The poignancy of the past was almost
unbearable, floating there in colour upon the haze of the river.
We went by some swimmers, whose white shadowy bodies trembled near the
side of the steamer under water. One man with a round, fair head lifted
his face and one arm from the water and shouted a greeting to us, as if
he were a Niebelung, saluting with bright arm lifted from the water, his
face laughing, the fair moustache hanging over his mouth. Then his white
body swirled in the water, and he was gone, swimming with the
side stroke.
Schaffhausen the town, half old and bygone, half modern, with breweries
and industries, that is not very real. Schaffhausen Falls, with their
factory in the midst and their hotel at the bottom, and the general
cinematograph effect, they are ugly.
It was afternoon when I set out to walk from the Falls to Italy, across
Switzerland. I remember the big, fat, rather gloomy fields of this part
of Baden, damp and unliving. I remember I found some apples under a tree
in a field near a railway embankment, then some mushrooms, and I ate
both. Then I came on to a long, desolate high-road, with dreary,
withered trees on either side, and flanked by great fields where groups
of men and women were working.
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