Sometimes I wish I were an American Woman.

The carriage was crowded, chiefly with Germans.  Every window was closed, every ventilator shut.  The hot air quivered round our feet.  Seventeen men and four women were smoking, two children were sucking peppermints, and an old married couple were eating their lunch, consisting chiefly of garlic.  At a junction, the door was thrown open.  The foreigner opens the door a little way, glides in, and closes it behind him.  This was not a foreigner, but an American lady, en voyage, accompanied by five other American ladies.  They marched in carrying packages.  They could not find six seats together, so they scattered up and down the carriage.  The first thing that each woman did, the moment she could get her hands free, was to dash for the nearest window and haul it down.

“Astonishes me,” said the first woman, “that somebody is not dead in this carriage.”

Their idea, I think, was that through asphyxiation we had become comatose, and, but for their entrance, would have died unconscious.

“It is a current of air that is wanted,” said another of the ladies.

So they opened the door at the front of the carriage and four of them stood outside on the platform, chatting pleasantly and admiring the scenery, while two of them opened the door at the other end, and took photographs of the Lake of Geneva.  The carriage rose and cursed them in six languages.  Bells were rung: conductors came flying in.  It was all of no use.  Those American ladies were cheerful but firm.  They argued with volubility: they argued standing in the open doorway.  The conductors, familiar, no doubt, with the American lady and her ways, shrugged their shoulders and retired.  The other passengers undid their bags and bundles, and wrapped themselves up in shawls and Jaeger nightshirts.

I met the ladies afterwards in Lausanne.  They told me they had been condemned to a fine of forty francs apiece.  They also explained to me that they had not the slightest intention of paying it.