morning-cheerful newness everywhere, in the arrival of the troops, in
the welcome of the villagers.
The Swiss do not look very military, neither in accoutrement nor
bearing. This little squad of cavalry seemed more like a party of common
men riding out in some business of their own than like an army. They
were very republican and very free. The officer who commanded them was
one of themselves, his authority was by consent.
It was all very pleasant and genuine; there was a sense of ease and
peacefulness, quite different from the mechanical, slightly sullen
manoeuvring of the Germans.
The village baker and his assistant came hot and floury from the
bakehouse, bearing between them a great basket of fresh bread. The
cavalry were all dismounted by the bridge-head, eating and drinking like
business men. Villagers came to greet their friends: one soldier kissed
his father, who came wearing a leathern apron. The school bell
tang-tang-tanged from above, school children merged timidly through the
grouped horses, up the narrow street, passing unwillingly with their
books. The river ran swiftly, the soldiers, very haphazard and slack in
uniform, real shack-bags, chewed their bread in large mouthfuls; the
young lieutenant, who seemed to be an officer only by consent of the
men, stood apart by the bridge-head, gravely. They were all serious and
self-contented, very unglamorous. It was like a business excursion on
horseback, harmless and uninspiring. The uniforms were almost ludicrous,
so ill-fitting and casual.
So I shouldered my own pack and set off, through the bridge over the
Rhine, and up the hill opposite.
There is something very dead about this country. I remember I picked
apples from the grass by the roadside, and some were very sweet. But for
the rest, there was mile after mile of dead, uninspired
country--uninspired, so neutral and ordinary that it was almost
destructive.
One gets this feeling always in Switzerland, except high up: this
feeling of average, of utter soulless ordinariness, something
intolerable. Mile after mile, to Zurich, it was just the same. It was
just the same in the tram-car going into Zurich; it was just the same in
the town, in the shops, in the restaurant. All was the utmost level of
ordinariness and well-being, but so ordinary that it was like a blight.
All the picturesqueness of the town is nothing, it is like a most
ordinary, average, usual person in an old costume. The place was
soul-killing.
So after two hours' rest, eating in a restaurant, wandering by the quay
and through the market, and sitting on a seat by the lake, I found a
steamer that would take me away. That is how I always feel in
Switzerland: the only possible living sensation is the sensation of
relief in going away, always going away. The horrible average
ordinariness of it all, something utterly without flower or soul or
transcendence, the horrible vigorous ordinariness, is too much.
So I went on a steamer down the long lake, surrounded by low grey hills.
It was Saturday afternoon. A thin rain came on. I thought I would rather
be in fiery Hell than in this dead level of average life.
I landed somewhere on the right bank, about three-quarters of the way
down the lake. It was almost dark. Yet I must walk away. I climbed a
long hill from the lake, came to the crest, looked down the darkness of
the valley, and descended into the deep gloom, down into a
soulless village.
But it was eight o'clock, and I had had enough. One might as well sleep.
I found the Gasthaus zur Post.
It was a small, very rough inn, having only one common room, with bare
tables, and a short, stout, grim, rather surly landlady, and a landlord
whose hair stood up on end, and who was trembling on the edge of
delirium tremens.
They could only give me boiled ham: so I ate boiled ham and drank beer,
and tried to digest the utter cold materialism of Switzerland.
As I sat with my back to the wall, staring blankly at the trembling
landlord, who was ready at any moment to foam at the mouth, and at the
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