Ours is an amateurish hotel, especially since the war. Any one who
happens to have the time or inclination runs it: or if no one has time
it runs itself. Consequently mistakes are made. But what can you expect
for eight francs a day, with _pension_?
I said that a very young youth brought up the news of the Becketts'
arrival. He'd merely announced that "_un monsieur et une dame_" had
called. Apparently they had given no names, no cards. But in truth there
were cards, which had been mislaid, or in other words left upon the desk
in the _bureau_, with the numbers of both our rooms scrawled on them in
pencil. Nobody was there at the time, but when the concierge came back
(he is a sort of unofficial understudy for the mobilized manager) he saw
the cards and sent them upstairs. They were taken to Brian and the names
read aloud to him. He supposed, from vague information supplied by the
_garcon_ (it was a _garcon_ this time) that I wished him to come and
join me in the _salon_ with my guests. He hated the thought of meeting
strangers (the name "Beckett" meant nothing to him), but if he were
wanted by his sister, he never yet left her in the lurch.
He and I both knew the house with our eyes shut, before the war; and
now that Brian is blind, he practises in the most reckless way going
about by himself. He refused to be led to the _salon_: he came unaided
and unerring: and I thought when he appeared at the door, I'd never seen
him look so beautiful.
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