The journey was rather troublesome, because Laura got very tired and her condition (she’s in her third month) necessitated a great deal of care; and the place where we had settled to go (it would be too long to explain why) is rather difficult to get at. Besides, Laura very often made things more complicated by refusing to take precautions; she had to be forced; she kept repeating that an accident was the best thing that could happen to her. You can imagine how we fussed over her. Oh, Olivier, how wonderful she is! I don’t feel the same as I did before I knew her, and there are thoughts which I no longer dare put into words and impulses which I check, because I should be ashamed not to be worthy of her. Yes, really, when one is with her, one feels forced, as it were, to think nobly. That doesn’t prevent the conversation between the three of us from being very free--Laura isn’t at all prudish--and we talk about anything; but I assure you that when I am with her, there are heaps of things I don’t feel inclined to scoff at any more and which seem to me now very serious. You’ll be thinking I’m in love with her. Well, old boy, you aren’t far wrong. Crazy, isn’t it? Can you imagine me in love with a woman who is going to have a child, whom naturally I respect and wouldn’t venture to touch with my finger-tip? Hardly on the road to becoming a rake, am I?... When we reached Saas-Fé, after no end of difficulties (we had a carrying chair for Laura, as it’s impossible to get here by driving), we found there were only two rooms available in the hotel--a big one with two beds, and a little one, which it was settled with the hotel-keeper should be for me--for Laura passes as Edouard’s wife, so as to conceal her identity; but every night she sleeps in the little room and I join Edouard in his. Every morning there’s a regular business carrying things backwards and forwards, for the sake of the servants. Fortunately the two rooms communicate, so that makes it easier. We’ve been here six days; I didn’t write to you sooner because I was rather in a state of bewilderment to begin with, and I had to get straight with myself. I am only just beginning to find my bearings. Edouard and I have already done one or two little excursions in the mountains. Very amusing; but to tell the truth, I don’t much care for this country. Edouard doesn’t either. He says the scenery is “declamatory.” That’s exactly it.