page 213

We had an awful journey. The station was crammed with a seething mob. No porters—people carrying their luggage. No couchettes after all—only a packed 1st class carriage, coated in grime. It was Whitsun, of course… I've never taken Whitsun seriously before, but now I know better. Poor dear M. left things in the rack, gave a 500 note instead of a 50, lost the registered luggage tickets… When we reached Sierre, and that lovely clean hotel, smelling of roses and lime blossom, we both fell fast asleep on a garden bench while waiting for lunch. Then at Randogne, after shinning up a hill to reach the little cart, a big black cloud saw us far off, tore across and we'd scarcely started when down came the cold mountain rain. Big drops that clashed on one like pennies. It poured in sheets and torrents. We hadn't even a rug. The road, which has only just been dug out and is like river-bed, became a river, and for the most of the time we seemed to drive on two wheels. But it was heavenly, it didn't matter. It was so marvellously fresh and cool after Paris. A huge dog plunged after our cart and leapt into all the streams—a dog as big as a big sofa. Its name was Lulu. When we arrived, sleek as cats with the wet, a little old grey woman ran out to meet us. There wasn't another soul to be seen. All was empty, chill and strange. She took us into two very plain bare rooms, smelling of pitch pine, with big bunches of wild flowers on the tables, with no mirrors, little washbasins like tea basins, no armchairs, no nuffin. And she explained she had no servant even. There was only herself and her old sister who would look after us. I had such fever, by this time, that it all seemed like a dream. When the old 'un had gone J. looked very sad. Oh, how I pitied him! I saw he had the awful foreboding that we must move on again. But I had the feeling that perhaps we had been living too softly lately. page 214 It was perhaps time to shed all those hot water taps and horrid false luxuries. So I said it reminded me of the kind of place Tchehov would stay at in the country in Russia! This comforted M. so much that the very walls seemed to expand. And after we had unpacked and eaten eggs from the hen, not the shop, M. got into a pair of old canvas shoes and a cricket-shirt.

The air is so wonderful. It's not really hot here except in the sun: There just a breeze—a freshet that blows from across the valley. It's all silky and springlike. The grasshoppers ring their little tambourines all day and all night, too. The view is so marvellous that you must see it to believe it. And behind this hotel there are immense lawns dotted with trees; it's like a huge, natural park. We sat there yesterday watching the herds—a few bright sheep, an old woman with her goat, a young girl, far away with some black cows. When the beasts were being driven home at milking time they began to play. I have never seen a more beautiful sight. They are so joyful to be out again and in the green field that great cows lowed softly for delight and skipped and jumped and tilted at each other and little sheep flew along like rocking horses and danced and gambolled. The slender girls with mushroom white handkerchiefs on their heads ran after them. But they caught the infection and began to laugh and sing, too. It was like the beginning of the world again.

Cities are cursed places. When I have my little house in the South I'll never go near them and I shall lure you away. I long for you to be here next month. The hotel will still be empty. But that's nice. It is so still. As one crosses the hall it echoes. The old woman has very kind eyes. She is simple and gentle. She keeps promising me that I will get better here, and she is determined to make me drink all kinds of teas made of fresh strawberry leaves and hay and pine needles. I suppose I shall drink them—Bless her heart!