Later, in the wet Sunday afternoon, I went on to the little lake, past many inert, neutral, material people, down an ugly road where trams ran. The blight of Sunday was almost intolerable near the town.
So on I went, by the side of the steamy, reedy lake, walking the length of it. Then suddenly I went in to a little villa by the water for tea. In Switzerland every house is a villa.
But this villa, was kept by two old ladies and a delicate dog, who must not get his feet wet. I was very happy there. I had good jam and strange honey-cakes for tea, that I liked, and the little old ladies pattered round in a great stir, always whirling like two dry leaves after the restless dog.
'Why must he not go out?' I said.
'Because it is wet,' they answered, 'and he coughs and sneezes.'
'Without a handkerchief, that is not angenehm' I said.
So we became bosom friends.
'You are Austrian?' they said to me.
I said I was from Graz; that my father was a doctor in Graz, and that I was walking for my pleasure through the countries of Europe.
I said this because I knew a doctor from Graz who was always wandering about, and because I did not want to be myself, an Englishman, to these two old ladies. I wanted to be something else. So we exchanged confidences.