To Daniel MacGhie Cory
Glion-sur-Montreux, Switzerland, August 26, 1936
Dear Cory,
All is well here, I have a nice room, not very large, on the second floor, and the bill for the first week, including 12 frcs for the motor to bring me from Montreux, was about 170 frcs There are not many guests—20 perhaps—and no noisy conversations. The food is not bad, but rather domestic. I think they are compelled to practice the strictest economy.
One night, however, at 2 a.m., I was awakened by loud cries or groans, apparently next door, culminating in a piercing shriek . . . followed by a few diminishing moans and then perfect silence. In the midst of this, I had also heard the dull thump of a heavy body jumping barefoot out of bed on to the parquet floor. Was it a husband raping his wife? There are no young couples, and if these were the sounds of a bridal night the pair must have been rather elderly. Perhaps they had put it off too long. There has been no repetition: not even those soft nocturnal murmurs that one sometimes hears in hotels.
. . . I go every other day, or so, down to tea at Montreux, where the tea places are well frequented and there is a good deal to amuse the eye. Otherwise, I take a very short walk after lunch in the direction of Les Avants.
148,000 copies of the novel had been sold on Aug. 1st I am to get $30,000 in December. Yours affly
G.S.
From The Letters of George Santayana: Book Five, 1933-1936. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2003.
Location of manuscript: Butler Library, Columbia University, New York NY.