Ludwig Bemelmans - Hotel Splendide

T he day was one of the rare ones when Mespoulets and I had a guest at our tables. Most of the time I mugged into a large mirror in back of me. Mespoulets stood next to me and shook his head. Mespoulets was a waiter and I was his bus boy. Our station was on the low rear balcony of the main dining-room of a hotel I shall call the Splendide, a vast and luxurious structure with many mirrors which gave up its unequal struggle with economics not long after the boom days and has since most probably been converted into an office building or torn down.

Before coming to America I had worked a short while in a hotel in Tirol that belonged to my uncle. German was my native language, and I knew enough English to get along in New York City, but my French was extremely bad. The French language in all its aspects was a passion with Mespoulets, and he had plenty of time to teach it to me.

When I say Le chien est utile, there is one proposition. When I say Je crois que le chien est utile, there are two. When I say Je crois que le chien est utile quand il garde la maison, how many propositions are there?

Three.

Very good.

Mespoulets nodded gravely in approval. At that moment Monsieur Victor, the matre dhtel, walked through our section of tables, and the other waiters nearby stopped talking to each other, straightened a table-cloth here, moved a chair there, arranged their side towels smoothly over their arms, tugged at their jackets, and pulled their bow ties. Only Mespoulets was indifferent. He walked slowly towards the pantry, past Monsieur Victor, holding my arm. I walked with him and he continued the instruction.

Labeille fait du miel. The verb fait in this sentence in itself is insufficient. It does not say what the bee does, therefore we round out the idea by adding the words du miel. These words are called un complment. The sentence Labeille fait du miel contains then what?

It contains one verb, one subject, and one complement.

Very good, excellent. Now run down and get the Camembert, the salade escarole, the hard water crackers, and the demitasse for Mr Frank Munsey on Table Eighty-six.

Our tables Nos. 81, 82, and 86 were in a noisy, draughty corner of the balcony. They stood facing the stairs from the dining-room and were between two doors. One door led to the pantry and was hung on whining hinges. On wet days it sounded like an angry cat and it was continually kicked by the boots of waiters rushing in and out with trays in their hands. The other door led to a linen-closet.

The waiters and bus boys squeezed by our tables, carrying trays. The ones with trays full of food carried them high over their heads; the ones with dirty dishes carried them low, extended in front. They frequently bumped into each other and there would be a crash of silver, glasses, and china, and cream trickling over the edges of the trays in thin streams. Whenever this happened, Monsieur Victor raced to our section, followed by his captains, to direct the cleaning up of the mess and pacify the guests. It was a common sight to see people standing in our section, napkins in hand, complaining and brushing themselves off and waving their arms angrily in the air.

Monsieur Victor used our tables as a kind of penal colony to which he sent guests who were notorious cranks, people who had forgotten to tip him over a long period of time and needed a reminder, undesirables who looked out of place in better sections of the dining-room, and guests who were known to linger for hours over an order of hors duvres and a glass of milk while well-paying guests had to stand at the door waiting for a table.

Mespoulets was the ideal man for Monsieur Victors purposes. He complemented Monsieur Victors plan of punishment. He was probably the worst waiter in the world, and I had become his bus boy after I fell down the stairs into the main part of the dining-room with eight pheasants la Souvaroff. When I was sent to him to take up my duties as his assistant, he introduced himself by saying, My name is easy to remember. Just think of my chickens mes poulets Mespoulets.

Rarely did any guest who was seated at one of our tables leave the hotel with a desire to come back again. If there was any broken glass around the dining-room, it was always in our spinach. The occupants of Tables Nos. 81, 82, and 86 shifted in their chairs, stared at the pantry door, looked around and made signs of distress at other waiters and captains while they waited for their food. When the food finally came, it was cold and was often not what had been ordered. While Mespoulets explained what the unordered food was, telling in detail how it was made and what the ingredients were, and offered hollow excuses, he dribbled mayonnaise, soup, or mint sauce over the guests, upset the coffee, and sometimes even managed to break a plate or two. I helped him as best I could.

At the end of a meal, Mespoulets usually presented the guest with somebody elses check, or it turned out that he had neglected to adjust the difference in price between what the guest had ordered and what he had got. By then the guest just held out his hand and cried, Never mind, never mind, give it to me, just give it to me! Ill pay just to get out of here! Give it to me, for Gods sake! Then the guest would pay and go. He would stop on the way out at the matredhtels desk and show Monsieur Victor and his captains the spots on his clothes, bang on the desk, and swear he would never come back again. Monsieur Victor and his captains would listen, make faces of compassion, say Oh! and Ah! and look darkly towards us across the room and promise that we would be fired the same day. But the next day we would still be there.

In the hours between meals, while the other waiters were occupied filling salt and pepper shakers, oil and vinegar bottles, and mustard pots, and counting the dirty linen and dusting the chairs, Mespoulets would walk to a table near the entrance, right next to Monsieur Victors own desk, overlooking the lounge of the hotel. There he adjusted a special reading-lamp which he had demanded and obtained from the management, spread a piece of billiard cloth over the table, and arranged on top of this a large blotter and a small one, an inkstand, and half a dozen pen-holders. Then he drew up a chair and seated himself. He had a large assortment of fine copper pen-points of various sizes, and he sharpened them on a piece of sand-paper. He would select the pen-point and the holder he wanted and begin to make circles in the air. Then, drawing towards him a gilt-edged place card or a crested one, on which menus were written, he would go to work. When he had finished, he arranged the cards all over the table to let them dry, and sat there at ease, only a step or two from Monsieur Victors desk, in a sector invaded by other waiters only when they were to be called down or to be discharged, waiters who came with nervous hands and frightened eyes to face Monsieur Victor. Mespouletss special talent guaranteed him his job and set him apart from the ordinary waiters. He was further distinguished by the fact that he was permitted to wear glasses, a privilege denied all other waiters, no matter how near-sighted or astigmatic.