6 June 1922

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

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 & is like a 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 & 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 bare plain 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 & 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 Jack 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 soft lately. 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 Tchekhov would stay at in the country in Russia!
To Dorothy Brett, 5 June 1922.]