As Seen By Me by Lilian Bell
L >>
Lilian Bell >> As Seen By Me
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 [Illustration: THE FAMOUS RELIEF OF CLEOPATRA AT TEMPLE OF DENDERAH]
As Seen By Me
Lilian Bell
1900
* * * * *
By LILIAN BELL.
THE INSTINCT OF STEP-FATHERHOOD. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
A LITTLE SISTER TO THE WILDERNESS. A Novel. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF AN OLD MAID. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
THE UNDER SIDE OF THINGS. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
FROM A GIRL'S POINT OF VIEW. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.
* * * * *
TO
THAT MOST INTERESTING SPECK OF HUMANITY, ALL PERPETUAL MOTION AND
KINDLING INTELLIGENCE AND SWEETNESS UNSPEAKABLE, MY LITTLE NEPHEW
BILLY
ABSENCE FROM WHOM RACKED MY SPIRIT WITH ITS MOST UNAPPEASABLE PANGS OF
HOMESICKNESS, AND WHOSE CONSTANT PRESENCE IN MY STUDY SINCE MY RETURN
HAS SPARED THE PUBLIC NO SMALL AMOUNT OF PAIN
AUTHOR'S APOLOGY
The frank conceit of the title to this book will, I hope, not
prejudice my friends against it, and will serve not only to excuse my
being my own Boswell, but will fasten the blame of all inaccuracies,
if such there be, upon the offender--myself. This is not a continuous
narrative of a continuous journey, but covers two years of travel over
some thirty thousand miles, and presents peoples and things, not as
you saw them, perhaps, or as they really are, but only As Seen By Me.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. FIRST LETTER--ON THE WAY
II. LONDON
III. PARIS
IV. ON BOARD THE YACHT "HELA"
V. VILNA, RUSSIA
VI. ST. PETERSBURG
VII. RUSSIA
VIII. MOSCOW
IX. CONSTANTINOPLE
X. CAIRO
XI. THE NILE
XII. GREECE
XIII. NAPLES
XIV. ROME
I
FIRST LETTER--ON THE WAY
In this day and generation, when everybody goes to Europe, it is
difficult to discover the only person who never has been there. But I
am that one, and therefore the stir it occasioned in the bosom of my
amiable family when I announced that I, too, was about to join the
vast majority, is not easy to imagine. But if you think that I at once
became a person of importance it only goes to show that you do not
know the family. My mother, to be sure, hovered around me the way she
does when she thinks I am going into typhoid fever. I never have had
typhoid fever, but she is always on the watch for it, and if it ever
comes it will not catch her napping. She will meet it half-way. And
lest it elude her watchfulness, she minutely questions every pain
which assails any one of us, for fear, it may be her dreaded foe. Yet
when my sister's blessed lamb baby had it before he was a year old,
and after he had got well and I was not afraid he would be struck dead
for my wickedness, I said to her, "Well, mamma, you must have taken
solid comfort out of the first real chance you ever had at your pet
fever," she said I ought to be ashamed of myself.
My father began to explain international banking to me as his share in
my preparations, but I utterly discouraged him by asking the
difference between a check and a note. He said I reminded him of the
juryman who asked the difference between plaintiff and defendant. I
soothed him by assuring him that I knew I would always find somebody
to go to the bank with me.
"Most likely 'twill be Providence, then, as He watches over children
and fools," said my cousin, with what George Eliot calls "the brutal
candor of a near relation."
My brother-in-law lent me ten Baedekers, and offered his hampers and
French trunks to me with such reckless generosity that I had to get my
sister to stop him so that I wouldn't hurt his feelings by refusing.
My sister said, "I am perfectly sure, mamma, that if I don't go with
her, she will go about with an ecstatic smile on her face, and let
herself get cheated and lost, and she would just as soon as not tell
everybody that she had never been abroad before. She has no pride."
"Then you had better come along and take care of me and see that I
don't disgrace you," I urged.
"Really, mamma, I do think I had better go," said my sister. So she
actually consented to leave husband and baby in order to go and take
care of me. I do assure you, however, that I have bought all the
tickets, and carried the common purse, and got her through the
custom-houses, and arranged prices thus far. But she does pack my
trunks and make out the laundry lists--I will say that for her.
My brother's contribution to my comfort was in this wise: He said,
"You must have a few more lessons on your wheel before you go, and
I'll take you out for a lesson to-morrow if you'll get up and go at
six o'clock in the morning--that is, if you'll wear gloves. But you
mortify me half to death riding without gloves."
"Nobody sees me but milkmen," I said, humbly.
"Well, what will the milkmen think?" said my brother.
"Mercy on us, I never thought of that," I said. "My gloves are all
pretty tight when one has to grip one's handle-bars as fiercely as I
do. But I'll get large ones. What tint do you think milkmen care the
most for?"
He sniffed.
"Well, I'll go and I'll wear gloves," I said, "but if I fall off,
remember it will be on account of the gloves."
"You always do fall off," he said, with patient resignation. "I've
seen you fall off that wheel in more different directions than it has
spokes."
"I don't exactly fall," I explained, carefully. "I feel myself going
and then I get off."
I was ready at six the next morning, and I wore gloves.
"Now, don't ride into the holes in the street"--one is obliged to give
such instructions in Chicago--"and don't look at anything you see.
Don't be afraid. You're all right. Now, then! You're off!"
"Oh, Teddy, don't ride so close to me," I quavered.
"I'm forty feet away from you," he said.
"Then double it," I said. "You're choking me by your proximity."
"Let's cross the railroad tracks just for practice," he said, when it
was too late for me to expostulate. "Stand up on your pedals and ride
fast, and--"
"Hold on, please do," I shrieked. "I'm falling off. Get out of my way.
I seem to be turning--"
He scorched ahead, and I headed straight for the switchman's hut,
rounded it neatly, and leaned myself and my wheel against the side of
it, helpless with laughter.
A red Irish face, with a short black pipe in its mouth, thrust itself
out of the tiny window just in front of me, and a voice with a rich
brogue exclaimed:
"As purty a bit of riding as iver Oi see!"
"Wasn't it?" I cried. "You couldn't do it."
"Oi wouldn't thry! Oi'd rather tackle a railroad train going at full
spheed thin wan av thim runaway critturs."
"Get down from there," hissed my brother so close to my ear that it
made me bite my tongue.
I obediently scrambled down. Ted's face was very red.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself to enter into immediate
conversation with a man like that. What do you suppose that man
thought of you?"
"Oh, perhaps he saw my gloves and took me for a lady," I pleaded.
Ted grinned and assisted me to mount.
When I successfully turned the corner by making Ted fall back out of
sight, we rode away along the boulevard in silence for a while, for my
conversation when I am on a wheel is generally limited to shrieks,
ejaculations, and snatches of prayer. I never talk to be amusing.
"I say," said my brother, hesitatingly, "I wear a No. 8 glove and a
No. 10 stocking."
"I've always thought you had large hands and feet," I said, ignoring
the hint.
He giggled.
"No, now, really. I wish you'd write that down somewhere. You can get
those things so cheap in Paris."
"You are supposing the case of my return, or of Christmas intervening,
or--a present of some kind, I suppose."
"Well, no; not exactly. Although you know I am always broke--"
"Don't I, though?"
"And that I am still in debt--"
"Because papa insists upon your putting some money in the bank every
month--"
"Yes, and the result is that I never get my head above water. I owe
you twenty now."
"Which I never expect to recover, because you know I always get silly
about Christmas and 'forgive thee thy debts.'"
"You're awful good--" he began.
"But I'll be better if I bring you gloves and silk stockings."
"I'll give you the money!" he said, heroically. "Will you borrow it of
me or of mamma?" I asked, with a chuckle at the family financiering
which always goes on in this manner.
"Now don't make fun of me! _You_ don't know what it is to be hard up."
"Don't I, though?" I said, indignantly. "Oh--oh! Catch me!"
He seized my handle-bar and righted me before I fell off.
"See what you did by saying I never was hard up," I said. "I'll tell
you what, Teddy. You needn't give me the money. I'll bring you some
gloves and stockings!"
"Oh, I say, honest? Oh, but you're the right kind of a sister! I'll
never forget that as long as I live. You do look so nice on your
wheel. You sit so straight and--"
I saw a milkman coming. We three were the only objects in sight, yet I
headed for him.
"Get out of my way," I shrieked at him. "I'm a beginner. Turn off!"
He lashed his horse and cut down a side street.
"What a narrow escape," I sighed. "How glad I am I happened to think
of that."
I looked up pleasantly at Ted. He was biting his lips and he looked
raging.
"You are the most hopeless girl I ever saw!" he burst out. "I wish you
didn't own a wheel."
"I don't," I said. "The wheel owns me."
"You haven't the manners of--"
"Stockings," I said, looking straight ahead. "Silk stockings with
polka dots embroidered on them, No. 10."
Ted looked sheepish.
"I ride so well," I proceeded. "I sit up so straight and look so
nice."
No answer.
"Gloves," I went on, still without looking at him. "White and pearl
ones for evening, and russet gloves for the street, No. 8."
"Oh, quit, won't you? I'm sorry I said that. But if you only knew how
you mortify me."
"Cheer up, Tedcastle. I am going away, you know. And when I come back
you will either have got over caring so much or I will be more of a
lady."
"I'm sorry you are going," said my brother. "But as you are going,
perhaps you will let me use your rooms while you are gone. Your bed is
the best one I ever slept in, and your study would be bully for the
boys when they come to see me."
I was too stunned to reply. He went on, utterly oblivious of my
consternation:
"And I am going to use your wheel while you are gone, if you don't
mind, to take the girls out on. I know some awfully nice girls who can
ride, but their wheels are last year's make, and they won't ride them.
I'd rather like to be able to offer them a new wheel."
"I am not going to take all my party dresses. Have you any use for
them?" I said.
"Why, what's the matter? Won't you let me have your rooms?"
"Merciful heavens, child! I should say not!"
"Why, I haven't asked you for much," said my small, modest brother.
"You offered."
"Well, just wait till I offer the rest. But I'll tell you what I will
do, Ted. If you will promise not to go into my rooms and rummage once
while I am gone, and not to touch my wheel, I'll buy you a tandem, and
then you can take the girls on that."
"I'd rather have you bring me some things from Europe," said my
shrinking brother.
"All right. I'll do that, but let me off this thing. I am so tired I
can't move. You'll have to walk it back and give me five cents to ride
home on the car."
I crawled in to breakfast more dead than alive.
"What's the matter, dearie? Did you ride too far?" asked mamma.
"I don't know whether I rode too far or whether it was Ted's asking if
he couldn't use my rooms while I was gone, but something has made me
tired. What's that? Whom is papa talking to over the telephone?"
Papa came in fuming and fretting.
"Who was it this time?" I questioned, with anticipation. Inquiries
over the telephone were sure to be interesting to me just now.
"Somebody who wanted to know what train you were going on, but would
not give his name. He was inquiring for a friend, he said, and
wouldn't give his friend's name either."
"Didn't you tell him?" I cried, in distress.
"Certainly not. I told him nobody but an idiot would withhold his
name."
Papa calls such a variety of men idiots.
"Oh, but it was probably only flowers or candy. Why didn't you tell
him? Have you no sentiment?"
"I won't have you receiving anonymous communications," he retorted,
with the liberty fathers have a little way of taking with their
daughters.
"But flowers," I pleaded. "It is no harm to send flowers without a
card. Don't you see?" Oh, how hard it is to explain a delicate point
like that to one's father--in broad daylight! "I am supposed to know
who sent them!"
"But would you know?" asked my practical ancestor.
"Not--not exactly. But it would be almost sure to be one of them."
Ted shouted. But there was nothing funny in what I said. Boys are so
silly.
"Anyway, I am sorry you didn't tell him," I said.
"Well, I'm not," declared papa.
The rest of the day fairly flew. The last night came, and the baby was
put to bed. I undressed him, which he regarded as such a joke that he
worked himself into a fever of excitement. He loves to scrub like
Josie, the cook. I had bought him a little red pail, and I gave it to
him that night when he was partly undressed, and he was so enchanted
with it that he scampered around hugging it, and saying, "Pile!
pile!" like a little Cockney. He gave such squeals of ecstasy that
everybody came into the nursery to find him scrubbing his crib with a
nail-brush and little red pail.
"Who gave you the pretty pail, Billy?" asked Aunt Lida, who was
sitting by the crib.
"Tattah," said Billy, in a whisper. He always whispers my name.
"Then go and kiss dear auntie. She is going away on the big boat to
stay such a long time."
Billy's face sobered. Then he dropped his precious pail, and came and
licked my face like a little dog, which is his way of kissing.
I squeezed him until he yelled.
"Don't let him forget me," I wailed. "Talk to him about me every day.
And buy him a toy out of my money often, and tell him Tattah sent it
to him. Oh, oh, he'll be grown up when I come home!"
"Don't cry, dearie," said Aunt Lida, handing me her handkerchief.
"I'll see that your grave is kept green."
My sister appeared at the door. She was all ready to start. She even
had her veil on.
"What do you mean by exciting Billy so at this time of night?" she
said. "Go out, all of you. We'll lose the train. Hush, somebody's at
the telephone. Papa's talking to that same man again." I jumped up and
ran out.
"Let me answer it, papa dear! Yes, yes, yes, certainly. To-night on
the Pennsylvania. You're quite welcome. Not at all." I hung up the
telephone.
I could hear papa in the nursery:
"She actually told him--after all I said this morning! I never heard
of anything like it."
Two or three voices were raised in my defence. Ted slipped out into
the hall.
"Bully for you," he whispered. "You'll get the flowers all right at
the train. Who do you s'pose they're from? Another box just came for
you. Say, couldn't you leave that smallest box of violets in the
silver box? I want to give them to a girl, and you've got such loads
of others."
"Don't ask her for those," answered my dear sister, "they are the most
precious of all!"
"I can't give you any of mine," I said, "but I'll buy you a box for
her--a small box," I added hastily.
"The carriages have come, dears," quavered grandmamma, coming out of
the nursery, followed by the family, one after the other.
"Get her satchels, Teddy. Her hat is upstairs. Her flowers are in the
hall. She left her ulster on my bed, and her books are on the
window-sill," said mamma. She wouldn't look at me. "Remember, dearie,
your medicines are all labelled, and I put needles in your work-box
all threaded. Don't sit in draughts and don't read in a dim light.
Have a good time and study hard and come back soon. Good--bye, my
girlie. God bless you!"
By this time no handkerchief would have sufficed for my tears. I
reached out blindly, and Ted handed me a towel.
"I've got a sheet when you've sopped that," he said. Boys are such
brutes.
Aunt Lida said, "Good-bye, my dearest. You are my favorite niece. You
know I love you the best."
I giggled, for she tells my sister the same thing always.
"Nobody seems to care much that I am going," said Bee, mournfully.
"But you are coming back so soon, and she is going to stay so long,"
exclaimed grandmamma, patting Bee.
"I'll bet she doesn't stay a year," cried Ted.
"I'll expect her home by Christmas," said papa.
"I'll bet she is here to eat Thanksgiving dinner," cried my
brother-in-law.
"No, she is sure to stay as long as she has said she would," said
mamma.
Mothers are the brace of the universe. The family trailed down to the
front door. Everybody was carrying something. There were two
carriages, for they were all going to the station with us.
"For all the world like a funeral, with loads of flowers and everybody
crying," said my brother, cheerfully.
I never shall forget that drive to the station; nor the last few
moments, when Bee and I stood on the car-steps and talked to those who
were on the platform of the station. Can anybody else remember how she
felt at going to Europe for the first time and leaving everybody she
loved at home? Bee grieved because there were no flowers at the train
after all. But the next morning they appeared, a tremendous box,
arranged as a surprise.
Telegrams came popping in at all the big stations along the way,
enlivening our gloom, and at the steamer there were such loads of
things that we might almost have set up as a florist, or fruiterer, or
bookseller. Such a lapful of steamer letters and telegrams! I read a
few each morning, and some of them I read every morning!
I don't like ocean travel. They sent grapefruit and confections to my
state-room, which I tossed out of the port-hole. You know there are
some people who think you don't know what you want. I travelled
horizontally most of the way, and now people roar when I say I wasn't
ill. Well, I wasn't, you know. We--well, Teddy would not like me to be
more explicit. I own to a horrible headache which never left me. I
deny everything else. Let them laugh. I was there, and I know.
The steamer I went on allows men to smoke on all the decks, and they
all smoked in my face. It did not help me. I must say that I was
unspeakably thankful to get my foot on dry ground once more. When we
got to the dock a special train of toy cars took us through the
greenest of green landscapes, and suddenly, almost before we knew it,
we were at Waterloo Station, and knew that London was at our door.
II
LONDON
People said to me, "What are you going to London for?" I said, "To
get an English point of view." "Very well," said one of the knowing
ones, who has lived abroad the larger part of his life, "then you must
go to 'The Insular,' in Piccadilly. That is not only the smartest
hotel in London, but it is the most typically British. The rooms are
let from season to season to the best country families. There you will
find yourself plunged headlong into English life with not an American
environment to bless yourself with, and you will soon get your English
point of view."
"Ah-h," responded the simpleton who goes by my name, "that is what we
want. We will go to 'The Insular.'"
We wrote at once for rooms, and then telegraphed for them from
Southampton.
The steamer did not land her passengers until the morning of the ninth
day, which shows the vast superiority of going on a fast boat, which
gets you in fully as much as fifteen or twenty minutes ahead of the
slow ones.
Our luggage would not go on even a four-wheeler, so we took a dear
little private bus and proceeded to put our mountainous American
trunks on it. We filled the top of this bus as full as it would hold,
and put everything else inside. After stowing ourselves in there would
not have been room even for another umbrella.
In this fashion we reached "The Insular," where we were received by
four or five gorgeous creatures in livery, the head one of whom said,
"Miss Columbia?" I admitted it, and we were ushered in, where we were
met by more belonging to this tribe of gorgeousness, another of whom
said, "Miss Columbia?"
"Yes," I said, firmly, privately wondering if they were trying to trip
me into admitting that I was somebody else.
"The housekeeper will be here presently," said this person. "She is
expecting you."
Forth came the housekeeper.
"Miss Columbia?" she said.
Once again I said "Yes," patiently, standing on my other foot.
"If you will be good enough to come with me I will show you your
rooms."
A door opened outward, disclosing a little square place with two
cane-bottomed chairs. A man bounced out so suddenly that I nearly
annihilated my sister, who was back of me. I could not imagine what
this little cubbyhole was, but as there seemed to be nowhere else to
go, I went in. The others followed, then the man who had bounced out.
He closed the door and shut us in, where we stood in solemn silence.
About a quarter of an hour afterwards I thought I saw something
through the glass moving slowly downward, and then an infinitesimal
thrill in the soles of my feet led me to suspect the truth.
"Is this thing an elevator?" I whispered to my sister.
"No, they call it a lift over here," she whispered back.
"I know that," I murmured, impatiently. "But is this thing it? Are we
moving? Are we going anywhere?"
"Why, of course, my dear. They are slower than ours, that's all."
I listened to her with some misgivings, for her information is not
always to be wholly trusted, but this time it happened that she was
right, for after a while we came to the fourth floor, where our rooms
were.
I wish you could have seen the size of them. I shall not attempt to
describe them, for you would not believe me. I had engaged "two rooms
and a bath." The two rooms were there. "Where is the bath?" I said.
The housekeeper lovingly, removed a gigantic crash towel from a
hideous tin object, and proudly exposed to my vision that object which
is next dearest to his silk hat to an Englishman's heart--a hip-bath
tub. Her manner said, "Beat that if you can."
My sister prodded me in the back with her umbrella, which in our sign
language means, "Don't make a scene."
"Very well," I said, rather meekly. "Have our trunks sent up."
"Very good, madam."
She went away, and then we rang the bell and began to order what were
to us the barest necessities of life. We were tired and lame and
sleepy from a night spent at the pier landing the luggage, and we
wanted things with which to make ourselves comfortable.
There was a pocket edition of a fireplace, and they brought us a
hatful of the vilest soft coal, which peppered everything in the rooms
with soot.
We climbed over our trunks to sit by this imitation of a fire, only to
find that there was nothing to sit on but the most uncompromising of
straight-backed chairs.
We groaned as we took in the situation. To our poor, racked frames a
coal-hod would not have suggested more discomfort. We dragged up our
hampers, packed with steamer-rugs and pillows, and my sister sat on
hers while I took another turn at the bell. While the maid is
answering this bell I shall have plenty of time to tell you what we
afterwards discovered the process of bell-ringing in an English hotel
to be.
We rang our bell. Presently we heard the most horrible gong, such as
we use on our patrol wagons and fire-engines at home. This clanged
four times. Then a second bell down the hall answered it. Then feet
flew by our door. At this juncture my sister and I prepared to let
ourselves down the fire-escape. But we soon discovered that those
flying feet belonged to the poor maid, whom that gong had signalled
that she was wanted on the fourth floor. She flew to a speaking-tube
and asked who on the fourth floor wanted her. She was then given the
number of our room, when she rang a bell to signify that our call was
answered, by which time she was at liberty, and knocked at our door,
saying, in her soft English voice, "Did you ring, miss?"
We told her we wanted rocking-chairs. She said there was not one in
the house. Then easy-chairs, we said, or anything cushioned or low or
comfortable. She said the housekeeper had no easier chairs.
We sat down on our hampers, and my sister leaned against the corner of
the wardrobe with a pillow at her back to keep from being cut in two.
I propped my back against the wash-stand, which did very well, except
that the wash-stand occasionally slid away from me.
"This," said my sister, impressively, "is England."
We had been here only half an hour, but I had already got my point of
view.
"Let's go out and look up a hotel where they take Americans," I said.
"I feel the need of ice-water."
Our drinking-water at "The Insular" was on the end of the wash-stand
nearest the fire.
So, feeling a little timid and nervous, but not in the least homesick,
we went downstairs. One of our gorgeous retinue called a cab and we
entered it.
"Where shall we go?" asked my sister.
"I feel like saying to the first hotel we see," I said.
Just then we raised our eyes and they rested simultaneously upon a
sign, "The Empire Hotel for Cats and Dogs." This simple solution of
our difficulty put us in such high good humor that we said we wouldn't
look up a hotel just yet--we would take a drive.
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15