from the 2nd of august the palace hotel, which is the supremely characteristic, fashionable, and snobbish hotel of the whole engadine in general, and the two st. moritzes in particular (le palace, as the french said, with an accent of reverence as if they were mentioning olympus, the peles, as the english said rapidly and simply, the pelesh, as the american ladies pronounced it, with rich accent), was filled with its many-souled, multiform, and original clientèle, and was not failing its great tradition, that of providing everybody, great or small, cause for gossiping, or mere tittle-tattle. certainly on some days the second cause, the little one, was lacking, and on others the tittle-tattle; but, nevertheless, the tradition was maintained intact, the causes for daily gossip had scarcely ever been less than two, and each day that waned had always had its great news. generally, when the weather was very fine, and everyone had left their rooms to sally forth in the open air, if only to descend on foot to the bad and return by the tram, when even the soft and lazy egyptian women, with their magnificent black eyes, pale faces, and intensely rich, though sometimes tasteful, dresses, were outside the hotel, although only at the door, making a pretence of coming and going, the daily scandal had been but one, which was born and prospered at lunch, was most robust at dinner, and flourished the rest of the evening, only to perish at night. but on the days of the 9th and 10th of august, on which it had rained, and on the 11th, on which it had snowed slightly, when even the most intrepid pedestrians like the comtesse fulvia gioia and donna carlotta albano had remained at home in the hotel, when neither madame lawrence, nor madame lesnoy, nor the marquise d'allart had been able to play golf, when even all the men had stayed at home, to drag out the time in chatting, smoking, and playing poker, bridge, and billiards, in these three days of closure the scandals had been three new ones every day, after even those of the preceding day had been revived. and every day the clients of the palace hotel, each in their own set, when they met in the morning or later at lunch, after some vague words about health or the weather, took up at once the usual, unchangeable question and answer: "chère amie, connaissez vous le potin de ce matin?"—"oh, ma chère, mais je ne sais rien du tous, dites-le moi donc."
however, not all the women and men, old and new clients of the palace hotel, were gossips. some of the women, if not many, kept decidedly aloof from all this scandalmongering, and despised it secretly. very many of the men, through refinement of spirit and education, had the most complete indifference, even insensibility to scandal. but the serenest women who, because of the beauty of their interior life were accustomed to keep their minds free from everything trivial, allowed themselves to be taken by the slight, childish deceit which the curiosity of friend or enemy offers to women. even the most insensible of men consented, through cold courtesy and polite condescension, to become worldly and pretend an interest in the first, second, or third scandal of the day. the marquise di vieuxcastel, most exquisite, of a delicate beauty, through a double elegance, moral and material, through a lively taste for art and letters, fascinating in every grace of mind and person, was not a gossip. the comtesse pierre de gérard and the baronesse de gourmont, two sisters, could not be gossips, both were of a classic though different beauty, both were dowered with characters full of energy and sweetness; each of the great ladies showed pride in every expression, especially the first, the famous comtesse pierre, a perfect and conscious pride. the duchesse de langeais, for whom the care of her beauty and an amiable desire of pleasure hindered every other expression of mind, was not a gossip. nor was the gr?fin durckeim, the eccentric hungarian, whose life was a romance, though completed. nor was the duchesse d'armaillé, who was goodness herself. these and other ladies could not be soiled by the pitch of scandal, but involuntarily, through curiosity, through politeness, or so as not to be accused of prudishness, they listened but heard not in the presence of the really powerful scandalmongers—the comtesse de fleury, all beautiful without and unclean within, frau von friedenbach, an old lady of the court at berlin who had been dismissed for her political indiscretions, which, in the main, had fed the german socialistic press, the terrible old baronesse de tschudy, who had travelled for forty years and knew four million scandals about four thousand people she had met. everywhere, before all the scandalmongers, these proud, quiet, frank, good women could but yield for a moment, allowing themselves to be seized for an instant by a childish and always illusive curiosity, and by a sacrifice to worldly politeness.
as for the men, who for the most part, and far more so than the women, were immune from scandalmongery, they gave way, not only because of the obligations of social life, not only so as not to be singular and to show themselves complacent, but perhaps to please certain ladies of the palace hotel or ladies outside, which they could not succeed in doing except by gossiping with more or less wit. it was impossible to pay court to madame lawrence—the lovely professional beauty of the year—a useless court, as a matter of fact, in results, but which deceived only in its appearance, without telling her all the scandals which had been invented and were passing to and fro about her. it was impossible to see her interested or smile unless they repeated all the grotesque and perverse things which the other women had invented or were inventing about her. it was impossible to enter the circle of madame d'aguilar, the rich and munificent brazilian—who every day had ten people to lunch and fifteen to dinner, had three carriages always at the disposal of her friends, and gave cotillons, with gifts of great value—without being mettlesome, or a witty chronicler of the rarest scandal. it was impossible to accompany on a walk the little marquise d'allart, pale and pink like fragile dresden china, but greedy and hungry and thirsty for potins. she would exclaim peevishly: "mais n'en savez vous pas un d'inédit, de potin? rien que les vieux, les usès? allons, cherchez, cherchez!" giorgio galanti, an italian gentleman from bologna, whose wit was as fine as a hair, very quick, a fascinating conteur, had found a method, the secret of which he offered to those who had no other, of conquering the feminine spirit. he used to go day and night outside the "palace," into the other hotels of the dorf and bad, wherever he had discovered a beautiful woman or a pretty girl, and after a conversation on vague subjects, he would say: "madame, connaissez vous le dernier potin du 'palace'? il est épatant, je vous assure." the effect was certain. immediately seized by curiosity, tickled in her latent snobbishness, wishing to know all the little mysteries of olympus—the "palace"—the lady from the grand hotel, the "schweizerhof," the h?tel du lac, the "victoria," would turn her beautiful eyes to giorgio galanti, which told him that not only were they questioning him, but were promising him the reward of indiscretion.
but if the tittle-tattle—first, second, and third class—of every day of the extremely chic society of the "palace" was sometimes vulgar or frankly cruel in substance, it was always light, witty, graceful, and diverting in form. the most terrible things, true or fairly true, were said with such a brio, such ingenuousness, and often with such profound humour, that not only did they cause no horror, but they even caused the whitest and tenderest souls to smile. the ineffable, invincible, inimitable french language lent itself for this purpose, that language in which everything is rounded, garlanded, and shines. it is true that paul fry, the bohemian, was a player of extraordinary strength and fortune at every game, who always tried to play with millionaires and millionairesses; but the great potin, with which giorgio galanti attracted the most catholic and snobbish spaniard, donna mercédès de fuentes, was when fry, bold and cool, began to play with signora azquierda, an immensely rich argentinian, who lived at paris, and having tried conclusions with her, she won from him three thousand francs at poker—she, the woman, from him, paul fry, the invincible! was not this potin told attractively, delicious in its perversity? then there was another scandal, that about lady hermione crozes, the englishwoman divorced from lord crozes, tall, thin, ruddy of countenance, with dazzling eyes, who disappeared directly after lunch and dinner, and whom everyone believed to have shut herself up in her room to receive a lover, till at last it was discovered that she went to drink all alone twice a day, consuming the most terrible mixtures, and her maids had to help her in her furies, or take care of her like a baby in her torpors that seemed like death. said with good grace, did not this atrocious happening lose all its atrocity? another scandal which lasted more than a day, a most important one, concerned frau van der claes, a hamburg lady, who had a poor lover and a son of twenty, both of whom had cost her much money, and how one day frau van der claes, when lina cavalieri had arrived at the h?tel du lac, had seen her son, which did not matter, and her lover, which was a serious business, fall head over ears in love with the beautiful italian singer, and her mad anger and the money she squandered on her son to make him a rival to her lover so that he might miss the goal and return to her, and the useless courting of the cavalieri by son and lover—this intensely complicated scandal, how well it circulated, how sketchy in its disgusting particulars, how graceful in its brutal circumstances!
about annie clarke and her daughter mabel, during their sojourn there of three weeks, there had been at least ten large scandals and twenty little ones. their milliard, their eight hundred, or hundred, or hundred and fifty, or fifty, or thirty millions had formed an accidental variation to the scandals, and the birth and life of the very placid mrs. annie clarke, so like a dumb and patient idol, had been time after time related in bizarre terms, telling how she had been an opera singer, or a nurse, or the daughter of a shepherd in the far west, or an italian foundling, and finally the widow of another millionaire, whom mr. clarke, on losing his wife, had ruined and forced to commit suicide.
and what an amount of potins, inside and outside the hotel, about the excellent mr. clarke, who remained on the other side of the ocean, in his palace on fifth avenue, and every two days sent a cablegram to his ladies, to tell them he was well and that all was well, and every two days received a very short telegram in reply—which simplified correspondence. what potins of the first order about mr. clarke, who was declared to be enormously rich or stupidly poor, an undeserving thief or a philanthropist, a king of rubber, an emperor of gutta-percha, a father eternal of aluminium for cooking utensils! what little potins every evening about the solitary jewel of the day of mrs. clarke—the pearl collar, the emerald pin, the ruby ring, the diadem of diamonds; and all of them enormous, colossal—pearls, emeralds, ruby, sapphire, diamond. what potins these were, and the principal potin of all that these jewels, too unique, too enormous, too colossal, were perfectly imitated from the real, that they were false: "oui, ma chère, du toc, pas autre chose; du toc splendide, mais du toc!" and about mabel clarke,—so beautiful, so full of every grace, so amiable, so frank, the image and symbol of a race vibrant with youth, the image and symbol of a new femininity, different and differently graced and attractive—what a daily exercise of scandalmongers, whom her simplicity and loyalty did not succeed in disarming, created especially by mothers blessed with daughters; and how her virtue and her dowry suffered tremendous oscillations from one day to another. she was very rich, richer than anna gould or gladys vanderbilt; she was poorest of the poor; she had refused the duke of sairmeuse, because she wished to be a serene highness; she had had an intrigue with a tenor of the manhattan theatre; she had been engaged to a son of a king of tinned goods; she was a cold flirt; she adored italy, and would have married even a dandy of lucca; she had been converted to catholicism; she was making a fool of vittorio lante; she loved him. all this kept increasing towards the decline of the season, the more so as all the other potins had been consumed and some were threadbare; the more so as the now open love of vittorio and mabel exasperated so many people—hunters after dowries for silent, sad daughters who never found a husband, mothers of eligible young men—all were annoyed at another's fortune, another's love, another's happiness. on the evening of the great cotillon de bienfaisance at the palace hotel, with tickets at twenty francs, the night of the 25th of august, the last great ball at the "palace," the chic night of chic nights, the love-making, engagement, and marriage of mabel clarke and vittorio lante, the no love, no engagement, the no marriage, were the greatest and most multiform source of gossip of the day, evening, and night.
