The house is brimming with life again. The three girls and their parents are busy giving it back its character, which it must be admitted, was starting to ebb away as the empty, quiet days wore on. Panpounette the rabbit seems to have recovered from her weird malady; perhaps she simply ate a bad weed.
I have now tried just about every local speciality the baker has been able to produce and am even tired of muesli. I have had Tarte au Vin Cuit made in Grandvillard, Yogourt au Vin Cuit made in Villars-Sous-Mont, and ice cream au Vin Cuit made in Rossiniere, in Rossiniere.
I have phoned two more conductors today and one may be able to meet me but he's having troubles with his family, and the other has said he'll meet me any day this week. On Friday I go up to Schaffhausen for lessons, and to prepare for the concert I'm to do up there with Peter Leu on the 11th of September. Also hoping to meet with my friend Anna, who is doing a modern opera on the subject of shopping in nearby Bregenz. Perhaps a meeting on two boats in the middle of Lake Konstanz.
I went with Veronique and the girls to L'Etambeau, which is a museum in Chateau d'Oex. Veronique volunteers at an old cabin up from the museum where they are having an exhibition themed around the diary of a local woman, written in the 1860s. The whole house is filled with things from the period, and is a very good time-travel exercise. I found myself reminded of Laura Ingalls Wilder's «Little House» books. Sage leaves threaded along a string and drying, handwoven straw hats, a nice big loom, a sturdy, handcarved wooden bike, a spinning wheel, furs, bells to put on a sleigh...
But on the way I was lured by a banner in Rossiniere saying «Grand Mystere des Chats». It was an exhibition in the Grand Chalet where the artist Balthus lived. He liked doing slightly surreal oils of young girls, usually with a cross expression and their knickers showing, and cats. Long dead, I believe. Anyway, Veronique dropped me off, saying that I could take the train to Chateau d'Oex and make my way to L'Etambeau and join them later. I was just standing in the entrance to Grand Mystère des Chats, looking at a rather funny video and wishing that one of the girls was with me...it seemed to be a child-friendly little exhibition...when Veronique appeared suddenly, offering little 8-year-old Magda like a lovely little gift. «She likes cats and made me come back and leave her with you.» It was perfect.
The short video was a close-up of a moody looking cat with a round face and enormous black eyes on a nice bed, looking this way and that, and intercut were various odd cat toys, moving and looking surreal. Then the big-eyed cat hisses and goes under the bed. The odd cat toys (not toys for cats, but toys that look like cats) were all in the exhibition, which was a modest size. Anything from a really gorgeous 18th century bronze sculpture to ancient Egyptian jewellery, or teapots, or Japanese prints. Anything, so long as it was a cat or had cats painted on it.
Quite nice.
Whenever the Grand Chalet has an exhibition, the whole little village joins in the spirit of it, constructing things that are related to the theme and putting them in their front gardens. Magda and I had a good time wandering in the warm sun, looking at mosaics of cats made out of different coloured shells from garden snails (a huge quantity are available this year after the mild winter), children's paintings of cats on the side of a house, with real clothes fixed to them, and slogans, none of which I remember. And there was a wonderful piece of metalwork, a cat with an arched back seen from the front. Huge. And a sleigh, which seen from the side, is in the form of a cat stretching its front legs out in front of it, hind end raised. Also beautifully made. Outside the Raffeisen bank was a most peculiar creation. It was a vast box covered with fake fur, with a tail and a big cat's head and four legs. The box had about six holes in the sides, lined with old sleeves. One was encouraged to put ones hand in and feel what was inside. Magda and I enjoyed this. I felt a stuffed elephant, she felt a boot, then we took turns feeling a rubber squeaky toy. There was a book, also fur-lined, for comments, and Magda drew a picture of the whole thing, with herself sticking her arm inside it, and the comment «C'est chouette!» which she mirrored upside-down, as she did her name also.
Then from the cricket-deafened, dusty station onto a train, to Chateau d'Oex. An old man with a grey beard and hiking gear yodelled as the train pulled in.
Fun times at L'Etambeau, exploring the house.
Today I hiked right up along where the Cascades come from, and looked at a logging site. If the Canadian methods are like raping a forest, one could say that the Swiss keep their forests in a perpetual state of gentle foreplay. It was a pleasant clearing, full of lovely things for wildlife, and a few small trees here and there, naturally seeded, left to make of the light and air what they will.