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The weather was not yet severe. I was not wearing winter clothes. But I had been travelling for only a few hours, when on the Schwellenbrunn hills a cutting east wind and fog met up with me, and cut through my summer jacket to my very marrow. O dear, thought I, and hurried on at breakneck speed, almost at a gallop. But the faster I went, the nearer came the east wind, cutting like a knife, whistling through my tripes and the heart between my ribs. By St. Gallen there were still flocks of sheep in the pastures, eating frozen grass together with ice and snow. Alas, thought I, a kindly Providence has covered you with a coat not manufactured by men, but which offers you better protection against the unfriendly east wind than does mine.

Meanwhile, I was in great haste. I did my business on the wing, as they say, as best I could, and sought out a warm stove. And I found one. But the people were not to my taste. There was a snobbish Junker, a drunken innkeeper, a grasping landlady, an old and ugly maid and a beggarly manservant who was stableboy, cook and cellarer all at once. Farewell to contentment, thought I. I'd be better off in bed. And after I had warmed my half-frozen bag of bones both inside and outside, and was sick and tired of the innkeeper's foolishness, I slipped off to bed. I was at the top of the house, in an old attic chamber, roofed with slates, where the windows were already sparkling with rime. Scarcely half undressed I crept under a light coverlet, and would soon have been asleep, but I could hear my little dog shuddering with cold. I threw one of my pillows down to her on the floor, which she made use of in masterly fashion, and in the morning was still sleeping like a log.

As soon as the door was opened, I got up and set off again on my homeward way. A little snow had fallen during the night and everything was stiff with frost. The shivering birds told me of stronger frost to come. I walked on as fast as my old bones would carry me, but got no warmer. I am describing it so circumstantially because I can't remember that I ever endured more frost in my life as in those two days. And then also because it was the beginning of this present cold weather, which since then has increased rather than lessened, and since then there have been only two single days that have been slightly milder.

I must set down a word or two about my business dealings and conversations. I had hardly set foot in Herisau when a yarn-carder came towards me.

"God damn it", said he, "You'll soon be better informed".

I: "Ha, what's happening, then?"

He:"It's a kreutzer again for a Schneller, it's as if a thunderbolt and lightning had struck the yarn-trade. Nothing but loss after loss. In the end it will all go to hell!"

I: "We have to put up with it, things might change".

He: "The devil they might. By God there is too much for sale in the world and nowhere any market for it - no money anywhere - and here in Herisau and St. Gallen the devil is in it! From everywhere and nowhere come the muslin cloths and yarn, as if they dropped from the sky. That can't possibly change until two-thirds of us go out of business".

I: "That might well be so. And it's you Zürich people who have spoiled everything for us. Our Toggenburg yarn would sell still, if you had not come here with cartloads of stuff to sell for next

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