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very light
Rhine wine qualified with Fachingen water—that sort of thing. It
was also taken for granted that we were both sufficiently well off
to afford anything that we could reasonably want in the way of
amusements fitting to our station—that we could take motor cars and
carriages by the day; that we could give each other dinners and
dine our friends and we could indulge if we liked in economy. Thus,
Florence was in the habit of having the Daily Telegraph sent to her
every day from London. She was always an Anglo-maniac, was
Florence; the Paris edition of the New York Herald was always good
enough for me. But when we discovered that the Ashburnhams' copy of
the London paper followed them from England, Leonora and Florence
decided between them to suppress one subscription one year and the
other the next. Similarly it was the habit of the Grand Duke of
Nassau Schwerin, who came yearly to the baths, to dine once with
about eighteen families of regular Kur guests. In return he would
give a dinner of all the eighteen at once. And, since these dinners
were rather expensive (you had to take the Grand Duke and a good
many of his suite and any members of the diplomatic bodies that
might be there)—Florence and Leonora, putting their heads together,
didn't see why we shouldn't give the Grand Duke his dinner
together. And so we did. I don't suppose the Serenity minded that
economy, or even noticed it. At any rate, our joint dinner to the
Royal Personage gradually assumed the aspect of a yearly function.
Indeed, it grew larger and larger, until it became a sort of
closing function for the season, at any rate as far as we were
concerned. I don't in the least mean to say that we were the sort
of persons who aspired to mix "with royalty." We didn't; we hadn't
any claims; we were just "good people." But the Grand Duke was a
pleasant, affable sort of royalty, like the late King Edward VII,
and it was pleasant to hear him talk about the races and, very
occasionally, as a bonne bouche, about his nephew, the Emperor; or
to have him pause for a moment in his walk to ask after the
progress of our cures or to be benignantly interested in the amount
of money we had put on Lelöffel's hunter for the Frankfurt Welter
Stakes.
    But upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does
one put in one's time? How is it possible to have achieved nine
years and to have nothing whatever to show for it? Nothing
whatever, you understand. Not so much as a bone penholder, carved
to resemble a chessman and with a hole in the top through which you
could see four views of Nauheim. And, as for experience, as for
knowledge of one's fellow beings—nothing either. Upon my word, I
couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady who sold the so
expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads to the
station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whether the porter who
carried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or no
when he said that the regular tariff was a lira a parcel. The
instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just
as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years
of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of
being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one
doesn't.
    I think the modern civilized habit—the modern English habit of
taking every one for granted—is a good deal to blame for this. I
have observed this matter long enough to know the queer, subtle
thing that it is; to know how the faculty, for what it is worth,
never lets you down.
    Mind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type
of life in the world; that it is not an almost unreasonably high
standard. For it is really nauseating, when you detest it, to have
to eat every day several slices of thin, tepid, pink india rubber,
and it is disagreeable to have to drink brandy when you would
prefer to be cheered up by warm, sweet Kümmel. And it is nasty to
have to take a cold bath in the