The life in the boarding-house was full of interest and liveliness. The boarders belonged to different races and spoke different languages.
There were, for instance, Indians, wearing turbans of white or daintily shaded silk; Chinese, who had, however, sacrificed their pigtails to the fashion of Europe; a former prima donna who had grown too stout for the stage, and showed, with much fondness, photos of herself in stage costumes; a pale, worn-out-looking gentleman from Switzerland who could not put up with the fact that no English girl--unlike some French girls of his acquaintance--would undertake the management of his own household without the usual vows at the altar; a German who could not stand the English cooking; and a young striving musician who was unable to pay for his board and tried to commit suicide every Saturday.
Although the people were polite to me and I liked them very well, I did not really care to associate much with them. Such, however, was not the case with my friend, who used to amuse herself chiefly with the discontented Swiss, in a way that at first surprised, later alarmed, and finally disgusted me. It happened often that I left the dining-room without a word, and sat down on my bed in our little room until my friend came upstairs. She then used to look very gay and began to tell me stories such as I had never heard from her before, and which recalled to me the stories of the cook. I responded but little, whereupon she grew very bad-tempered, and declared I was a dull girl who could never see a joke. Sometimes I felt some sharp reply on the tip of my tongue, but swallowed it down again, thinking that I was perhaps really "dull" and she right after all. I tried to make amends for my behaviour by greater attention and tenderness towards her, showing also much interest for the stories she told me. In reality, however, I found everything most tedious, and would have much preferred to talk about poems. But my friend had declared once for all that she did not care for poems. Thus I tried hard to keep up our friendship, which was no more than a comedy, and should no doubt have kept it up even longer if she had not done something which put an end to my uncomfortable position.
