Her features in the frame are pale and blurrednImprisoned in the glass. Her hairbrush soarsnAnd swoops and rises like an ivory birdnAbout her stormy head. The misty gauzenOf chiffon at her breast is startled bynA rose’s crimson wound; her gaze imploresnReprieve, or answer to her brimming ‘Why?’nAnd there is no reply. She knows that shenMust grow accustomed to this bitter taste,nThe gravy of despair. Outside, the seanRepeats incessant prophecies of wastenAnd now its slow, unvaried voice containsnA salt intelligence which must be faced:nThere is no hope of rescue from these chains.nThe links are insubstantial, and they seemednNot long ago to gleam, a golden prize.nThe goal of which, since girlhood, she had dreamed,nIts aureate sparkle dancing in her eyes;nBut now, they are custodial; these chainsnAre fetters on the spirit; they chastisenInsulted flesh with unimagined pains.nIt was another world when it, and she—nOr, rather, that seraphic girl who died,nWhose days were like a charmed eternitynain and the United States. Indeed,nBrookner’s earlier novels have recentlynbeen published in paperback and canneen be found in the little “literature”nsections of small-town, shopping mallnB. Dalton stores.nEdith Hope, the central figure innBrookner’s fourth novel, Hotel du Lac,nwould not comfortably pass an eveningnin the company of John Self MissnHope is a tweedy, soft-spoken Englishnnovelist who is more than a little putnoff by the vulgarities of the modernnage. She loathes the word “lifestyle,”nfor example, and refuses to pack hernno’els with the sort of obligatory sexnscenes that her agent insists help “reassure”n’oung women that “being liberatednis fun.” Edith, an unapologeticnromantic, keeps her heroines fullynclothed—and bathed in moonlight.nHoping to complete her latestnnovel, Edith travels to Lake Genevanand to the Hotel du Lac—“a traditionalnestablishment, used to welcomingnthe prudent, the well-to-do, thenretired, the self-effacing, the respectednA VICTORIAN HONEYMOONnbv Vernon Scannellnpatrons of an earlier era of tourism.”nThere are no sun lamps or vibratingnbeds at the Hotel du Lac—no saunanrooms or ice cube machines. Here, nonone would pad the corridors in waternwings or bikini, or linger long in thenaustere downstairs bar. For “it wasnstrongly implied that prolonged drinking,nwhether for purposes of businessnor as a personal indulgence, was notncomme il faut, and if thought absolutelynnecessary should be conducted eithernin the privacy of one’s suite, or innone of the more popular establishmentsnwhere such leanings were notnunknown.”nIn this discreet establishment, Edithnfinds herself distracted by several of thenhotel’s less self-efiFacing guests. One ofnthem, Mrs. Iris Pusey, is a flamboyant,napparently ageless widow who regalesnEdith with detailed accounts ofnher life as a skilled patron of quaintnshops and chic boutiques. Another,nMr. Neville, is a “fastidious, careful,nleisured” businessman who urgesnEdith to become more “self-centered”nOf summer picnics—were transmogrified;nGreen paradise transformed to tenebrous cave,nHer beauty torn, voice shrill. The tales had lied:nNo hope of princely rescue by the brave.nHer husband soon will come and she must smile;nShe cannot tell him that it hurts. All daynThey trudged foreign pavements, mile on mile—nMuseums, churches, statues—then the bay.nAs sunset bled across the sky and sea;nSad twilight as the pilgrimage of greynAnd hooded waves moved shoreward endlessly.nThen back to this. She smells tobacco-smoke.nIt sickens her. She thinks she hears his treadnOutside the door. She feels self-pity chokenHer throat with thickening syrup: pain and dreadnCompose their plaint, but pride aborts the cry;nIt freezes in the glass; she lifts her headnAnd sees reflected eyes, resigned and dry.nVernon Scannell is the recipient of the CholmondoleynPoetry Prize and a Fellow of the Royal Society ofnLiterature. His volumes of poetry include Winterlude,nThe Loving Game, The Winter Man, Epithets of War,nWalking Wounded, and The Masks of Love. His fictionnincludes The Face of the Enemy and The Fight.nnn—to abandon her notions about “unselfishnessnbeing good and wickednessnbeing bad.”nIn a louder, less amusing novel,nEdith would embrace Mr. Neville’sncreed; she would join up with a bandnof smugglers and settie into simultaneousnaffairs with a priest, a Greek shippingntycoon, and a sumo wrestier. ButnAnita Brookner is no Judith Krantz.nLike Rosamond Lehmann—to whomnHotel du Lac is dedicated — Ms.nBrookner is a mature, perceptive, wellreadnnovelist whose prose can be stunningnand whose characters are convincinglyndrawn and largely appealing.nHer characters experience only mildnepiphanies, small victories, and quietndefeats. In Hotel du Lac, Edith Hopenbecomes a bit more aware of some ofnthe odd ways in which people posture,nand of her own considerable capacitynfor self-delusion. And that—in annovel as intelligent and elegantlynphrased as this one—is plenty. ccnFEBRUARY 1986 / 15n