ill
to-morrow, when we are expected at Monza, where the King and the Queen
have invited us to make them a visit.

Count Gianotti came this afternoon to tell us that we are to take the
train leaving here at three o'clock. Johan and I went out for a stroll
while the maid and valet were packing. We wandered through the Victor
Emmanuel Gallery, then went into the ever-enchanting cathedral. I never
tire of seeing this wonderful place. I pay my two soldi for a chair and
sit there, lost in thought and admiration. The dimness and silence make
it very solemn and restful. Every little while a procession of intoning
priests shuffle by to go to some altar in one of the side-chapels for
some particular service. Sometimes it is a baptism, and the peasants
whose babies are going to be baptized stand in an awed group around the
font. Everything is done in a most matter-of-fact way. I look at the
splendid carvings and filigree of marble and wonder how any _one_
mountain can have furnished so much marble, since it started furnishing
hundreds of years ago. It is lucky that the mountain belongs
exclusively to the Church!

On my return to the hotel I found a card from Countess Marcello, saying
that the Queen had suggested our going to the Scala Theater, and that
we were to occupy the royal box. She has just left Monza. She is lady
in waiting to the Queen, and, her duties having finished for this
month, she is replaced by the Princess Palavicini. She told us that
there were at present no guests at Monza. She said that there are three
categories of toilets: "_good, better_, and _best_" (as she put it),
besides the unexpected which always arrived in the shape of court
mournings, and one must be prepared for them all. When the King's
sister (Princess Clothilde) is there, only severe, sober, and half-high
dresses are worn. For the Queen's mother (the Duchess of Genoa) the
usual evening dress, _decolletee_, with a train. But when the Queen of
Portugal comes everything must be extra magnificent, with tiaras and
jewels galore and the last things of modernity.

We arrived in the theater just as the curtain was going down on the
first act. The audience stared steadily at us with and without
opera-glasses. I suppose people thought that we were members of some
royal family. As the performance was not interesting and I was tired,
we left at an early hour. I scribble this off to you just before going
to bed.

MONZA, _November 3d_.

You see that