Hotel National, Lucerne
26th August

Darling Elizabeth:

Such a jolly time as we had yesterday! In the morning before lunch Blanche and I clambered up the hill behind the National to call on the De Pivarts. They live in a mite of a box of a villa. It is at the end of a street so steep that you feel as if you were going to pitch head-first down it when you begin to descend. The De Pivarts were not at home, according to a man-servant who came to the door in his shirt sleeves and without a collar, and took our cards in fingers that I am sure had previously been engaged in blacking the Marquis's boots or lighting the kitchen fire. But as we came up the hill we saw a man like the Marquis en dÉshabille leaning out of the tiny balcony, and we distinctly heard a female exclaim: "Mon Dieu, je suis perdu! Il n'y a pas des Geraudels! Marie, vite, vite, descendez À la ville pour chercher une boÎte."

So we knew where the Marquise got her voice from.

In spite of the villa being so high up, the air seemed quite stuffy, for the hill is full of six-francs-a-day pensions, where there are enough Baedekers to start a library, and where they ring ranz des vaches instead of dinner-gongs.

We intended to lunch at the National, but Sir Charles met us on the quai and said he had been hunting all over the town for us, as he wanted us to lunch with him at the GÜtsch, and go on to the Wertzelmanns' afterwards. In front of the Schweitzerhof we found the Vicomte, who had been automobiling all the morning, and Sir Charles asked him to join us.

The GÜtsch is much higher than the De Pivarts' villa, and you reach it by a funicular which creeps straight up the side of the hill like a lift. The view was lovely and so was the cooking; we had a table in front of a huge window overlooking the terrasse. Afterwards we strolled in the glades of the pine forest where the light was like the pictures called "Studies in Colour," which one sees in the Academy and nowhere else.

Blanche and Sir Charles were in front, while the Vicomte and I, owing to the Vicomte's laziness, were considerably in the rear. For once he talked of something else than his automobile, but his conversation was not very edifying, save as giving me a pretty vivid idea of the morale of Lucerne society. The Vicomte talked the most outrageous scandal, but in so witty a way that it was impossible to take offence. He knew the histoire of everybody, which, if true, proves that Continental society, especially at a ville d'eaux, is very much the same as in English country houses where the people are smart. As he spoke in French he sailed straight into the wind, where an Englishman would have tacked a half-a-dozen times before reaching port. The voyage was quite exciting, and when I expected him every moment to be wrecked on the rocks of a Moulin Rouge episode he dexterously dropped anchor in calm water. When we got back to the GÜtsch I felt as if I had been listening to one of Gyp's spiciest novels in which I knew all the characters. They manage these things differently in England, and when Mrs. Smith looks purry-purry, puss-puss at Lord Valmond you may be sure that each sees the ghost of a conscience, and it has the face of Sir Francis Jeune.

From the GÜtsch we went straight to Schloss Gessler in the Vicomte's automobile. We tore through Lucerne at top speed; it was great fun, and the Vicomte said there was no danger, for the road was straight, and that nobody would dare get in the way. Going up the hill outside of the town somebody's Maltese terrier with bells round its neck came tearing after us and got under the wheels. But we didn't stop, and as we turned into the avenue leading to the Schloss one of Mr. Wertzelmann's geese committed suicide by throwing itself in front of the automobile.

Nothing could have been more hospitable than the welcome the Wertzelmanns gave us. Everybody we knew was there, and many more whom we didn't. Mr. Wertzelmann took me to see the ruins, but all that is left is a bit of stone wall, which looks as if it had begun with the intention of encircling a kitchen-garden, but had decided to visit the stables, and never got any further. Mr. Wertzelmann told me it had once sheltered Gessler, hence the name of the Schloss, but that the place had recently been restored by a Swiss engineer who had made a fortune out of funiculars. Certainly in its present state Schloss Gessler is very fine, and the view from the terrace, which Mr. Wertzelmann insisted were the old battlements, was lovely.

We saw Mrs. Wertzelmann's portrait by Constant and heard the price it cost; we also went down to the jetty, and as many as could got into the steam launch and went for a spin on the lake. Blanche was among the number, but I preferred to remain on the lawn where the Marquise was playing croquet. Her maid had evidently found the Geraudels, for her voice was more tabloid than ever. Some people who looked as if they lived in pensions, and were no doubt Americans, who had come to pay their respects to their Minister and his handsome wife, strolled about the grounds aimlessly and looked uncomfortable. One of them carried on a polite conversation with a lackey who spoke English, and whom he addressed as "Sir." But the Wertzelmanns devoted their whole attention to their personal friends, and left the representatives of their nation to amuse themselves in their own way.

Mr. Vanduzen brought the Duchesse de Vaudricourt and Comte Belladonna in the cab with him, and I overheard him squabbling with the cabman over the fare, for, from what passed between them, I judged that the Duchesse had been a second thought with Mr. Vanduzen, who had only arranged with the cabman for himself and the Comte. The cabman evidently won, and Mr. Vanduzen arrived on the lawn so perturbed that he forgot to kiss Mrs. Wertzelmann's hand, a custom he has affected since taking up his residence abroad.

Behind Mr. Vanduzen's cab there drove up a very smart landau belonging to Mrs. Solomon G. Isaacs of St. Louis, who is stopping at the National with her mother and daughter. The Austrian nobleman, whose name heads the Schweitzerhof visitors' list, for which they give him his room and food when the latter article is not supplied to him by Mrs. Isaacs, with whose daughter he is Épris, came with them. He is even plus distinguÉ than Comte Belladonna, for it is whispered he was a friend of Crown Prince Rudolph's, and knows so much about his death that the Emperor has requested him to live out of Austria. Mrs. Isaacs, who is a widow, well conservÉe, would, I think, sooner than let him slip out of the family, take him herself, but he prefers the daughter, who is an extremely beautiful and innocent girl of seventeen. The disposal of the dollars, of which they appear to possess millions, rests with Mrs. Isaacs's mother, an impossible old woman, who looks as if she had acquired the etiquette of the salon after a very thorough knowledge of that of the kitchen. Her thirst for information is apparently unquenchable, and I heard her ask Count Albert if he was related to a hofdame at Vienna, whose name I forget. He replied that his maternal grandmother was a Hohenzollern and his great-uncle had married a Hapsburg, which information so delighted Mrs. Johnson that she smacked her lips as if she were tasting some of the sauces she used to make in the good old days. I believe, old as she is, that she would marry Count Albert herself if he asked her; and I am sure that he would not hesitate to do so, if he were certain the fortune was entirely hers.

Mrs. Wertzelmann has a very pretty French woman stopping at Schloss Gessler, a Madame Colorado; she is really lovely, and has the dearest little girl in the world. Madame Colorado knows all the people you have met at Croixmare. On the way back to the National the Vicomte told me she was angelic, as I can well believe; she was married to a brute of a Chilian, who happily killed himself and left her free; she at one time thought of taking the veil, and the Vicomte says her charities in Paris are enormous and that the breath of scandal has never touched her name. I feel quite drawn to her, and shall try to know her better.

To-night after dinner several of us went down to the Schweitzerhof to see the fireworks and hear the music. As everybody was in the salon waiting to see Don Carlos and his Duchesse pass through on their way to dinner, we got splendid seats on the balcony. The night was superb.—Your dearest Mamma.

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