_[Menton], Sunday, 11th January 1874._
In many ways this hotel is more amusing than the Pavillon. There are the
children, to begin with; and then there are games every evening--the
stool of repentance, question and answer, etc.; and then we speak
French, although that is not exactly an advantage in so far as personal
brilliancy is concerned.
I am in lovely health again to-day: I-walked as far as the Pont St.
Louis very nearly, besides walking and knocking about among the olives
in the afternoon. I do not make much progress with my French; but I do
make a little, I think. I was pleased with my success this evening,
though I do not know if others shared the satisfaction.
The two Russian ladies are from Georgia all the way. They do not at all
answer to the description of Georgian slaves however, being graceful and
refined, and only good-looking after you know them a bit.
Please remember me very kindly to the Jenkins, and thank them for having
asked about me. Tell Mrs. J. that I am engaged perfecting myself in the
"Gallic idiom," in order to be a worthier Vatel for the future. Monsieur
Follete, our host, is a Vatel by the way. He cooks himself, and is not
insensible to flattery on the score of his table. I began, of course, to
complain of the wine (part of the routine of life at Mentone); I told
him that where one found a kitchen so exquisite, one astonished oneself
that the wine was not up to the same form. "Et voila precisement mon
cote faible, monsieur," he replied, with an indescribable amplitude of
gesture. "Que voulez-vous? Moi, je suis cuisinier!" It was as though
Shakespeare, called to account for some such peccadillo as the Bohemian
seaport, should answer magnificently that he was a poet. So Follete
lives in a golden zone of a certain sort--a golden, or rather torrid
zone, whence he issues twice daily purple as to his face--and all these
clouds and vapours and ephemeral winds pass far below him and disturb
him not.
He has another hobby however--his garden, round which it is his highest
pleasure to lead the unwilling guest. Whenever he is not in the kitchen,
he is hanging round loose, seeking whom he may show his garden to. Much
of my time is passed in studiously avoiding him, and I have brought the
art to a very extreme pitch of perfection. The fox, often hunted,
becomes wary.--Ever your affectionate son,