Rigadoon by Louis-ferdinand & Manheim Celine

either . . . just the roadbed! . . . we'd take the fish train . . . there and back . . . permission to stay in Warnemünde the time it took them to load . . . two hours at the most! . . . no time for excursions! well, we'd wanted to see the Baltic!
    " Warten sie! "
    He talks to me through the door . . .
    "Go and get your things! . . . you won't be going back to the hotel! . . . no more hotel! . . . verboten! no more hotel! . . . the factories are closed too! . . . Heinkel!° . . . orders from Berlin! . . . you'll return direct from Warnemünde to Berlin! . . . Proseïdon knows, he'll go with you, his patients too, Berlin direct! . . . he'll wait for you . . . understand?"
    "Yes! Yes!"
    Not another word . . . I wasn't going to argue . . . this weirdie Haupt wasn't in love with us to begin with . . . the hotel! . . . ah, here we are! . . . I find the sign . . . hadn't noticed it when we arrived . . . "Phoenix Hotel" . . . seems we don't have to pay . . . that's how it is in all the big crackups: Nightmare, Gratis . . . Vichy, Berlin, Sigmaringen . . . where'll it be tomorrow? London? . . . Prague? . . . Moscow? . . . you'll see . . . go take a look . . . but right here and now, what are they worried about? . . . an English landing? . . . the Russians? . . . we'll ask in Warnemünde . . . quick to our room! bundle up our stuff! . . . Proseïdon is in the corridor . . . it was true, he had his orders . . . I ask him: were they evacuating Rostock? . . . he doesn't know . . . maybe . . . anyway he'd wait till we got back . . . he and his lepers . . . all in the same compartment . . . we'd be together as far as Moorsburg . . . then they'd be changing to another line . . . Stettin! . . . say, I'll be damned! that's where our ladies are! . . . or maybe they'd gone a lot further . . . I'll know if we see Harras, the old clown! . . . Proseïdon thinks they've set up a leper hospital in Stettin . . . he's not sure . . .
    "A great future, Proseïdon!"
    One thing was sure . . . we had two hours to see the Baltic . . . and come back . . .
    "Good-bye! . . . good-bye!"
    Two soldiers seem to be waiting for us at the hotel door . . . to arrest us? . . . we pass them by . . . they tail us . . . about ten . . . fifteen paces back . . . we follow the narrow-gauge tracks . . . the two soldiers are still there . . . still the same distance . . . some other people take the same path . . . funny, here in Rostock, not a soul in the streets . . . then all of a sudden, a crowd! civilians, soldiers . . . what language are they speaking? . . . I ask one of them . . . Danish and Hungarian! . . .
    "There won't be anybody left in Rostock!"
    Whatsisname told me through the door . . . which reminds me, he didn't breathe a word about his Nietzsche . . . only one thing on his mind . . . getting rid of us! . . . suits me! . . . anyway, we'll be seeing their Baltic! . . . and the harbor . . . we'll have two hours . . . all these people are taking the boat . . . hey, I see it! . . . I see the boat! . . . not far ahead . . . Rostock is a seaport, I'd forgotten . . . a very narrow harbor . . . the tracks go right out on the dock . . . let's go! . . . sure, all these people are taking the boat . . . we move up . . . it's a small freighter . . . great big white letters from gunwale to waterline: Denmark and no mistake . . . the two soldiers who've been following us come up . . . they motion to us: not here! . . . this way! . . . further on! . . . I see the gangplank, all those people going up, one by one . . . we push off, we pass the freighter . . . this freighter has no name, only a number: 149 . . . the sea, the beach? further on! . . . further on! right, we're getting there . . . the channel widens . . . we come to a different kind of port . . . sailboats and fishing smacks . . . here there are people . . . all along the shore . . . this must be Wamemünde . . . neither sand nor shingle . . . little black pebbles, little white pebbles . . . kind of