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