Arrival in Rennes
10-20 Very pleasant train ride, except that the heater was turned up too high. The others in the compartment were very jolly, friendly-type sorts, two women and two men. After Elder Bennion got off at Le Mans, I settled down to try to converse in earnest with my neighbors in the compartment. Again thank the Lord for sign language. One pleasant old gentleman in particular got off the train with me and it was not until then that he asked me where I was from; having been told, he began speaking in English! He’s from St.-Malo (near here) and doesn't know it yet, but he’s going to receive some visitors.
My cellmates, Elders Fyffe and Miller and my companion Elder Higley, are real genuine characters. As I was standing at the station waiting for somebody to show up, a fellow in a nondescript sort of overcoat came up to me and asked for [8] a cigarette. I turned him down.1 A minute later he returned and asked me for fifty francs [about a dime]. This I gave him, and he went away. A little later yet, the same man came again and asked me for a hundred new francs [about twenty bucks]—but in English! This time I caught on, and Elder Higley then called the others out of dark corners and introduced them.

“M’sieu’ Hazel”

Also neglected to mention that Higley and I went promptly and dutifully to the Préfecture and handed my passport to a balding, gruff functionary. He fussed around with it for what seemed an awfully long time before handing me the Carte de Séjour that I, as a resident alien, was required to carry at all times. He was not pleased to have me point out that he had copied my eye color into the space where my name belonged, but he took it back, grumpily, and repaired the problem.
2365fewHandPassport.jpg
One year later, mirabile dictu, I was still in Rennes, and the same official greeted me with “Ah! C’est M’sieu’ Hazel, encore une fois!”

1The part I didn’t put in the journal was that I refused him in French, asking, “Est-ce que vous en avez tant besoin?” In recounting the story later, Higley would admit that my response startled him, but that was lost on me at the time, in my state of anxiety.

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