, and that you have travelled a great deal. In another
twenty-four hours you are perfectly at home in the boarding-house,
greeting people all over the place, and even stopping on the stairs to
converse. Rather a jolly house! Really, some very decent people here,
indeed! Of course there are also some with whom the ice is never broken.
To the end you and they glaringly and fiercely pretend to be blind when
you meet. You reconcile yourself to this; you harden yourself. As
for new-comers, you wish they would not be so stiff and so absurdly
aristocratic. You take pity on them, poor things!
But father and daughter remain your chief stand-by. They overstay you
(certainly unlimited wealth), and they actually have the delightful idea
of seeing you off at the station. You part on terms that are effusive.
You feel you have made friends for life--and first-class friends. You
are to meet them again; you have sworn it.
By the time you get home you have forgotten all about them.