The happy hypochondriac

SYLVIA LYON

A new Rake's Progress, in which our hero goes from cure to cure and suffers much in the name of Eros

The time was late summer and early evening, when Parisian life is quiet yet complicated, alarming and unexpected: one never knows which of one's friends are in town; it is not considered the thing to dress; the most conventional women appear painted fiercely as totem-poles, for in this summer-dinner-time their make-up must bear the immodest scrutiny of the long daylight before the technical fall of night. I considered this appalling problem when I asked Bianca to dine with me.

"In order to avoid these seasonal cosmetic upheavals, which you don't need anyhow," I said, "at what time could you be suitably dressed and rouged for dinner?"

"One minute while I consult the paper," was Bianca's answer. "The sun sets this evening at 8:36," she read in a scientific voice, "and will rise tomorrow at 5:14." She paused, then added, "I will not only be ready at nine to dine, but to gorge."

"Please don't keep me waiting," I pleaded, "so as to make this a simultaneous date may I ask what time your watch says? Mine says seven o'clock and I've just had it adjusted."

"My watch says nothing at all (such a discreet little thing)," said Bianca, "and as for your watch, I would not boast about it. I cannot bear watches that say one thing one minute, and something else the next. I would not trust such a watch."

I called for Bianca at nine, and when she finally appeared there was no last-minute look about her save that she clasped in one hand some letters, still unopened, that had arrived in the final courrier. As we left the house she opened the envelopes after bestowing upon me a silent but eloquent apology.

"From my family," she said, fluttering some pages, "but there's no money in that. I am so disappointed, William," she went on, "I wanted some money so I could take up the tambourine. I'm thinking of joining the Salvation Army. There's money in that." She chuckled. "1 believe a girl should try everything once, so that is why I have come back from four days at Vichy." She paused with the wondering air of a voyager still spellbound by the sight of the Acropolis by moonlight.

"I am glad you came back so soon," I said, "but I thought the cure was for three weeks."

"Oh, I am a fast worker," she said, "haven't you noticed that before? As an example: I can see there is something very prosperous about you this evening, so if you don't mind, let us have dinner at Joseph's. The owner." she informed me as a gracious reward for my being so agreeable, "was once upon a time chef to Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the late Canadian Premier. Do you remember what Saki wrote about cooks? You don't? How undomesticated of you. 'She was a good cook as good cooks go, and as good cooks go, she went.' "

When we were established at our table, hoping Bianca would tell me a long story about her short cure at Vichy, I asked her what kind of water she wanted.

"I have so many things wrong with me," murmured Bianca plaintively, "that almost anything will do. As a matter of fact, I want Vittel. But as a matter of fantasy, have you a little ambergris about you?"

Rather startled I admitted a lack of ambergris.

"Oil dear," said Bianca, "a brutal masseuse at Vichy looked at me pityingly and said I had no muscles anywhere and should go in for canoeing. But Julio Santa Elia, under less distressing but more dressed circumstances, of course, looked at me pityingly but hopefully one evening in town, and said I needed ambergris. 'Bianca,' be said to me, 'I have forgotten something. While on our way out to dinner I must stop in at the club to fetch a little jar of ambergris a thoughtful friend sent me from Egypt. It's to stir in one's coffee.'

"You know, William," said Bianca, "how I love any excuse for drinking coffee, so I beamed with pleasure. But when Santa Elia casually added that ambergris was an aphrodisiac I simply froze. 'Not with me,' I said in alarm, 'do you stir ambergris in anybody's coffee, yours or mine.' He then said he was going to name me American Ice after some stock he owns that seems to pay equally low dividends."

"Who is this man," I asked threateningly, "and where is he now?"

"That's a story in itself." said Bianca, and she glanced with furtive hilarity at a picture post-card among the letters beside her plate.

"Early in August," she began, "while you were in Scotland merely for salmon, I went down to Bagnoles-de-l'Orne, which is for phlebitis and varicose veins. I have neither, but Solange d'Estaing has a little trouble with her circulation, and asked me to spend a week-end with her. Her chauffeur met me at the train with the polite but proud apology that Madame could not meet me as she collapses every afternoon at seven. As I entered the hotel I was approached with many bows and clickings of heels, by the Marquis de Santa Elia, whom I knew only by sight. One can hardly avoid such a thing," said Bianca, "as he is one of the sights of Paris. From April to July, again in October, and then in February, with three other Spaniards he lunches at the Ritz, one day Cambon, one day Vendôme side. There they sit like four points of the compass, or like four genial monkeys who hear, speak and think all the evil possible in a nice old-fashioned way. But when I met him I found him to be discreet about his own friends to the aggravation-point.

"I recognized Mademoiselle by the delightful description given you by our charming friend the Comtesse d'Estaing, who has given me,' he announced, 'the honour of taking you to dinner. If you will be in Madame d'Estaing's room at eight o'clock I will meet you there at five minutes past eight so I can be presented to you correctly.' He made so many pretty gestures and bows that I wondered if setting up exercises and tap-dancing were part of the cure. But when I saw Solange she said the cure was only strenuous because the chief exercise is running to see who can find a chaise longue first. 'The baths themselves are so wearying,' she said, 'that really I cannot bother racing after chaises longues. I spend all afternoon in my own bed, then at tea time I get up to call on those of my friends who are in other hotels, then I come back to bed and those of my friends who are not dead by that time come to see me after dinner. If you, Bianca, are still alive after having dinner with Santa Elia, then you both can come to see me.

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"About eight o'clock I saw Santa Elia hovering mysteriously in the cor ridor examining a potted-palm as though it were a race-horse. Exactly five minutes after I had entered Solange's room, her maid answered a knock on the door, and in walked Santa Elia, who, although he wore dinner-clothes and no heard, resembled El Greco's Funeral of Count dOrgaz. That is to say, he had dark deep-set fluid eyes and a white face that never seemed to end. But it grew quite pink and I could see he was cautiously in love with Solange, although he glanced with equal ardour at her plate of soup.

"We left Solange with her solitary dinner and went into the dining-room. As we sat at his table, Santa Elia noticed some little medicine bottles on it. 'Take these away,' he commanded the waiter in horror, as though they were bombs. 'Dear me,' he exclaimed. 'that medicine might kill me. You know how dangerous other people's cures are.' 'Oh isn't that your trouble?' I asked innocently. 'My only trouble,' lie confided, 'is love. I am the last of the Romantics, and have always sacrificed myself to please the ladies. Please don't tell a soul,' he went on. 'but I have come to Bagnoles just to be near our enchanting friend, Madame d'Estaing.' He smiled benignly. 'Of course,' he added hastily, 'my interest is purely intellectual, and Bagnoles is filled with many other interesting people, such as Venizelos.'

"I met Venizelos after dinner," continued Bianca, "and asked him how he liked Bagnoles and he said it was a wash-out."

"Bianca! "

"Well, that's what he meant," Bianca explained, "one can never translate literally from the Greek.

"Santa Elia started to tell me the story of his life and how he religiously makes sacrifices to the ladies. 'So as not to compromise any one lady by my attentions,' he said, 'next week I am going on to Mont-Doré.' 'Asthma?' I asked brightly. 'Yes, asthma,' he breathed, 'a Polish friend of mine has asthma and a husband who is not in the least sympathetic. He doesn't like me at all, I cannot imagine why,' Santa Elia said, smiling naively, 'after all, I do my best.' He rolled his eyes. 'Spaniards are inclined to be voluble,' he continued, 'about the objects of their admiration, but I learned to be discreet during the War. I was highly offended at Spain's neutrality and joined a French regiment, which to my discomfort was sent to Russia. We were quartered in a small town in the Urals and the Russian officers used to say that these provincial towns were really unbearable. One cannot spend three or four nights a week with a girl, they would complain, without people saying you are courting her.'

"After this conversation we went to see Solange but she said she was very tired so Santa Elia did not stay very long. When he left the room she said his only trouble was an overworked imagination and if he was not more careful she was going to recommend him to take a long cure at a resort in the suburbs of Paris called Charenton, which is for insanity.

"Some time later I had a card from Santa Elia describing Mont-Doré. 'The only sacrifice I can offer the ladies here,' he wrote, 'is to invite them out to inhale a little gas. Fortunately I can do this legitimately as I have a slight attack of hay-fever, but I find the monkish cowled towels one wears while inhaling most cumbersome.' A week later he wrote from Cauterets (affections of the throat) that gargling was great fun. and for the first time in his life he found that to be disillusioned is distinctly profitable. After listening to dozens of opera-singers singing and gargling at the same time he had already cancelled his subscriptions to both the Paris and Madrid Opera.

"Later he wrote from Brides-lesBains (obesity) that he'd lost several pounds."

"What was the attraction there?" I asked.

"Purely material," replied Bianca, "in fact a very fat and rich aunt. Santa Elia, I suppose, was praying that one day the water would go down the wrong way and stay there. ... I heard from Aix-les-Bains (rheumatism) and from Nauheim (heart). And guess, my dear William, where he is now. How happy he must be. Santa Elia's at Franzensbad."

"What's that for?" I asked.

Bianca picked the picture post-card from the table. "What a way to finish such a season," she remarked. "Franzensbad is where women go who want babies. 'More sacrifices,'" she read from the card. "That is all he has to say. Well," Bianca laughed, "that is not exactly what I could call sacrifice. It's martyrdom. From what I have heard," she continued, sagely, "the truth about the magic cure of Franzensbad is that there are about fifty handsome young doctors attached to the place. Poor Santa Elia! Such competition, and how compromising!"

"Compromising perhaps," I said, "but that's not competition, it's a franchise."

"It's a gift," declared Bianca.