书城公版The Point of View
19852400000001

第1章

FROM MISS AURORA CHURCH, AT SEA, TO MISS WHITESIDE, IN PARIS.

My dear child, the bromide of sodium (if that's what you call it) proved perfectly useless.I don't mean that it did me no good, but that I never had occasion to take the bottle out of my bag.It might have done wonders for me if I had needed it; but I didn't, simply because I have been a wonder myself.Will you believe that Ihave spent the whole voyage on deck, in the most animated conversation and exercise? Twelve times round the deck make a mile, I believe; and by this measurement I have been walking twenty miles a day.And down to every meal, if you please, where I have displayed the appetite of a fish-wife.Of course the weather has been lovely; so there's no great merit.The wicked old Atlantic has been as blue as the sapphire in my only ring (a rather good one), and as smooth as the slippery floor of Madame Galopin's dining-room.