'Wine or beer?' she said.
I would not trust the coldness of beer.
'A half of red wine,' I said.
I knew she was going to keep me an indefinite time.
She appeared with the wine and bread.
'Would you like omelette after the beef?' she asked. 'Omelette with
cognac--I can make it _very_ good.'
I knew I should be spending too much, but I said yes. After all, why
should I not eat, after the long walk?
So she left me again, whilst I sat in the utter isolation and stillness,
eating bread and drinking the wine, which was good. And I listened for
any sound: only the faint noise of the stream. And I wondered, Why am I
here, on this ridge of the Alps, in the lamp-lit, wooden, close-shut
room, alone? Why am I here?
Yet somehow I was glad, I was happy even: such splendid silence and
coldness and clean isolation. It was something eternal, unbroachable: I
was free, in this heavy, ice-cold air, this upper world, alone. London,
far away below, beyond, England, Germany, France--they were all so
unreal in the night. It was a sort of grief that this continent all
beneath was so unreal, false, non-existent in its activity.
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