—Davey! How nice to see you.

—Good-morning, sir. A pleasant surprise.

—The last person I would have expected. I haven’t seen you since poor Boy’s funeral. What brings you here?

—Just a holiday.

—Have you been here long?

—Since yesterday.

—How is everyone at home? Carol well? Denyse is well, undoubtedly. What about Netty? Still your dragon?

—All well, so far as I know.

—Liesl, this is my lifelong friend—his life long, that’s to say—David Staunton. David, this is Fraulein Doktor Liselotte Naegeli, whose guest I am.

The ogress gave me a smile which was extraordinarily charming, considering what it had to work against. When she spoke her voice was low and positively beautiful. It seemed to have a faintly familiar ring, but that is impossible. Amazing what distinguished femininity the monster had. More chat, and they asked me to lunch.

The upshot of that was that my St Gall holiday took an entirely new turn. I had counted on being solitary, but like many people who seek solitude I am not quite so fond of it as I imagine, and when Liesl—in no time I was asked to call her Liesl—asked me to join them at her country home for Christmas, I had said yes before I knew what I was doing. The woman is a spellbinder, without seeming to exert much effort, and Buggerlugs has changed amazingly. I have never fully liked him, as I told Dr Johanna, but age and a heart attack he said he had had shortly after Father’s death seem to have improved him out of all recognition. He was just as inquisitorial and ironic as ever, but there was a new geniality about him. I gather he has been convalescing with the ogress, whom I suppose to be a medico. She took an odd line with him.

—Wasn’t I lucky, Davey, to persuade Ramsay to come to live with me? Such an amusing companion. Was he an amusing schoolmaster? I don’t suppose so. But he is a dear man.

—Liesl, you will make Davey think we are lovers. I am here for Liesl’s company, certainly, but almost as much because this climate suits my health.

—Let us hope it suits Davey’s health, too. You can see he has been seriously unwell. But is your cure coming along nicely, Davey? Don’t pretend you aren’t working toward a cure.

—How can you tell that, Liesl? He looks better than when I last saw him, and no wonder. But what makes you think he is taking a cure?

—Well, look at him, Ramsay. Do you think I’ve lived near Zürich so long and can’t recognize the “analysand look”? He is obviously working with one of the Jungians, probing his soul and remaking himself. Which doctor do you go to, Davey? I know several of them.

—I can’t guess how you know, but there’s no use pretending, I suppose. I’ve been a little more than a year with Fraulein Doktor Johanna von Haller.

—Jo von Haller! I have known her since she was a child. Not friends, really, but we know each other. Well, have you fallen in love with her yet? All her male patients do. It’s supposed to be part of the cure. But she is very ethical and never encourages them. I suppose with her successful lawyer husband and her two almost grown-up sons it mightn’t do. Oh, yes; she is Frau Doktor, you know. But I suppose you spoke in English and it never came up. Well, after a year with Jo, you need something more lively. I wish we could promise you a really gay Christmas at Sorgenfrei, but it is certain to be dull.