I pored over the map and plotted out various routes. I’d be mountain-bound bright and early and homeward-bound come evening, tired and happy after a full day’s ramble. But then summer came, and I landed up in hospital with a bilateral hernia. There was no escaping postoperative complications, either—inflammation, high fever, antibiotics. As soon as my stitches were out I went off to Brentschen. But I had to kiss goodbye to all my wonderful plans. No hours-long hikes in the mountains. The first few days I ventured only as far as the table on the lawn in front of the chalet. I gazed at the Weisshorn and rejoiced at life. The mountains in this vicinity have inspired so many descriptions that they seemed like quotations emerging suddenly from beyond the clouds. I thought, too, about how, as the years go by, taking genuine delight in something becomes possible only when you can share that delight with somebody else. My son had promised to come and visit for a couple of days, and, watching the Rhône valley change colour in the twilight, almost as if it were pulling on a lilac stocking, I so wished I could enjoy this spectacle in his company rather than alone.
