Over there they think a draft is deadly,
and I presume it is if you have never tampered with one. They
have a saying: A little window is a dangerous thing.
As with fresh air on the Continent, so also with baths - except
perhaps more so. In deference to the strange and unaccountable
desires of their English-speaking guests the larger hotels in Paris
are abundantly equipped with bathrooms now, but the Parisian
boulevardiers continue to look with darkling suspicion on a party
who will deliberately immerse his person in cold water; their
beings seem to recoil in horror from the bare prospect of such a
thing. It is plainly to be seen they think his intelligence has
been attainted by cold water externally applied; they fear that
through a complete undermining of his reason he may next be
committing these acts of violence on innocent bystanders rather
than on himself, as in the present distressing stages of his mania.
Especially, I would say, is this the attitude of the habitue of
Montmartre.
I can offer no visual proof to back my word; but by other testimony
I venture the assertion that when a boulevardier feels the need
of a bath he hangs a musk bag round his neck - and then, as the
saying is, the warmer the sweeter. His companion of the gentler
sex apparently has the same idea of performing daily ablutions
that a tabby cat has. You recall the tabby-cat system, do you
not? - two swipes over the brow with the moistened paw, one forward
swipe over each ear, a kind of circular rubbing effect across the
face - and call it a day! Drowning must be the most frightful death
that a Parisian sidewalk favorite can die. It is not so much the
death itself - it is the attendant circumstances.
Across the river, in the older quarters of Paris, there is excitement
when anybody on the block takes a bath - not so much excitement as
for a fire, perhaps, but more than for a funeral. On the eve of
the fatal day the news spreads through the district that to-morrow
poor Jacques is going to take a bath! A further reprieve has been
denied him. He cannot put it off for another month, or even for
another two weeks. His doom is nigh at hand; there is no
hope - none!
Kindly old Angeline, the midwife, shakes her head sadly as she
goes about her simple duties.
On the morrow the condemned man rises early and sees his spiritual
adviser. He eats a hearty breakfast, takes an affectionate leave
of his family and says he is prepared for the worst.
