A. V. Laider by Max Beerbohm

“I unpacked my things and went down to await luncheon.
“It was good to be here again in this little old sleepy hostel by the sea. Hostel I say, though it spelt itself without an “s” and even placed a circumflex above the “o.” It made no other pretension. It was very cozy indeed.
“I had been here just a year before, in mid-February, after an attack of influenza. and now I had returned, after an attack of influenza. Nothing was changed. It had been raining when I left, and the waiter—there was but a single, a very old waiter—had told me it was only a shower. That waiter was still here, not a day older. and the shower had not ceased.” -an excerpt