The black-and-white photo shows the garden façade of La Muette, Ramuz's home. The walls are bright, partly covered with ivy and bathed in sunlight. Ramuz is standing in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. The foreground is filled with flowers and tree branches.

Whether young admirers or prestigious guests, Ramuz received the vast majority of visitors to La Muette in his study. These meetings with the great writer are a recurrent theme in literature and many of those who went to see Ramuz recorded the encounter, among them Alice Rivaz and Maurice Zermatten. The event made a deep impression, and a good number of accounts emphasize the kind of magic emanating from the somewhat secret, somewhat alchemical place where works of literature came into being. No doubt Ramuz was well aware of this aura, and knew that it contributed to his fame and image. This was the beginning of a kind of mythology. Starting in the late 1960s onwards, the writer’s daughter, Marianne Olivieri, continued to show visitors around her father’s study, which she had reinstalled and preserved.

And I thought of those words: ‘Come back whenever you like!’ that he spoke as he accompanied me back to the entrance of his home, words that warmed my heart.

Alice Rivaz, 1951

Caption

Albert Würgler, Ramuz in front of La Muette côté jardin, 1934

Collection C. F. Ramuz, BCUL

DR