LETTER X

HOTEL NATIONAL, LUCERNE 24th August

DARLING ELIZABETH:

{_Smart People_}

This morning Blanche and I were sitting in the wicker chairs under the chestnuts on the _quai_ in front of the National, when Sir Charles and the Vicomte passed. They both stopped and chatted for a while, then the Vicomte saw some very smart people who were sitting near and introduced us to them. They were the Duchesse de Vaudricourt and Mrs. Wertzelmann, the wife of the American Minister. The Duchesse is Empire and the Wertzelmanns are _nouveaux riches_, but they are at the very top of all the society here. A great many other people came up to speak to them; Blanche and I were introduced, and, as Sir Charles said, before you could say "Jack Robinson" we were _rangé_. As we both had on Paquin we felt quite as well turned out as the other women, who were beautifully dressed. You should have seen the people on the _quai_ stare as they passed.

{_Telling Fortunes_}

Blanche made quite a sensation by telling fortunes, and everybody wanted their hands read. She did it awfully well, and told the right things to the right people. She told the Duchesse de Vaudricourt, who is fifty if she is a day, but makes up twenty-five, that the only tragedy in her life would be her death, and to beware of a _beau sabreur_ who carried her photograph in a locket on his watch chain. When pressed as to the reason she should be cautious of this unknown, Blanche told her that he was destined to perish in a duel over her. The Duchesse was delighted, for it is said that she longs for the _éclat_ of men killing themselves over her, but that up to the present no one has ever even fought about her. Mrs. Wertzelmann was to have her portrait, which has been painted by Constant, hung in the Luxembourg, and to marry her daughter to a Serene Highness, both of which Sir Charles had told us were her supreme desires. The Vicomte had a very interesting personality, and was irresistible with women and greatly respected by men, and was to die in a collision of automobiles, which made him turn rather green. Mr. Wertzelmann, the American Minister, who had joined us, held out a hand like a working-man's, and asked Blanche what was going to happen to him. She said she saw great things in the lines, and something else which she thought could only be confided to his ear in private.

He was so excited, and Blanche wrinkled her eyes at him in the prettiest way, that he insisted on taking her to the verandah of the National, and hearing the rest of his fortune in private. I don't know what Blanche told him, but he ordered champagne frappé, and when they came back his face fairly beamed.

Mrs. Wertzelmann was very gracious, and said that though we hadn't called she wanted us to come out to-morrow afternoon to her villa to a garden-party; that she hated ceremony and etiquette and calling, and we might leave our cards when we came. For it seems it is the custom here for strangers to make the first call, but it is really very silly calling at all, for nobody ever seems to be at home, and one meets the same people half-a-dozen times a day at the National, which is the rendezvous of the smart set.

{_Comte Belladonna_}

{_Advertising Custom_}

It is the thing to have tea in the garden of the National, where the Hungarian band plays from four to six. It is very _recherché_, and the prices are so high that the _canaille_, as the Marquise de Pivart calls the tourists, don't come. So this afternoon we met the same set again, and also a dear little old man, over eighty, who had the most perfect manners, and was dressed faultlessly. In fact the Marquise told me that his only occupation was dressing and paying compliments. His name is Comte Belladonna, and he has a face like the carving on a cameo. He is the most _distingué_ person here, and was something to Victor Emanuel, and has seen only the best society all his life. He is quite poor, and has a pension which just about pays for his gloves and handkerchiefs, but everybody adores him; he gives tone to everything, and nothing is complete without his presence. He is like the old beaux we used to see at Cannes and Biarritz, and it is a wonder how at his age he manages to keep pace with his invitations. Sir Charles says he has a room on the top floor of the National which he gets for nothing, for his name is always put first on the list of the hotel guests in the papers as an advertisement.

There is an Austrian nobleman at the Schweitzerhof who is accommodated there in the same way for the use of his name in the visitors' list, and I think it is very convenient, for it saves all the worry of trying to make ends meet, and one is actually paid for existing, and supported in the best style. I am sure if the Irish peers knew that there was such a custom in vogue they would move it should be adopted at Scarborough and Harrogate, and the other places, only, of course, we haven't any _villes de luxe_ at home as they have on the Continent.

Comte Belladonna spends his summers at the National and his winters in Rome, where the Marquise says the Government, in consideration for his past services to the State, have given him a post in a _bureau_, where all that he has to do is to occasionally sign his name to documents of which he never reads the contents. He is quite the most youthful old boy I have ever met; he doesn't rise at six and walk ten miles before breakfast like old Lord Merriman, who hunts with the West Somerset Harriers in all weathers and golfs on the Quantocks. Comte Belladonna rises at eleven like a gilded youth, clothes himself in the most faultless flannels, and descends to the wicker chairs under the chestnuts on the _quai_, where he reads the "Osservatore Romano," and chats with the _beau monde_ of Lucerne who gather there; at one he lunches like an epicure, after which he is ready for any social amusement. He is a charming polished beau, a master of ceremonies, a courtier, and he at present affects an American girl of nineteen, who is quite ready to play May to his January. But Comte Belladonna belongs to the country of Machiavelli, and _la belle Américaine_ has only her face for her fortune.

{_Dinner at a Café_}

To-night we dined at a café with the Vicomte de Narjac; Sir Charles and the Wertzelmanns were the only others of the party. A troupe of Swedish singers sang and danced and passed round a tambourine, and after dinner we went to the Kursaal theatre to see "Puppenfee."--Your dearest Mamma.