Kurzvorschau – Madame Gstaad Englisch

Gottfried & Andrea von Siebenthal

Madame

GSTAAD Historical novel

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CON T E N T S

Preface 1865 1865–1867 1867–1873 1873 1874–1876 1876–1894 1894–1898 18 July 1898 19 July 1898 1898

1896–1899 1899 1903 1905 1906 1905–1910 1913 1906–1913 1913 1914 1914–1918 1918–1922 1922

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The Letter The Town on the Lake A different World Farewell to Paris The Return Love Death Life must go on A Disaster is looming The Village burns Despair Death in the Cell The Curse Wicked Tongues The Milliner The new House A Brother's Death The Railway is coming The Dawn of a new Era Resistance arises The Family The Village develops The Alsatian Robert’s Dream The Opening of the Palace A King’s School The Successor The Price of War Twilight Years Old and tired

13 19 23 29 34 38 42 46 54 57 64 70 76 80 83 90 102 105 112 118 121 131 137 142 148 154 159 165 169 171

Annex Glossary

175 177 5

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Within us,

we carry those who came before us.

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PR E FAC E

by Gottfried von Siebenthal

When I discovered a shoe box full of old postcards and photos in the attic of our family house at the age of twelve, it was to be the start of a great passion. These pictures and the stories they told have stayed with me ever since and I began to collect them ­eagerly. I also soaked up the stories from earlier times that my father (Gottfried III) often told. I was particularly fascinated by the events surrounding the village fire, which had had such a profound impact on our family. At that time, however, no one seemed to remember the reason for the arson.

It was only much later, in 1992, that I finally learned the truth about the village fire. On the occasion of the 120th a­ nniversary of our family business, I made a display in the windows of our shop with enlarged, old photos of the family history. One day, an old lady came into the shop and pointed out that one of the pictures showed her mother and grandmother. The lady then introduced herself as Margrit Feldmann-Beck from Bern. She was the granddaughter of the legendary Emilie Steffen-von Siebenthal, who is the protagonist of this book, and therefore also my grandfather’s cousin.

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Margrit was 90 years old at our first encounter, but had an in­ cre­dible memory. We met several times after that, and so I learned many anecdotes and events from Emilie’s life and the old Gstaad from her. I almost could not believe that I had finally met someone who could tell me the whole story of the village fire. She also seemed glad to be able to share the stories she had often heard from her mother and grandmother with someone who had such a burning interest in them.

Margrit was the widow of former Federal Councillor Markus Feldmann from Bern. However, she never mentioned this to me, she was far too modest for that. Her amiable nature and astonishing memory left a deep impression on me and I have fond recollections of her. Had I not met Margrit Feldmann, just like all the other Gstaad residents who had experienced the calamity; after all, there were no other records of the tragic history of the blaze.

Many of the photos in this book stem from the photo album of my great-grandmother Louise von Siebenthal-Steffen, the only object she was able to save from the burning house back then.

Most of the people in it were unknown to me for a long time, until Margrit Feldmann was able to identify them.

Irma Steffen-Fricker, Willy Steffen’s widow, also played an important role in my investigations. Willy’s father was Robert ­Steffen, eldest son of Emilie Steffen-von Siebenthal and builder of the Palace Hotel. It was from Irma that I received Robert’s extensive correspondence (over 3500 pages!), starting in 1907, when Robert had begun to buy the first plots of land for his ­hotel project, until his untimely death in 1923. This correspondence was also an extraordinary source for my historical research. Without this very detailed and extensive collection, I probably would not have been able to research the history of Gstaad to such a detailed extent.

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Since my childhood days, I have collected thousands of photos and postcards and written down countless anecdotes and stories of the old villagers on my typewriter. Many of these stories now come together in this tale. I hope that through this book, the life story of Emilie Steffen-von Siebenthal and her contemporaries as well as the events surrounding the village fire will not be forgotten and will be passed on.

Gottfried von Siebenthal-Imhof

P R E FAC E

by Andrea von Siebenthal

When my father approached me with the idea of a novel, I was sceptical at first; neither he nor I had ever written a novel. But the stories of our ancestors and of old Gstaad had been ingrained in me through his tales, which have accompanied me since my childhood. I had also worked extensively with my f­ ather a few years ago on editing and translating his first book, “Gstaad – A Journey into the Past”, and was therefore familiar with the various historical figures and circumstances.

At first hesitantly, but then with growing enthusiasm, I set to work to revise my father’s first manuscript and breathe life into the historical characters. It was of utmost importance to us to portray the characters as authentically as we could and to create a narrative that is as true to the facts as possible. So I went to work with the aim of narrating Emilie’s life story with the respect it deserves. We deliberately chose a simple narrative style to remain true to Emilie's humble educational background, to honor the local dialect and, last but not least, to make the ­story as accessible and relatable as we could.

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I liked the idea of writing a book about our ancestors, who have largely been forgotten but who, despite the hardship they experienced, had the courage to shape their future, thus changing the course of Gstaad's history.

I am convinced that Emilie’s story is an essential one to tell.

History has been, for far too long, shaped and written by men, hence erasing all the courageous women from our collective memory. Never has our story been told through the eyes and voice of a woman with hardly any education, even less a widow.

I therefore think that telling Emilie's story is an essential contribution to helping women reclaim their rightful place in local history and to celebrating their unsung courage and strength that has held our community together over many generations.

I am very proud of the result of this beautiful collaboration with my father. May the story of Emilie and her contemporaries touch the readers as much as it touched us.

Andrea von Siebenthal

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T

he von Siebenthal family have been dear friends of mine since I first came to Gstaad over fifty years ago. I ­therefore read Madame Gstaad with great interest and pleasure.

Having known and loved the village for so long, I found that reading this enriching historical novel helped me gain an even better understanding of how it came to be. The resilience and kindness of its villagers—still palpable today—shines through this remarkable tale.

The von Siebenthal family were among the earliest residents of the area many generations ago, and Gottfried’s longstanding commitment to documenting every detail of its past and present makes him the ideal person to tell this true and previously unknown story. Having already published two beautiful photographic histories, his unique experience, dedication, and passion firmly place him as the foremost authority on Gstaad and its environs today.

Now with the help of his lovely daughter, Andrea, a fine documentarian in her own right, Gottfried von Siebenthal brings to vivid life the myriad ways in which Gstaad evolved throughout the centuries to become the enchanting place now beloved by so many. Although this is a very personal tale, specific to one small region of the world, the insights contained within its pages have universal resonance. Anyone who knows, loves, or visits Gstaad, or for that matter, anyone interested in history, culture, and the decency of humanity, will benefit from reading this fascinating book.

Julie Andrews 11

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1865

The Letter

I

t must have been January. There was snow outside, and in the dark parlour of our tiny, weathered wooden house the Christmas tree was still standing – small and gaunt. It was to be my last Christmas in my parents’ house. But back then, on that very January day, I knew nothing of all this.

Before the mid-day meal, Father came into the house beaming with joy. He was holding a letter in his hand: “Karl has written to us!” he called to Mother. She was busy boiling the little ones’ nappies. A chore I often took over for her, as she always had her hands full with the many children, the house and the garden.

We were 14 children and I and my sisters always had to help Mother look after the younger siblings.

A simple family like ours rarely received mail. And then, at most, from relatives who, like many people from the region, had sought a better life elsewhere and who now wrote of how they had found a new home. Many had emigrated to Lake Geneva, Paris or even America. However, their letters often sounded sad and I secretly wondered if our relatives were really better off far away than here. So there had to be a special reason for us to receive mail today.

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Karl! A warm feeling came over me – my big brother! How much I missed him. The gaggle of children gathered joyfully and I saw Mother smiling, which was rare. Father took a seat on his chair at the top of the old wooden table in the parlour.

None of us children would ever have dared to sit on his chair.

This was meant for the head of the family and no one else; ­Father was very strict about that. He opened the letter and read it to us in his deep voice. I did not understand much of the written German language because we spoke dialect and I had only been able to attend school for one year; it was not compulsory at that time, at least not for girls. It was the same for many young women back then; there was a lot of work at home and the parents could not manage everything on their own. Very few families had the money for a maid, so the girls had to stay at home and help out. I never learned to read and write properly and written German remained a foreign language for me for a long time which I would only somewhat understand in adulthood. My mother also barely understood the written language, but she did not dare interrupt Father as he read the letter to us.

But we all did understand the most important thing: Karl was well. My third brother had left to Geneva four years earlier, as soon as he had reached the age of 18. I still remember that day clearly. Mother had stood crying outside the house and waved after Karl, who was travelling with Father to the village on the horse-drawn cart. The village, that was Saanen at that time.

Gstaad, where we lived, was just a hamlet – there were scarcely more than a dozen houses here. Something important had to be going on if someone went to the village. The men went there to vote, which we women were not allowed to do. We were not to involve ourselves in political discussions – no woman dared to do that here. We were only allowed to go there on market days. And sometimes, when someone had died, we were ­authorised to walk along with the funeral procession to the cemetery in Saanen. At the back, behind the men. And only if Father agreed, which was rarely the case.

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Jacob von Siebenthal and Maria Hauswirth, Emilie's parents.

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That was how Father and my brother Karl had left, and a wish had been planted in my heart that very day, which was now to come true: I wanted to follow my courageous brother’s example and leave this pitiful home. Because our house really was just a small shack. Not to be compared with the magnificent, grand farmhouse of the Reichenbach family further down the road, which was richly decorated. We lived at the very back of the valley, in the Ramschälen. It was shady there, and our house was built on a steep hillside. The house bore no decorations; the names of my parents, Jacob von Siebenthal & Maria Hauswirth, were written in simple lettering on the dark wood.

It was customary for the builders of the house to paint their names and the year of construction on the façade.

Living here was not easy, because everything that was needed had to be carried up or down. In the summer, we had our own vegetables and apples, as well as a pear tree and berries in the garden and even a small allotment that yielded potatoes and some barley. Father procured some goats and two cows, as well as the rabbits, and yet it was only just enough to feed the family; for my mother had given birth to nine more children a­ fter me. We each slept three in a bed, more space was simply not available in the small house.

My mother had kind eyes, but they were often sad. She was q ­ uiet and hardworking – just as we women were expected to be. Somehow it seemed to me that Frau Mutter – we had to a­ ddress our parents formally, like all children at that time – was petrified.

Only her eyes sometimes laughed when Father had a kind word for her. Yes, Mother’s eyes. They were actually the only thing that seemed alive about Mother. She spoke little and rarely laughed.

And this too she did only with her hand covering her mouth.

Maybe she wanted to hide her teeth; she did not have many of them left, too many pregnancies and too little wholesome food had caused them to rot. Or maybe she was hiding her laughter to avoid attracting attention. That did not lay in her nature.

I remember my father’s hands. Much more actually than his face, which is fading more and more in my memory. These hands 16

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told of a life of deprivation that even the hardest work could scarcely alleviate. Leathery skin and deep furrows covered coarse limbs that seemed to tell of hundreds of years of labour. Even though at that time, in my last winter at home, my father must hardly have been older than 55. I remember how those coarse hands held the letter from which my father read the words of my brother Karl, which were to change my life forever: “You are to send Emilie to me. She absolutely must learn French. She will need it if she ever returns to Gstaad again! Because I’ve been told that Gstaad will soon be connected to the railway and so guests will arrive who speak mostly French.”

I, the second-eldest girl, should leave my mother and move to Geneva? I did not even know where that was. I only knew that there was a big lake and that the people there spoke the same melodious language that I had often heard the folk from neighbouring Rougemont speak on market days and which I was now to learn. My brother Karl had thought of me and wanted to offer me a better life. I was so proud of him! Because, although he was only three years older, he was very mature for his age and also appeared grown-up. Or maybe I just felt that way because I admired him so much for having found the courage to leave.

He had become a porter in a large, very elegant hotel in Geneva.

“Hotel des Bergues” was the name of this hotel, which was located directly on the lake. They needed chambermaids there; hard-working girls like me, he wrote.

After my father had read out the letter and translated it for us into Saanedütsch, our local dialect, we all sat quietly around the table. Only my little sister Charlotte began to cry softly.

“Emilie, don’t leave.” I hugged her tightly and did not dare look at Father. I knew that this big decision was up to him alone.

Then I suddenly felt his big hand on my shoulder and winced.

“Emilie,” he spoke. “You shall be allowed to go. I want you to have a better life than us one day.” These were the most loving 17

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words I would ever hear from my father. And although I felt that it would be hard for me to say goodbye, I knew that I had to go. The future laying before me and its promises were stronger than the childhood behind me and the burden of family.

And that’s how it came about that I, at the age of nineteen, also left the shady house on the hillside.

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1865–1867

The Town on the Lake

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o sooner had the snow melted than I moved to Geneva. The old leather suitcase I had received from my Aunt Anna as a farewell gift contained everything I owned: two working dresses, a good dress like we wore on Sundays, a worn brown loden coat, underwear and a small wooden figure my brother Albert had carved for me. The pair of lace-up shoes I wore were the only good shoes I owned. When we parted, Mother put her pendant around my neck, which she had always worn for as long as I can remember. This simple silver chain with the oval pendant engraved with her initials was now the most valuable thing I owned. “That way I will always be with you, my darling daughter,” Mother had told me when bidding me farewell. We embraced each other silently, and that silence held a thousand words.

Just like my brother back then, my father took me to Saanen by horse-drawn cart. There he helped me into the carriage that would take me to Bulle. He stood there silently, his big hands buried deep in the pockets of his worn-out trousers. “God bless you,” he told me, and I thought I saw tears in his eyes; but perhaps it was only my own that clouded my vision. I could not have 19

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Hotel des Bergues, Geneva.

Photo ca. 1865.

fathomed that these were to be the last words he would ever speak to me. That was certainly for the best. Certain secrets that only God knows about shall remain hidden from our mortal eyes.

The journey cost a small fortune, for which my father had had to sell a goat. But I would never have been able to get to G ­ eneva any other way, because the carriage ride to Bulle and the train to Geneva were not something that poor people like us could have afforded. In Geneva, my brother Karl picked me up at the train station. I hardly recognised him in his uniform. In the four years we had not seen each other, he had grown from a boy into a man.

How different everything was here! The houses were built in stone and several storeys high, and on the paved streets beautiful people rode in shiny carriages along the lake, which seemed 20

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infinitely large to me. I moved in with Karl; we shared a small attic room not far from the train station. It was noisy there and stuffy in summer, but we were content. At the Hotel Des Bergues I worked as a chambermaid, “femme de chambre”, they called me. In the beginning, I was terribly homesick. I would then touch my mother’s pendant and close my eyes. In these moments, I could hear the voices of my brothers and sisters and see my mother smiling, which helped me through many difficult moments. It was not easy to get used to the new surroundings. But I had my brother, who supported me through the initial dif­fi culties as best he could. In the evening, by candlelight, he taught me a few words of French, which helped me a lot to make myself understood. The house where we lived was always very noisy, and people from all over the world, who also hoped for a better life like us, came and went. It was often difficult there, because there was only one bathroom and it was ­generally cramped and dirty. I did our laundry and kept our room clean as best I could. When, the following year, my brother married a girl from Paris, Marie-Jeanne, he moved into a small flat with her and I remained in the attic room by myself.

Two summers came and went and I started to get used to life here. I liked the lake and the way the light shimmered so beautifully on it, almost like the snow at home on a sunny winter’s day. I met many different guests at the hotel, some of them were nice, others not so much. But I always made an effort to be friendly, because I remembered Father’s words: “You have to get on well with people because there are no ­others.”

In those days, a very elegant couple from Paris stayed at the ­Hotel des Bergues. My brother Karl – by now everyone called him “Monsieur Charles” – already knew these people from previous stays at the hotel. He greeted them warmly and they also seemed pleased to see him again. He told them that his sister was now also working at the hotel and that from this day on I would be the chambermaid responsible for their suite. The suites consisted of three rooms, making them each as big as my parents’ house. I quickly understood that I was not allowed to 21

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ask any questions in the hotel, and Karl also advised me not to be impressed by the beautiful dresses and jewellery of the fine ladies. He was always very caring and knew what was good for me.

The guests, Monsieur and Madame Haussmann, were very kind and concerned about me. Although I still had a little trouble communicating fluently with them, we quickly became friendly. Shortly before they left after their three-week stay at the hotel, they asked me if I would like to accompany them to Paris and work in their household. I was twenty-one years old at the time and Paris seemed like the other side of the world. “Even further away from home,” was what flashed through my mind.

But I’d seen postcards of this city with its large boulevards and was fascinated by it. The offer came as a great surprise to me.

Brother “Charles” – by now I also called him that, because I found the name so funny – supported me in this idea. I was able to convince my parents of this endeavour in a long letter.

Charles wrote to them that he had urged me that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I should not miss. A man’s opinion simply outweighed that of a young woman like me.

Mother had Father write back that she was afraid she would never see me again. “Some man there will turn your head and you will stay there!” was her great concern. Despite her misgivings, I accepted the offer.

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1867–1873

A different World

S

o it came that after two years I left the town on the beautiful lake behind me and travelled to Paris in the autumn of 1867, more precisely to Fontainebleau near the French capital. On board a gigantic train, the likes of which I had never seen before and which was pulled by a steam locomotive, I left my homeland. The journey in this rattling, puffing behemoth seemed interminably long, and with every hour my home was receding further into the distance. The mountainless landscape with its endless fields was so different from what I knew.

When we arrived in Fontainebleau, I was shocked: Monsieur and Madame did not live in a house, but in a castle! I had ­truly never seen anything like it in my life. I must have stood there in utter shock, because the plump little lady who took our luggage and would later introduce herself as Germaine, made fun of me as she led me to my room. She probably sensed that I was feeling a bit lost and wanted to cheer me up. It actually scared me at first to live in such a huge building, and I kept thinking of Gstaad, of our small, pitiful house on the hillside. Yes, this really was another world.

The Haussmanns had five children, all of whom were grown up and had already moved out. I still had enough work because the house had so many rooms. I never counted them, but the 23

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house had three floors and seemed infinitely large. I was ­treated very kindly and was fed well and, above all, sufficiently, which had not always been the case at home. Germaine, the governess, was rather confused by me at the beginning, as she had never had to work with a foreigner in her life, especially one who spoke French rather poorly. But since she soon grew fond of me, I quickly learned the language better and we became friends.

After two years, I supposedly spoke French almost without an accent, at least that’s what Madame told me, and I was very proud of that.

Madame Haussmann’s eldest daughter, Paulette, lived right in the centre of Paris. A few months after my ­arrival, she brought me with her for a weekend to show me around the city. I could not believe my eyes, there were so many carriages and even trams pulled by horses! I had never seen so many ­people at once before. And then there were all the big shops there. The shop windows were huge, and in them were mannequins dressed in the most beautiful clothes I had ever seen.

I stood in front of them in amazement and felt miserable. ­Although I had put on my best dress, here in Paris my old Sunday best was not really what you would call fashionable. Sensing my thoughts, Mademoiselle Paulette bought me a new dark green linen dress, in which I felt very elegant, and matching ankle boots with small heels. “Comme tu es belle!“, how beautiful you are, Paulette said. And indeed, for the first time in my life I felt something like a sense of pride at the sight of myself; a feeling that had remained alien to me until then.

At the Haussmanns‘ I learned to eat food that I had never seen before, let alone tasted. Many things were so foreign to me that I had to get used to them first; like fish, mussels and good meat.

At home, we only ever ate sausages, and not even very often; only at Christmas we usually got a meagre roast.

Once a year, at Easter, I was allowed to accompany Germaine to her village for a few days. It was a good hour’s carriage ride away from the castle. Being Catholic like most people here, Easter was an important religious festival for Germaine. So I 24

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accompanied her and her family to the Easter Sunday service, called “Sainte Messe”. This ceremony was somewhat bewildering to me, especially the fact that people ate a piece of bread which they ­believed to be the body of Christ, was something I could never really understand. But I was always enthralled by the gold-­embroidered vestments of the priests, the incense and the beautiful singing. Germaine poked me in the ribs so that I, like her, would kneel down and make the sign of the cross at the right moment. She did not want me to stand out as a Protestant. The best thing about these carefree days was the family celebration after Mass, where there was plenty to eat and drink and people sang and danced with abandon. People here in France were very fond of wine, but it seemed to me that it was less bad than the schnapps back home. This one here made people merry, that one there made men evil.

Tired, and at times with a little headache from the wine, we were then taken back to the castle the next day. Jules, the coachman, kept making eyes at me, but I pretended not to notice and looked out into the sweeping landscape with embarrassment. Germaine said to me: “Don’t you worry, little Emilie, he does that with all women, you’ll get used to it.” And indeed, over the years I got used to the looks of Jules and also those of the servants who worked on the estate. But it never occurred to me that I could be beautiful.

In the third year after my arrival, Paris was besieged by Prussian troops. We heard that the emperor had been captured. We then locked ourselves in the castle, because many manor houses were looted by the passing Prussians at that time. There was also a lot of hunger in the capital, but thank God we were spared all that. These upsetting events scared me and I often longed for my home in those troubled times. 190,000 soldiers lost their lives in this short war, Mr Haussmann, who was very patriotic, told me. He said that Switzerland had taken in 87,000 soldiers from the Eastern Army; the half-frozen and starving soldiers were sheltered by ordinary Swiss families. Mr Haussmann was full of praise for the Swiss and, it seemed to me, respected me even 25

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Boulevard de la Madeleine.

Paris, approx. 1868.

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more after those events. However, I found the whole war-mongering deeply abhorrent, and I could not help thinking of the many young men who perished miserably in the course of it.

Germaine also lost a brother in the war and was inconsolable.

The cruelty of the slaughter and the hatred between neighbour­ ing peoples was incomprehensible to me – after all, the tears were the same here and there. I imagined the grief of the thousands upon thousands of mothers whose sons would never ­return and who had been buried somewhere in foreign lands, left to rot in foreign soil. These thoughts and Germaine’s tears broke my heart.

In these troubled times I missed my home more than ever; I knew deep down that I did not really belong here. I longed for the quiet peace of the mountains. So it was fate that unexpectedly brought me back home after six years in Paris.

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1873

Farewell to Paris

O

ne October day in 1873, it had already turned cold, I received news from my brother Gottfried in Gstaad that our father was lying in death. I should come home as soon as possible, he wrote. An abyss opened up before me.

Never had I thought that I would not be able to see my parents again. I had always pushed this thought far away from my mind. But now reality caught up with me: I had to go home. It was not easy to break this to dear Madame Haussmann. But she took pity on me and realised that she could not and should not hold me back. I did not hesitate for long, because I wanted to see my father again; also, I knew … all too well about all the work and worries that mother would soon have to bear alone.

At that time, death was no stranger. Almost every family had lost one or even more children – “God calls the little angels back to Heaven,” they said. I, too, had lost two siblings: my ­little sister Sophie had succumbed to measles at the age of eight, and my brother Emil had died in fever when he was two. The cause of death was never determined, but it was since that very event that Mother was petrified. Miraculously, however, she was expecting again in that same year and gave birth to a baby girl at the age of 45. She was also called Sophie; at that time it was not un­usual to give the name of a deceased child to one who followed. Maybe that helped people to ease the emptiness of the loss a little. That was certainly the case with our little “Söfeli”, as we affectionately called her. She was different from the other 29

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children. In fact, Sophie had been born “mongoloid” 1). But she was the apple of all our eyes and brought much joy to the family. And so the sorrow, although a constant guest, was also repeatedly eclipsed by joy.

But now that death came knocking again and called me back home, my life changed anew. I had to go home. Would I see Father alive still? I did not know, and this uncertainty tormented me a lot. With a heavy heart, I bid farewell to the Haussmann family, which over the years had become almost like my own.

Especially knowing that I would probably never see Germaine again pained me. How often had we laughed together, despite all the hard work. Madame gave me a pair of soft, blue leather gloves for my mother, because it was so cold in Switzerland, and she would surely be glad of them, she said. I did not dare tell her that my mother would probably never wear them; they were too beautiful and delicate to be used by a simple peasant woman like my mother. She also gave me a small leather-bound Bible, although I could not use it; I had only learned to speak French, not read it.

Germaine, who had become a motherly friend to me over the years, accompanied me to the train station in Paris. The coachman walked us to the train and I was glad not to have to carry my suitcases myself. In the six years I had been given a number of dresses by Madame and had also sewn some myself. G ­ ermaine had taught me how to sew, as she was very skilled at tailoring the latest creations that could be seen on the streets of Paris.

Germaine and I embraced for a long time as we said goodbye and she told me that she would write to me. We both knew that this would probably not happen, because neither she nor I could read or write. I kept thinking of her long after I had left Paris and as the landscape was slowly turning into that of my childhood again. There would be no turning back, I felt that.

When I arrived in Geneva, it was already evening. So I went to my brother Charles, because it was impossible to travel on to Gstaad on the same day anyway. He did not know I was coming; the mail would have taken too long to inform him of my hasty 30

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departure from Paris in time. I took the shortest route to the Hotel des Bergues, where I found him, as I had hoped. At first he thought I was a guest because I was wearing a beautiful hat that Madame had given me. When I revealed myself to him, he stood there with his mouth agape, unable to believe how much I had changed during the years in Paris. I had become a lady.

He told me that he and Marie-Jeanne were happy, although they had not yet been blessed with children. Meanwhile, he had been promoted to receptionist, which he was very proud of and which also improved their standard of living somewhat. The two of them lived in a small, clean flat in a quiet neighbourhood, where I was able to sleep on the couch. His wife was delighted to talk to me about Paris, the city where she had grown up and which she had left ten years earlier to work as a housekeeper in Geneva. I showed her my dresses, which Germaine had made, and she was thrilled to see what was currently in fashion in Paris. We told each other everything that had happened in the past years. Charles had been back in Gstaad two years earlier for the first time since he left to introduce his wife to our parents. Apparently they had not been particularly pleased, as they had not been able to speak a word to Marie-Jeanne. And so we shared a good laugh and enjoyed the precious few hours together that we had been granted so unexpectedly.

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The valley of Gstaad.

Photo 1910.

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