Page 353 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

of Lausanne. From down there somewhere ascended a faint sound of Bowles’s short story ‘Here to Learn’ spend an entire winter in a After the affair’s tempestuous beginnings in the hotel, Albert after a terrible scene. Although they are unaware of Isolde’s tragic
35
31
dance music.’ It goes without saying that the view from inside grand hotel in Ouchy without making any effort to find friends. Cohen’s novel – from the mid-1930s – cleverly exposes the death – which is inevitably on the reader’s mind – the past awaits
36
these seductively attractive hotels is very different. Dick realises Malika appreciates the elegance of the hotel environment. Here, power and the difficulties of a relationship played out beyond them in their next hotel room in the city. By an irony of fate
this when he visits the son of a rich guest in a Lausanne hotel in this neutral place beyond national boundaries and cultural society’s conventions. Within the novel itself the story of its Solal chooses the Hôtel Splendide, where Ariane had once stayed
32
and finds himself confronted with the overwrought father: ‘Señor divides, her relationship with Tex is in a state of suspension and protagonists Solal and Ariane Deume is effectively prefigured with a former lover, an orchestra conductor. After yet another
Pardo y Ciudad Real, a handsome iron-gray Spaniard, noble of carriage, entirely focused on itself. This young woman has fluttered like by the interwoven story of Countess Kanyo – whose first name, exhausting scene of jealousy, their hotel odyssey ends in a room
with all the appurtenances of wealth and power, raged up and down his a beautiful butterfly from one relationship to the next – and in appropriately enough, is Isolde. The repetitions and parallels at the Hôtel Bristol. Just as Isolde did earlier, Ariane leans over
suite in the Hôtel des Trois Mondes and told the story of his son with Tex she has found a rustic Prince Charming to protect her, while connecting these two love stories are moving – and both stories the balcony rail, ready to jump to her death. But Solal holds
no more self-control than a drunken woman.’ And just a few rooms hiding from him much of the truth about her origins and her start with a night spent happily at the Beau-Rivage. her back. It’s the place where they first met, the Hôtel Ritz in
33
further along Dick meets his father-in-law, another decadent past. When Tex, now married to Malika, finally wants to take Isolde, once desired by Solal, has long since accepted the Geneva, which will bring their story to its fatal conclusion.
figure: ‘The suite in which Devereux Warren was gracefully weakening her back to his home in Los Angeles, the young woman fears role of reader and foot masseuse in their rare meetings. When she As we reach the end of this wide-ranging literary panorama,
and sinking was of the same size as that of the Señor Pardo y Ciudad that life outside hotels and restaurants may prove to be much less finally realises that Solal is maintaining the relationship with her it is tempting to consider the shores of Lake Geneva – which
Real – throughout this hotel there were many chambers where rich ruins, entertaining. purely through pity, she leaves for Marseille where she commits are too beautiful for half measures – as the perfect setting for
fugitives from justice, claimants to the thrones of mediatized principalities, Similarly Ariane, the innocent and naive adulteress in Belle suicide. In her room in the Hôtel Noailles, the unfortunate doomed affairs. This is a place for extreme emotions – the painful,
lived on the derivatives of opium or barbitol listening eternally, as to an du Seigneur, can imagine nothing better, at the beginning of the woman mercilessly contemplates the signs of ageing in the mirror the sublime, inexorable destiny. After all this suffering, anyone
inescapable radio, to the coarse melodies of old sins. This corner of Europe relationship, than living with her lover in a hotel, and having him and remembers happier times: ‘That weekend at Ouchy. It was the seeking peace in the grounds of Beau-Rivage might find it
does not so much draw people as accept them without inconvenient all to herself. For Ariane, the night in the Beau-Rivage is a magical, start of their affair. On the Sunday afternoon, after they’d walked together beneath the old trees, among the box hedges and the geraniums,
questions. Routes cross here – people bound for private sanitariums or transcendent experience, and she relives it during a magnificent along the edge of the lake, she had even refused him a kiss and had run where the curious pet cemetery might bring Solal to mind once
tuberculosis resorts in the mountains, people who are no longer persona internal monologue while she takes a long bath to make herself off laughing. And now, just a foolish old woman alone in Marseille who again. Outcast by humanity, Solal frequently considers the fidelity
grata in France or Italy.’ fresh and fragrant for her lover. Solal is the focal point of all her had fallen asleep still wearing her hat.’ 38 of dogs, who love unconditionally and with no regard to social
34
The hotel’s hospitality also guards its guests’ secrets. In thoughts: ‘That weekend we spent together at Ouchy in the Hôtel Beau- Meanwhile for Ariane and Solal, too, the day-to-day status, following their master anywhere without question. Solal
Lausanne, the discretion of the prestige hotels and the discretion Rivage you mustn’t forget that I am my aunt’s niece I wasn’t used to hotels realities of love have become burdensome. Ariane’s dream of might have smiled to read the epitaph, ‘Billy – our devoted little
of Switzerland itself – a neutral state with a long tradition of with quite so many stars do you remember this is the life for me I said living together in the hotel, entirely wrapped up in one another, Pal – 1919-1931’, a homage to unconditional love, that state to
confidential banking – seem to go hand in hand. The paying guest strutting up and down proudly oh yes it would be wonderful to live with has been all too completely realised. And so the luxurious Hôtel which so many guests here have aspired.
is king – no matter whether ‘Monsieur’ and ‘Madame’ have the him in a hotel and never see anyone else that day I spotted him walking d’Aigle increasingly becomes their prison, a ‘love trap’, and Solal,
same surname or not, or whether their fortune has been amassed down the street I crossed to the opposite pavement because I wasn’t sure whose outspoken support for Germany’s Jews has cost him his
with suspicious speed. Hotel managers are fundamentally liberal if I was perfect enough to be seen oh that night at Ouchy as I lay in bed position at the League of Nations and his social standing, feels
in outlook, while the discretion and attentiveness of the staff – at waiting while he took his bath I groaned I begged him to come quickly I ‘sentenced to passion for life’. For the first time he asks himself what
39
least, according to the literature – increase in proportion to their felt oddly disturbed by this image I had of a woman waiting in a shameless has become of his former lover Isolde. As the reader knows, she
tip. These dubious guests, never beyond the reach of verbal abuse state of nature waiting for the male in love with her own body which she has not returned to her homeland as supposed, but has thrown
or disagreeable encounters, can feel truly safe only in their room: contemplated as she waited oh when he takes me I say your servant your herself from her hotel balcony in Marseille. Nonetheless, as Solal
in the lounges, the socialites are on the lookout, eager to size up woman and I cry because I’m happy hollow-eyed inspired […] in the poses the question of Isolde’s fate, her death seems to foreshadow
everyone and assign them their place in the social order. morning at the Beau-Rivage after shaving he came and we had breakfast the novel’s eventual outcome.
Lovers, by contrast, are in a world of their own – self-sufficient together it was wonderful there was a little blob of shaving foam behind his A year or more later, driven mad by their love in isolation,
in their passion, with little time to waste on society’s concerns. ear which made me want to cry and then I drew his dressing gown aside Ariane and Solal are in Marseille and staying in the very same
Morocco-born Malika, for example, and the American Tex in Paul smooth tanned chest narrow hips and oh those clear greeny-blue eyes.’ hotel, the Hôtel de Noailles which they leave again, at night,
37

352 353