to Strasbourg.

X2. Rose at 6. Carriage to Rail at 7. Registered all baggage to Vienna. Off ― 8.30. Only 3 men in the Carriage, & 2 of those got out at Epernay. Weather damp, cold, gray. 3rd passenger uninteresting old gent as he would not talk & was quite right not. ― 6.45. Strasbourg, where I stopped for the night, as by going on, one only stops at Kehl. Utterly disgusted at hearing that all the luggage is to be opened there ― so the “enregistrement” saves me no trouble. I work myself up also to suppose it is to be opened in every German village. ―― Came to the Hotel “Maison Rouge ―” ― but am unwell & cross: & going to sup ― a stupid fille de chambre! ― no bell: ― no nothing: a very collapsed Hotel if it was ever good. ―

Boles out of order again ― so my supper did me no good. ― Another old Gent the only guest, but this one is interesting, ― a colonel who has been in Spain, Algiers &c. ― & has seen much of life. “Ah! quand on est jeune tout est beau! 1 ―” said he speaking of the ugliness of Berlin. ― Somehow I can’t speak French at all tonight: perhaps the shaking all day. & Rather than go through all the Douanes I half wish to try back to Dijon & Marseille & Malta. At 9.30 it required great vigour & energy to get  my room “done” ― & after all what a bed! short sheets & narrow & this detestable Omelette Soufflee above! ― & then came a gt. row ― possibly a husband beating his wife ― & all the guard & people rushing out to help ― “a scene of the middle ages” ― as one saw it in the Strasbourg Platz. ― Altogether Maison Rouge sojourning delights me not with Strasbourg.

Yet tomorrow may be still more disagreable, tho’ I do not know how to recede now.

[Transcribed by Marco Graziosi from Houghton Library, Harvard University, MS Eng. 797.3.]

  1. When you are young everything is beautiful” [↩]