20 Jul 1921

20 July 1921

Chalet des Sapins, Montana-sur-Sierre, Switzerland

Our nearest neighbour - about 1/2 an hours scramble away is my ravishing cousin "Elizabeth". We see her fairly often and Murry goes there. She is certainly the most fascinating small human being I have ever known - a real enchantress - and she is so lovely to look upon as well as to hear. We exchange books and flowers and fruits. This is a marvellous moment for peaches & apricots & wild strawberries. They grow lower down the mountains. Very little grows here except pines, wild flowers and occasional small bobbing cherries. I feel at present as though I could spend the rest of my life here, with occasional descents. But this is more what I would like for home than anything I have known. I don't know why. There is a kind of charm. For one thing its so unspoilt - no railways, no motorcars, no casinos or jazz bands. Every tiny flower seems to shine with a new radiance. That queer chain of modern life seems to be unknown. I feel one will get younger and younger here & its fatal to begin laughing - one never leaves off. Murry & I get up early & work every morning until lunch. Then we play until tea time & then work again until supper. After supper we smoke, read aloud, talk until bed time.

[To Dorothy Brett in Collected Letters, 25 July, 1921.]