[7] French idiom difficult to translate, meaning "I ought to be very grateful to him."
We are starting to-night, straight for Florence, where we shall stay a week or ten days with the Bunsens before going on to Rome. W. is much pleased at the Roman prospect--and I can hardly believe that I am going to see Rome again. We have our lit-salon straight through to Florence, and I hope we shall be warm enough. It is bitterly cold to-day--even walking I was glad to have my sealskin coat. Nounou is rather tearful at being left in sole charge of Francis, but as that young gentleman is perfectly well, in roaring spirits, and will be given everything his heart desires by his Grandmother and Aunts, I don't feel very unhappy about him. It seems incredible that we should be going to meet soon. How we will prowl about Rome. I suppose I shall find it absolutely changed--so many more people--not our dear old dead Rome.
FLORENCE, VIA ROMANA, VILLA MCDONNELL, February 8, 1880.
We arrived quite comfortably, dear mother, but almost frozen, particularly W. He has not been extracted from the fire since we got here. Henrietta will have told you of our start. Pontécoulant and one or two men were at the station to see us off--also the Chef de Gare, most civil, and saying we should not be disturbed at the frontier--and that our coupé-lit would take us straight through to Florence. We had a perfectly easy journey, and I slept quite peacefully--waking up merely when we passed through the tunnel, as the guard came in to shut all the windows. It was a beautiful, cold, starlight winter night. The great mountains covered with snow looked gigantic as we approached--"sinistres" as Madame Hubert[9] said. She was much impressed and rather nervous. There were very few people in the train. When we arrived at Modane the Chef de Gare was waiting for us--he had been telegraphed from Paris to expect us. We had breakfast in the private room, and a nice woman was waiting for us upstairs in the ladies' room with hot water, towels, etc. I made quite a toilet--she carried off my dress and jacket to brush--and then we went down to a nice little breakfast which tasted very good, as I hadn't had anything since our 7 o'clock dinner. They offered us coffee somewhere--Dijon I think--but I didn't want anything then. All the first part of the road--in fact all the road to Turin was lovely. It was a bright, cold morning, and the snow mountains looked beautiful. It was such a pleasure to hear Italian once more--even the names at the stations "capo stazione"--"grande velocità"--"uscita," etc., also the shrill "partenza" when we started. The last time I crossed the Mont Cenis was by the Fell railway when we all started together from Aix. That was certainly very beautiful--but rather terrifying--particularly as we neared the top and looked at the steep places and the various zigzags we were to follow going down. One couldn't help feeling that if a brake or chain broke there would be a terrible catastrophe. I remember so well some of the women who were quite sea-sick--the swaying motion, I suppose, as we rounded the curves, of which there were many. I can see one now stretched out on the floor on a rug in the small salle d'attente at Susa, quite exhausted and absolutely indifferent to the outside world.