“The gentleman has expressed a wish to go to Montreux.”

“What is luge-ing?” I asked.

“You see he has never even heard of luge-ing!”

That meant a great deal to the second official. He was pleased by that.

“Luge-ing,” said the first official, “is tobogganing.”

“I beg to differ,” the other official shook his head. “I must differ again. The toboggan is very different from the luge. The toboggan is constructed in Canada of flat laths. The luge is a common sled with runners. Accuracy means something.”

“Couldn’t we toboggan?” I asked.

“Of course you could toboggan,” the first official said. “You could toboggan very well. Excellent Canadian toboggans are sold in Montreux. Ochs Brothers sell toboggans. They import their own toboggans.”

The second official turned away. “Tobogganing,” he said, “requires a special piste. You could not toboggan into the streets of Montreux. Where are you stopping here?”

“We don’t know,” I said. “We just drove in from Brissago. The carriage is outside.”

“You make no mistake in going to Montreux,” the first official said. “You will find the climate delightful and beautiful. You will have no distance to go for winter sport.”

“If you really want winter sport,” the second official said, “you will go to the Engadine or to Mürren. I must protest against your being advised to go to Montreux for the winter sport.”

“At Les Avants above Montreux there is excellent winter sport of every sort.” The champion of Montreux glared at his colleague.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “I am afraid we must go. My cousin is very tired. We will go tentatively to Montreux.”

“I congratulate you,” the first official shook my hand.

“I believe that you will regret leaving Locarno,” the second official said. “At any rate you will report to the police at Montreux.”

“There will be no unpleasantness with the police,” the first official assured me. “You will find all the inhabitants extremely courteous and friendly.”

“Thank you both very much,” I said. “We appreciate your advice very much.”

“Good-by,” Catherine said. “Thank you both very much.”

They bowed us to the door, the champion of Locarno a little coldly. We went down the steps and into the carriage.

“My God, darling,” Catherine said. “Couldn’t we have gotten away any sooner?” I gave the name of a hotel one of the officials had recommended to the driver. He picked up the reins.

“You’ve forgotten the army,” Catherine said. The soldier was standing by the carriage. I gave him a ten-lira note. “I have no Swiss money yet,” I said. He thanked me, saluted and went off. The carriage started and we drove to the hotel.

“How did you happen to pick out Montreux?” I asked Catherine. “Do you really want to go there?”

“It was the first place I could think of,” she said. “It’s not a bad place. We can find some place up in the mountains.”

“Are you sleepy?”

“I’m asleep right now.”

“We’ll get a good sleep. Poor Cat, you had a long bad night.”

“I had a lovely time,” Catherine said. “Especially when you sailed with the umbrella.”

“Can you realize we’re in Switzerland?”

“No, I’m afraid I’ll wake up and it won’t be true.”

“I am too.”

“It is true, isn’t it, darling? I’m not just driving down to the stazione in Milan to see you off.”

“I hope not.”

“Don’t say that. It frightens me. Maybe that’s where we’re going.”

“I’m so groggy I don’t know,” I said.

“Let me see your hands.”

I put them out. They were both blistered raw.

“There’s no hole in my side,” I said.

“Don’t be sacrilegious.”

I felt very tired and vague in the head. The exhilaration was all gone. The carriage was going along the street.

“Poor hands,” Catherine said.

“Don’t touch them,” I said. “By God I don’t know where we are. Where are we going, driver?” The driver stopped his horse.

“To the Hotel Metropole. Don’t you want to go there?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s all right, Cat.”

“It’s all right, darling. Don’t be upset. We’ll get a good sleep and you won’t feel groggy to-morrow.”

“I get pretty groggy,” I said. “It’s like a comic opera to-day. Maybe I’m hungry.”

“You’re just tired, darling. You’ll be fine.” The carriage pulled up before the hotel. Some one came out to take our bags.

“I feel all right,” I said. We were down on the pavement going into the hotel.

“I know you’ll be all right. You’re just tired. You’ve been up a long time.”

“Anyhow we’re here.”

“Yes, we’re really here.”

We followed the boy with the bags into the hotel.

Book V

Chapter XXXVIII

That fall the snow came very late. We lived in a brown wooden house in the pine trees on the side of the mountain and at night there was frost so that there was thin ice over the water in the two pitchers on the dresser in the morning. Mrs. Guttingen came into the room early in the morning to shut the windows and started a fire in the tall porcelain stove. The pine wood crackled and sparked and then the fire roared in the stove and the second time Mrs. Guttingen came into the room she brought big chunks of wood for the fire and a pitcher of hot water. When the room was warm she brought in breakfast. Sitting up in bed eating breakfast we could see the lake and the mountains across the lake on the French side. There was snow on the tops of the mountains and the lake was a gray steel-blue.

Outside, in front of the chalet a road went up the mountain. The wheel ruts and ridges were iron hard with the frost, and the road climbed steadily through the forest and up and around the mountain to where there were meadows, and barns and cabins in the meadows at the edge of the woods looking across the valley. The valley was deep and there was a stream at the bottom that flowed down into the lake and when the wind blew across the valley you could hear the stream in the rocks.

Sometimes we went off the road and on a path through the pine forest. The floor of the forest was soft to walk on; the frost did not harden it as it did the road. But we did not mind the hardness of the road because we had nails in the soles and heels of our boots and the heel nails bit on the frozen ruts and with nailed boots it was good walking on the road and invigorating. But it was lovely walking in the woods.

In front of the house where we lived the mountain went down steeply to the little plain along the lake and we sat on the porch of the house in the sun and saw the winding of the road down the mountain-side and the terraced vineyards on the side of the lower mountain, the vines all dead now for the winter and the fields divided by stone walls, and below the vineyards the houses of the town on the narrow plain along the lake shore. There was an island with two trees on the lake and the trees looked like the double sails of a fishing-boat. The mountains were sharp and steep on the other side of the lake and down at the end of the lake was the plain of the Rhone Valley flat between the two ranges of mountains; and up the valley where the mountains cut it off was the Dent du Midi. It was a high snowy mountain and it dominated the valley but it was so far away that it did not make a shadow.

When the sun was bright we ate lunch on the porch but the rest of the time we ate upstairs in a small room with plain wooden walls and a big stove in the corner. We bought books and magazines in the town and a copy of “Hoyle” and learned many two-handed card games. The small room with the stove was our living-room. There were two comfortable chairs and a table for books and magazines and we played cards on the dining-table when it was cleared away. Mr. and Mrs. Guttingen lived downstairs and we would hear them talking sometimes in the evening and they were very happy together too. He had been a headwaiter and she had worked as maid in the same hotel and they had saved their money to buy this place. They had a son who was studying to be a headwaiter. He was at a hotel in Zurich. Downstairs there was a parlor where they sold wine and beer, and sometimes in the evening we would hear carts stop outside on the road and men come up the steps to go in the parlor to drink wine.

There was a box of wood in the hall outside the living-room and I kept up the fire from it. But we did not stay up very late. We went to bed in the dark in the big bedroom and when I was undressed I opened the windows and saw the night and the cold stars and the pine trees below the window and then got into bed as fast as I could. It was lovely in bed with the air so cold and clear and the night outside the window. We slept well and if I woke in the night I knew it was from only one cause and I would shift the feather bed over, very softly so that Catherine would not be wakened and then go back to sleep again, warm and with the new lightness of thin covers. The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else’s college. But I knew from the papers that they were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come.

Sometimes we walked down the mountain into Montreux. There was a path went down the mountain but it was steep and so usually we took the road and walked down on the wide hard road between fields and then below between the stone walls of the vineyards and on down between the houses of the villages along the way. There were three villages; Chernex, Fontanivent, and the other I forget. Then along the road we passed an old square-built stone château on a ledge on the side of the mountain-side with the terraced fields of vines, each vine tied to a stick to hold it up, the vines dry and brown and the earth ready for the snow and the lake down below flat and gray as steel. The road went down a long grade below the château and then turned to the right and went down very steeply and paved with cobbles, into Montreux.

We did not know any one in Montreux. We walked along beside the lake and saw the swans and the many gulls and terns that flew up when you came close and screamed while they looked down at the water. Out on the lake there were flocks of grebes, small and dark, and leaving trails in the water when they swam. In the town we walked along the main street and looked in the windows of the shops. There were many big hotels that were closed but most of the shops were open and the people were very glad to see us. There was a fine coiffeur’s place where Catherine went to have her hair done. The woman who ran it was very cheerful and the only person we knew in Montreux. While Catherine was there I went up to a beer place and drank dark Munich beer and read the papers. I read the Corriere Della Sera and the English and American papers from Paris. All the advertisements were blacked out, supposedly to prevent communication in that way with the enemy. The papers were bad reading. Everything was going very badly everywhere. I sat back in the corner with a heavy mug of dark beer and an opened glazed-paper package of pretzels and ate the pretzels for the salty flavor and the good way they made the beer taste and read about disaster. I thought Catherine would come by but she did not come, so I hung the papers back on the rack, paid for my beer and went up the street to look for her. The day was cold and dark and wintry and the stone of the houses looked cold. Catherine was still in the hair-dresser’s shop. The woman was waving her hair. I sat in the little booth and watched. It was exciting to watch and Catherine smiled and talked to me and my voice was a little thick from being excited. The tongs made a pleasant clicking sound and I could see Catherine in three mirrors and it was pleasant and warm in the booth. Then the woman put up Catherine’s hair, and Catherine looked in the mirror and changed it a little, taking out and putting in pins; then stood up. “I’m sorry to have taken such a long time.”

“Monsieur was very interested. Were you not, monsieur?” the woman smiled.

“Yes,” I said.

We went out and up the street. It was cold and wintry and the wind was blowing. “Oh, darling, I love you so,” I said.

“Don’t we have a fine time?” Catherine said. “Look. Let’s go some place and have beer instead of tea. It’s very good for young Catherine. It keeps her small.”

“Young Catherine,” I said. “That loafer.”

“She’s been very good,” Catherine said. “She makes very little trouble. The doctor says beer will be good for me and keep her small.”

“If you keep her small enough and she’s a boy, maybe he will be a jockey.”

“I suppose if we really have this child we ought to get married,” Catherine said. We were in the beer place at the corner table. It was getting dark outside. It was still early but the day was dark and the dusk was coming early.

“Let’s get married now,” I said.

“No,” Catherine said. “It’s too embarrassing now. I show too plainly. I won’t go before any one and be married in this state.”

“I wish we’d gotten married.”

“I suppose it would have been better. But when could we, darling?”

“I don’t know.”

“I know one thing. I’m not going to be married in this splendid matronly state.”

“You’re not matronly.”

“Oh yes, I am, darling. The hairdresser asked me if this was our first. I lied and said no, we had two boys and two girls.”

“When will we be married?”

“Any time after I’m thin again. We want to have a splendid wedding with every one thinking what a handsome young couple.”

“And you’re not worried?”

“Darling, why should I be worried? The only time I ever felt badly was when I felt like a whore in Milan and that only lasted seven minutes and besides it was the room furnishings. Don’t I make you a good wife?”

“You’re a lovely wife.”

“Then don’t be too technical, darling. I’ll marry you as soon as I’m thin again.”

“All right.”

“Do you think I ought to drink another beer? The doctor said I was rather narrow in the hips and it’s all for the best if we keep young Catherine small.”

“What else did he say?” I was worried.

“Nothing. I have a wonderful blood-pressure, darling. He admired my blood-pressure greatly.”

“What did he say about you being too narrow in the hips?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. He said I shouldn’t ski.”

“Quite right.”

“He said it was too late to start if I’d never done it before. He said I could ski if I wouldn’t fall down.”

“He’s just a big-hearted joker.”

“Really he was very nice. We’ll have him when the baby comes.”

“Did you ask him if you ought to get married?”

“No. I told him we’d been married four years. You see, darling, if I marry you I’ll be an American and any time we’re married under American law the child is legitimate.”

“Where did you find that out?”

“In the New York World Almanac in the library.”

“You’re a grand girl.”

“I’ll be very glad to be an American and we’ll go to America won’t we, darling? I want to see Niagara Falls.”

“You’re a fine girl.”

“There’s something else I want to see but I can’t remember it.”

“The stockyards?”

“No. I can’t remember it.”

“The Woolworth building?”

“No.”

“The Grand Canyon?”

“No. But I’d like to see that.”

“What was it?”

“The Golden Gate! That’s what I want to see. Where is the Golden Gate?”

“San Francisco.”

“Then let’s go there. I want to see San Francisco anyway.”

“All right. We’ll go there.”

“Now let’s go up the mountain. Should we? Can we get the M. O. B.?”

“There’s a train a little after five.”

“Let’s get that.”

“All right. I’ll drink one more beer first.”

When we went out to go up the street and climb the stairs to the station it was very cold. A cold wind was coming down the Rhone valley. There were lights in the shop windows and we climbed the steep stone stairway to the upper street, then up another stairs to the station. The electric train was there waiting, all the lights on. There was a dial that showed when it left. The clock hands pointed to ten minutes after five. I looked at the station clock. It was five minutes after. As we got on board I saw the motorman and conductor coming out of the station wine shop. We sat down and opened the window. The train was electrically heated and stuffy but fresh cold air came in through the window.