The Reader Will Therefore
Not Be So Much, Astonished As These Travellers Were To Learn That There
Was Nothing Else
In Rome (where there must be about five hundred hotels,
_hotels garnis,_ and pensions) that one could comparatively stay even
Overnight in, and that they settled in that alluring apartment
provisionally, the next day being Sunday, and the crystalline Saturday
of their arrival being well worn away toward its topaz and ruby sunset.
Of course, they continued their search for several days afterward,
zealously but hopelessly, yet not fruitlessly, for it resulted in an
acquaintance with Roman hotels which they might otherwise never have
made, and for one of them in literary material of interest to every one
hoping to come to Rome or despairing of it. The psychology of the matter
was very curious, and involved the sort of pleasing self-illusion by
which people so often get themselves over questionable passes in life
and come out with a good conscience, or a dead one, which is practically
the same thing. These particular people had come to Rome with
reminiscences of in-expensiveness and had intended to recoup themselves
for the cost of several previous winters in New York hotels by the
saving they would make in their Roman sojourn. When it appeared, after
all the negotiation and consequent abatement, that their Roman hotel
apartment would cost them hardly a fifth less than they had last paid in
New York, they took a guilty refuge in the fact that they were getting
for less money something which no money could buy in New York. Gradually
all sense of guilt wore off, and they boldly, or even impudently, said
to themselves that they ought to have what they could pay for, and that
there were reasons, which they were not obliged to render in their
frankest soliloquies, why they should do just what they chose in the
matter.
The truth is that the modern Roman hotel is far better in every way than
the hotel of far higher class, or of the highest class, in New York. In
the first place, the managers are in the precious secret, which our
managers have lost, of making you believe that they want you; and,
having you, they know how to look after your pleasure and welfare. The
table is always of more real variety, though vastly less stupid
profusion than ours. The materials are wholesomer and fresher and are
without the proofs, always present in our hotel viands, of a
probationary period in cold storage. As for the cooking, there is no
comparison, whether the things are simply or complexly treated; and the
service is of that neatness and promptness which ours is so ignorant of.
Your agreement is usually for meals as well as rooms; the European plan
is preferably ignored in Europe; and the _table d'hote_ luncheon and
dinner are served at small, separate tables; your breakfast is brought
to your room. Being old-fashioned, myself, I am rather sorry for the
small, separate tables.
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