Three days later saw us on the pretty waters of Lake Leman, in
the bright weather when Mont Blanc heaves his great bare
shoulders of ice miles into the blue sky, with no mist-cloak
about him.

Sailing that lake in the cool morning, what a contrast to the
champagne houpla nights of Paris! And how docile was my pupil!
He suffered me to lead him through the Castle of Chillon like a
new-born lamb, and even would not play the little horses in the
Kursaal at Geneva, although, perhaps, that was because the
stakes were not high enough to interest him. He was nearly
always silent, and, from the moment of our departure from Paris,
had fallen into dreamfulness, such as would come over myself at
the thought of the beautiful lady. It touched my heart to find
how he was ready with acquiescence to the slightest suggestion
of mine, and, if it had been the season, I am almost credulous
that I could have conducted him to Baireuth to hear Parsifal!

There were times when his mood of gentle sorrow was so like mine
that I wondered if he, too, knew a grey pongee skirt. I wondered
over this so much, and so marvellingly, also, because of the
change in him, that at last I asked him.

We had gone to Lucerne; it was clear moonlight, and we smoked on
our little balcony at the Schweitzerhof, puffing our small
clouds in the enormous face of the strangest panorama of the
world, that august disturbation of the earth by gods in battle,
left to be a land of tragic fables since before Pilate was