The Little Hotel by Christina Stead Page A

numbers to what he was wearing. Luisa and I had a fit of laughter which held up the marketing for half an hour, but Rosa said she was afraid of him; Madame Blaise now would not go along the staircase or landings without a flashlight on account of Herman, and Dr Blaise had spoken roughly to him. Mrs Trollope stopped laughing:
    ‘I have a haunted feeling; and I dreamed I saw the Mayor standing glowering in a corner of the landing, with his hat, muffler and smoked glasses and his hands out ready to jump on me!’
    Tonight I had left orders for the Mayor to be left outside the door until Roger came home, whatever time that was. When Roger came back this afternoon, I told Clara and Mrs Trollope, I flew at him and told him what Julie said. His pride was hurt. Without a word he went straight out again and did not come back for dinner. The Dutch ladies did not have their wine, and Madame Blaise was angry because she could not have her walnuts. That was because Roger took with him the key of the dessert-cupboard. Mrs Trollope said:
    ‘Still, it is no use bottling those things up; you see, now you are quite lighthearted. I don’t believe your dear husband would ever wrong you.’
    When we got to the Zig-Zag Club we looked at all the photographs, but the strip-tease dancer was not among them. Mrs Trollope said we would go inside and ask; so we all went in laughing. The man at the entrance of course knew me and told us that Wanda the strip-tease dancer had gone to Geneva a few days before. Mrs Trollope was delighted.
    ‘Oh, good. Let’s celebrate. I feel like a good time.’
    The man knew Mrs Trollope too; so he called the manager, who was glad to see us and made us come in to have a drink on the house. Said he:
    ‘We’re glad of the company, come along. You’ll be my guests. It will make the floor show glad to see some more faces.’
    ‘How can they see our faces when their backs are turned?’ said Clara, for there was a picture of the floor-show in that position. We were all in the highest spirits.
    ‘What a pity Charlie is not with us; he would make us roar,’ said Clara.
    ‘Well, what a pity the Mayor is not along, he would buy us a case of champagne,’ said I.
    ‘The Mayor would make a good floor-show dressed in his smoked glasses,’ said Clara.
    Mrs Trollope was shocked; but she said:
    ‘Madame Blaise will never forgive me for not moping at home with her and discussing her great lump of a daughter and her son who looks like a jockey. We shall have a tiff.’
    At everything we burst out laughing. It was a long time since I had had such a good time. I said:
    ‘It is too good: I am sure something awful will happen. You will see.’
    ‘This is quite an adventure,’ said Mrs Trollope.
    The manager of the Zig-Zag came and sat at our table. He is a man I don’t like. He said not to mind about paying. But the question soon came up about our paying for another round of drinks. That is the custom here. Each guest feels obliged to stand treat in his turn. Mrs Trollope began with:
    ‘I haven’t much money with me but I can manage a bottle of champagne.’
    After that, I was obliged to too; and that is how I got into debt at the Zig-Zag that evening. The manager brought along some people, a jeweller in Lausanne, a café-owner. He stood the whole table to champagne, they reciprocated and so it went. In the end we all were tipsy and I owed for one bottle of champagne. But no one regretted it. Mrs Trollope said:
    ‘This is more like old times. In the East we had never a dull moment. This place is like heaven on a sunny morning but it is rather quiet.’
    ‘My father always said heaven would be a bore,’ said I.
    ‘Drink, fall on your face and be merry, for tomorrow you die,’ said Clara.
    It is a long walk down to the lake shore from Lausanne centre. The air gets richer and richer till it is almost like a fish stew. Clara said there were wild boars which come down because of the cold and they would get us. I said we