Sunday, January 2nd, 1876.
"I shall go Sunday at three o'clock," I said or rather shrieked, and Sunday at one o'clock everything was topsy-turvy. The trunks were still empty, and the floor was covered with gowns and finery. For my part, I put on a grey dress and waited quietly. C—— and Dina worked, and so well that everything was ready for the hour of departure.
At half past two, C—— and I got into a little cab and went to hear the band, and I listened once more to the municipal music of Nice. "Come," I said to Collignon, "if this piece is gay, our journey will be, too. I am superstitious." And the piece was very lively. So much the better!
I saw G——, who bid me good-bye once more. I haven't seen the Marvel, but that doesn't matter.
We got into the landau again, and went to the station. Our friends came there, one after another. I skipped about, I laughed, I chattered like a bird. How kind they are, and how hard it is to leave them.
"You feign this gaiety," said B——to me, "but in your heart you are weeping, I am sure of it."
"Ah! you think so? No!
"When to Nice you bid good-bye,
Unfeigned joy is in your eye.
Easy 'tis from Nice to part,
For she never wins your heart."
"Bravo! Bravo!"
The quatrain was made one evening when we were capping verses with G——.
"Give me some cigarettes," I said softly to my aunt.
"Very well, later."
I thought she had forgotten, but at Monaco she wrapped a number in paper and gave them to me. She, who cries out when I ask her for them at home. At Monaco we parted, and those horrid cigarettes made me cry. I was sorry for the poor old grandfather, my aunt, everybody. I am vexed to have to go with Mamma. I was with her at Spa and, besides, I am used to my aunt.
Oh! torture! Imagine the tediousness of a journey in Italy. Mamma and Dina do not know Italian. I refused to use my tongue; I can scarcely use my limbs. By dint of complaining because I was not with my aunt, and saying: "Who asked you to come with us? I ought to go with my aunt. Why do you come with me?" I obtained a passive obedience and an alacrity impossible to imagine.
Night found us in a car. I complained, wept softly, and said the most provoking things to my mother, like the brute I am.
At last, toward three o'clock, Monday, January 3d, ruins, columns, aqueducts began to appear on the dreary plain called the Roman Campagna, and we entered the station of Rome. I saw nothing, I heard nothing. I was utterly limp after these twenty-four hours without sleep.
We were taken to the Hôtel de Londres, Piazza di Spagna, and we occupied an apartment on the ground floor, with a yellow drawing-room that was very fresh and neat, I was tired and depressed, in the condition in which I needed some one to sustain me. And Mamma was crying. Oh, dear!
We must set to work very, very quickly to look about us. There is nothing I hate like changing.
New streets, strange faces, and no Mediterranean. Only the miserable Tiber. I am utterly wretched when I am in a new city. I shut myself up in my room to collect my scattered wits a little.