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15 June 1922

Hotel d'Angleterre, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Paris feels remote at last. The pianos have died down. The lift no longer goes up & down in ones head. That cursed restaurant has faded. Little creepy things have crept back and clover and the sky and a feeling as though one would in a moment give thanks to the Lord. The cherries are just beginning to flash into ripeness. There are still masses of flowers. But why do the peasants work so hard. It wrings ones heart to see them! The women can just stagger under gigantic loads and they are all bent, all hardened, like trees by a cruel wind.
   What will you paint here - I wonder? Herd girls, goats, trees? That is interesting about the white of Paris houses. What I love, too, is white with just a tinge of pink as one sees in the South - or just a tinge of yellow. Do you like to pat houses? Pat their walls? I used to go outside my little Isola Bella & pat it as if it was a cat. I hope you find your little boy again. I hope you never see that horrid Richborough again. Vile man! How dare he say such things. I am v. sorry to hear about Eva. Of course I suspect J. [J. W. N. Sullivan] and Mrs D. [Dobree] for frightening her. Servants are simple creatures; they don't like surprises. They expect to be looked after (alas) and the best of them are stern moralists.
[To Dorothy Brett, 14 June 1922.]