The Grand Babylon Hotel quotes

You met with a stately civility, that was all. No one had originally asked you to come; no one expressed the hope that you would come again.

The Grand Babylon was far above such manoeuvres; it defied competition by ignoring it; and consequently was nearly always full during the season.

If there was one thing more than another that annoyed the Grand Babylon—put its back up, so to speak—it was to be compared with, or to be mistaken for, an American hotel.

At eight o’clock precisely dinner was served in the immense salle-à-manger, that chaste yet splendid apartment of white and gold. At a small table near one of the windows a young lady sat alone.

Her frocks said Paris, but her face unmistakably said New York.

It was a self-possessed and bewitching face, the face of a woman thoroughly accustomed to doing exactly what she liked, when she liked, how she liked:

… face of a woman who had taught hundreds of gilded young men the true art of fetching and carrying, and who, by twenty years or so of parental spoiling, had come to regard herself as the feminine equivalent of the Tsar of All the Russias.

Such women are only made in America, and they only come to their full bloom in Europe, which they imagine to be a continent created by Providence for their diversion.

The young lady by the window glanced disapprovingly at the menu card. Then she looked round the dining-room, and, while admiring the diners, decided that the room itself was rather small and plain.

“Then let’s have it. I’m hungry.

I’m never so hungry as when I’m being seriously idle.

”

“

Have I ever forgotten your birthday, O most costly daughter?

”

“Mr. Rocco is our chef, sir.”

Jules had the expression of a man who is asked to explain who Shakespeare was.

The two men looked at each other. It seemed incredible that Theodore Racksole, the ineffable Racksole, who owned a thousand miles of railway, several towns, and sixty votes in Congress, should be defied by a waiter, or even by a whole hotel.

It seemed incredible that Theodore Racksole, the ineffable Racksole, who owned a thousand miles of railway, several towns, and sixty votes in Congress, should be defied by a waiter, or even by a whole hotel. Yet so it was.

When Europe’s effete back is against the wall not a regiment of millionaires can turn its flank.

Jules had the calm expression of a strong man sure of victory. His face said: “You beat me once, but not this time, my New York friend!”

“The beauty of being well-known,” Racksole continued, “is that you needn’t trouble about preliminary explanations. You, Mr. Babylon, probably know all about me. I know a good deal about you. We can take each other for granted without reference.

Really, it is as simple to buy an hotel or a railroad as it is to buy a watch, provided one is equal to the transaction.

”

“Ah!” said Babylon thoughtfully. “

I have heard of hotels that run themselves. If they do, you may be sure that they obey the laws of gravity and run downwards.

You will have your hands full. For example, have you yet heard about Miss Spencer?”

“

One never sees again those whom one wishes to see.

”

“Oh, no, it isn’t!” she said. “

It’s simply because I always do get what I want. It’s got nothing to do with Father at all.

”

“

Wealthy isn’t the word, Count. There is no word.

It’s positively awful the amount of dollars poor Papa makes. And the worst of it is he can’t help it. He told me once that when a man had made ten millions no power on earth could stop those ten millions from growing into twenty.

She had not liked him; she had even distrusted him, and decided that he was not “nice.” But now, as he lay on the stretcher, these things were forgotten. She went so far as to reproach herself for them.

Such is the strange commanding power of death.

“Oblige me by taking the poor fellow to my apartments,” said the Prince, with a gesture to the attendants. “Surely it is time the doctor came.”

And, therefore, he decided to wait, with his eyes very wide open, until something else happened that would throw light on the business. At the moment he took only one measure—he arranged that the theft of Dimmock’s body should not appear in the newspapers.

It is astonishing how well a secret can be kept, when the possessors of the secret are handled with the proper mixture of firmness and persuasion.

Racksole managed this very neatly. It was a complicated job, and his success in it rather pleased him.

“

Your Highness, the man who wishes to probe a mystery to its root never uses the word ‘impossible.’

But I will say this for young Mr. Dimmock. I think he repented, and I think that it was because he repented that he—er—died so suddenly, and that his body was spirited away.”

“I do not know,” he replied. “But you could help me if you would.

A woman, when she has brain, always has more brain than a man.

”

He went still nearer to her. “Give me a kiss, then; one kiss—I won’t ask for more; one kiss from those lips, and you shall go free.

Men have ruined themselves for a kiss. I will.

”

Why should I want materials? I know all flavours. I tink, and tink, and tink, and it is done. I write down. I give the recipe to my best chef—dere you are. I need not even taste, I know how it will taste.

It is like composing music. De great composers do not compose at de piano.

”

Rocco turned on his employer a look of gentle, dignified scorn. “Have I not informed you,” he said, “that I have the intention of going quietly?”

Racksole felt almost ashamed for the moment. It flashed across him that a man can be great, even in crime.

“What an ineffable fool you were,” said Racksole, stopping him at the threshold, “with your talents, your unique talents, to get yourself mixed up in an affair of this kind. You are ruined. And, by Jove! you were a great man in your own line.”

“Not ruined, not ruined. Afterwards, in a few years, I shall come up again.

A man of genius like me is never ruined till he is dead. Genius is always forgiven.

I shall be forgiven. Suppose I am sent to prison. When I emerge I shall be no gaol-bird. I shall be Rocco—the great Rocco. And half the hotels in Europe will invite me to join them.”

It was also stated that Rocco had quarrelled with his new master and incontinently left the place.

A duchess said that Rocco’s departure would mean the ruin of the hotel, whereupon her husband advised her not to talk nonsense.

As for Racksole, he sent a message for the detective in charge of the Dimmock affair, and bravely told him the happenings of the previous night.

The boat was very small indeed; her face was scarcely a yard from his. She, in his eyes, surrounded by the glamour of beauty and vast wealth; he, in her eyes, surrounded by the glamour of masculine intrepidity and the brilliance of a throne.

But all voyages come to an end, either at the shore or at the bottom of the sea, and at length the dinghy passed between the stone jetties of the harbour.

The Prince rowed to the nearest steps, tied up the boat, and they landed. It was six o’clock in the morning, and a day of gorgeous sunlight had opened. Few people were about at that early hour.

“Well!” she said calmly, with an adorable confidence. “

Papa is worth forty millions. Would you not abdicate?

”

“Theodore Racksole, the millionaire. These rich men have no secrets from each other. They form a coterie, closer than any coterie of ours, Eugen, and far more powerful.

They talk, and in talking they rule the world, these millionaires. They are the real monarchs.

”

“

Oh, nothing, my dear Eugen, nothing. Only it is rather a large sum to have scattered in ten years, is it not? How did you manage it?

”

“Not at all,” said Aribert. “They wanted no money from you. They knew well enough that you had no money.

They knew you were the naughty schoolboy among European Princes, with no sense of responsibility or of duty towards your kingdom.

Shall I tell you why they kidnapped you?”

occasionally a private carriage drawn by expensive and self-conscious horses put the hansoms to shame by its mere outward glory. It was a hot night, a night for the summer woods, and save for the vehicles there was no rapid movement of any kind.

It seemed as though the world⁠—the world, that is to say, of the Grand Babylon⁠—was fully engaged in the solemn processes of digestion and small-talk.

Even the long row of the Embankment gas-lamps, stretching right and left, scarcely trembled in the still, warm, caressing air.

The stars overhead looked down with many blinkings upon the enormous pile of the Grand Babylon, and the moon regarded it with bland and changeless face; what they thought of it and its inhabitants cannot, unfortunately, be recorded.

What Theodore Racksole thought of the moon can be recorded: he thought it was a nuisance.

It somehow fascinated his gaze with its silly stare, and so interfered with his complex meditations. He glanced round at the well-dressed and satisfied people—his guests, his customers. They appeared to ignore him absolutely.

“

I found him embalming a corpse in the State bedroom,

” repeated Racksole in his quietest tones.

“The cheek of the fellow!” exclaimed Theodore Racksole. “

The gorgeous and colossal cheek of the fellow!

”

As regards the office, I do as little work as I can, on principle—it’s a fight between us and the Commissioners who shall get the best. They try to do us down, and we try to do them down—it’s pretty even on the whole.

All’s fair in war, you know, and there ain’t no ten commandments in a government office.

”

No other headwaiter had been formally appointed in his place; and, indeed, the absence of one man—even the unique Jules—could scarcely have been noticed in the enormous staff of a place like the Grand Babylon.

The functions of a headwaiter are generally more ornamental, spectacular, and morally impressive than useful, and it was so at the great hotel on the Embankment.

Racksole accordingly had the excellent idea of transporting his prisoner, with as much secrecy as possible, to this empty bedroom. There proved to be no difficulty in doing so; Jules showed himself perfectly amenable to a show of superior force.

“No,” said Racksole steadily, “I won’t—if you behave yourself this morning. But I swear to you that if you don’t I will never rest till you are dead, police or no police.

You don’t know Theodore Racksole.

”

“That is what the vanquished always say.

Waterloo was a bit of pure luck for the English, no doubt, but it was Waterloo all the same.

”

“You put it rather crudely,” said Jules in reply. “

I prefer to say that I was offered a hundred thousand pounds if Prince Eugen should die within a reasonable time.

”

He walked away to the window: through the opened casement he could hear the tinkle of passing hansoms on the Embankment below, whistles of doorkeepers, and the hoot of steam tugs on the river.

The world went on as usual, it appeared. It was an absurd world.

He desired nothing better than to abandon his princely title, and live as a plain man, the husband of the finest woman on earth. … But now! …

None else in the hotel knew the real seriousness of the case. When a Prince falls ill, and especially by his own act, the precise truth is not issued broadcast to the universe.

According to official intelligence, a Prince is never seriously ill until he is dead. Such is statecraft.

The worst feature of Prince Eugen’s case was that emetics proved futile.

In a quarter of an hour the patient had regained consciousness.

For the ten thousandth time in the history of medicine a sound constitution had accomplished a miracle impossible to the accumulated medical skill of centuries.

In due course the doctor left, saying that Prince Eugen was “on the high road to recovery,” and promising to come again within a few hours. Morning had dawned. Nella drew the great curtains, and let in a flood of sunlight.

The throne of Posen will be yours, Aribert. You will fill it more worthily than I have done. Don’t let them know over there that I poisoned myself. Swear Hans to secrecy; swear the doctors to secrecy; and breathe no word yourself.

I have been a fool, but I do not wish it to be known that I was also a coward.

Perhaps it is not cowardice; perhaps it is courage, after all—courage to cut the knot. I could not have survived the disgrace of any revelations, Aribert, and revelations would have been sure to come.

perhaps it is courage, after all—courage to cut the knot. I could not have survived the disgrace of any revelations, Aribert, and revelations would have been sure to come. I have made a fool of myself, but I am ready to pay for it.

We of Posen⁠—we always pay⁠—everything except our debts.

Ah! those debts! Had it not been for those I could have faced her who was to have been my wife, to have shared my throne. I could have hidden my past, and begun again. With her help I really could have begun again.

“All because of a million,” the sick man moaned. “

One miserable million English pounds. The national debt of Posen is fifty millions, and I, the Prince of Posen, couldn’t borrow one.

If I could have got it, I might have held my head up again. Goodbye, Aribert. … Who is that girl?”

“Why should New York know anything about it!” he repeated. “

My girl, when anyone borrows a million sovereigns the whole world knows about it.

Do you reckon that I can go up to the Governors of the Bank of England and say, ‘Look here, lend Theodore Racksole a million for a few weeks, and he’ll give you an I.O.U. and a covering note on stocks’?”