It was Doctor Lamb who had recommended them to the Hotel Rosenbad;
and they found the recommendation a good one. Removed from the narrow,
dirty, offensive streets of the little town, it was pleasantly situated.
The promenade, with its broad walks, its gay company (many of them
invalids almost as helpless as Mr. Channing), and its musical bands, was
in front of the hotel windows; a pleasant sight for Mr. Channing until
he could get about himself. On the heights behind the hotel were two
churches; and the sound of their services would be wafted down in soft,
sweet strains of melody. In the neighbourhood there was a shrine, to
which pilgrims flocked. Mrs. Channing regarded them with interest, some
with their alpen-stocks, some in fantastic dresses, some with strings of
beads, which they knelt and told; and her thoughts went back to the old
times of the Crusaders. All she saw pleased her. But for her anxiety as
to what would be the effect of the new treatment upon her husband, and
the ever-lively trouble about Arthur, it would have been a time of real
delight to Mrs. Channing.
They could not have been better off than in the Hotel Rosenbad.
Their rooms were on the second floor--a small, exquisitely pretty
sitting-room, bearing a great resemblance to most continental
sitting-rooms, its carpet red, its muslin curtains snowy white; from
this opened a bed-room containing two beds, all as conveniently arranged
as it could be. Their meals were excellent; the dinner-table especially
being abundantly supplied. For all this they paid five francs a day
each, and the additional accommodation of having the meals served in
their room, on account of Mr. Channing, was not noted as an additional
expense. Their wax-lights were charged extra, and that was all. I think
English hotel-keepers might take a lesson from Borcette!
The doctor gave great hopes of Mr. Channing. His opinion was, that,
had Mr. Channing come to these baths when he was first taken ill, his
confinement would have been very trifling. “You will find the greatest
benefit in a month,” said the doctor, in answer to the anxious question,
How long the restoration might be in coming. “In two months you will
walk charmingly; in three, you will be well.” Cheering news, if it could
only be borne out.
“I will not have you say ‘If,’” cried Mr. Huntley, who had made one in
consultation with the doctor. “You are told that it will be so, under
God’s blessing, and all you have to do is to anticipate it.”
Mr. Channing smiled. They were stationed round the open window of
the sitting-room, he on the most comfortable of sofas, Mrs. Channing
watching the gay prospect below, and thinking she should never tire of
it. “There can be no hope without fear,” said he.
“But I would not think of fear: I would bury that altogether,” said Mr.
Huntley. “You have nothing to do here but to take the remedies, look
forward with confidence, and be as happy as the day’s long.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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