From Evelyn Waugh: Cruise

Well, I said I would write and so I would, if I only had goodness, but it was rough, so I didn’t. Now everything is a bit more all right, so now I will write you. Well, as you know the cruise started at Monte Carlo, and when papa and all of us went to Victoria we found out that the tickets didn’t include the journey, so Goodness how furious he was, and he said he wouldn’t go. But Mum said: “Of course we must go!”, and we said too. Only papa had changed all of his money into Liri or Franks on account of foreigners, who were so dishonest. But he kept a shilling for the porter at Dover for being methodical, but then he had to change it back again. That set him wrong all the way to Monte Carlo, and he wouldn’t get me and Bertie a sleeper, and he wouldn’t sleep himself, because he was so angry. Goodness, how Sad.

Then everything was much more all right. The purser called him Colonel, and he likes his cabin, so he took Bertie to the casino. He lost and Bertie won, and I think Bertie got a bit plastered. At least he made a noise going to bed. He’s in the next cabin as if he were being sick, and that happened before we sailed. Bertie has got some books on Baroque art on account of his being at Oxford.

Well the first day it was rough and I got up. I felt odd in the bath and the soap wouldn’t work on account of salt water, you see. I came into breakfast and there was a list of so many things, including steak and onions. There was a corking young man, who said: “We are the only ones down, may I sit here?”. It went beautifully and he had steak and onions. But it was no good, because I had to go back to bed, just when he was saying, there was nothing he admired so much about a girl as her being a good sailor. Goodness, how sad.

The thing is not to have a bath, and to be very slow in all movements. So next day it was Naples, and we saw some Bertie churches, and then that bit that got blown up in an earthquake, and a poor dog were killed. They have a plaster cast of him. Goodness, how sad. Papa and Bertie saw some pictures. We weren’t allowed to see them, and Bill drew them for me afterwards, and Miss P. tried to look too. I haven’t told you about Bill and Miss P., have I? Well, Bill is rather old, but clean looking, and I don’t suppose he’s very old, not really I mean. He’s had a very disillusionary life on account of his wife, who he says, I wont say a word against, but she gave him the raspberry with a foreigner, and that makes him hate foreigners. Miss P. is called Miss Phillips, and she is lousy. She wears a yachting cap, and she is a bitch. And the way she makes up to the second officer is no ones business. It’s clear to the meanest intelligence that he hates her, but it’s part of the rules that all the sailors have to pretend to fancy the passengers. Who else is there? Well, a lot of old ones. Papa is having a walk out with one called Lady Muriel, something or other, who knew uncle Ned. And there is a honeymoon couple, very embarrassing, a clergyman, a lovely pansy with a camera, white suit, and lots of families from the industrial north.