Our hotel sits at the water's edge--at least its front garden does--and we walk among the shrubbery and smoke at twilight; we look afar off at Switzerland and the Alps and feel an indolent willingness to look no closer;we go down the steps and swim in the lake; we take a shapely little boat and sail abroad among the reflections of the stars, lie on the thwarts and listen to the distant laughter, the singing, the soft melody of flutes and guitars that comes floating across the water from pleasuring gondolas;we close the evening with exasperating billiards on one of those same old execrable tables. A midnight luncheon in our ample bedchamber; a final smoke in its contracted veranda facing the water, the gardens, and the mountains; a summing up of the day's events. Then to bed, with drowsy brains harassed with a mad panorama that mixes up pictures of France, of Italy, of the ship, of the ocean, of home, in grotesque and bewildering disorder.
Then a melting away of familiar faces, of cities, and of tossing waves, into a great calm of forgetfulness and peace.
After which, the nightmare.
Breakfast in the morning, and then the lake.
I did not like it yesterday. I thought Lake Tahoe was much finer.