For two months already there had been an invitation waiting for me from the Canton of Appenzell to attend the ceremony of their cantonal elections, and the editor-in-chief of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Fred Luchsinger, had urged that this was something I absolutely must not miss, and now he drove [my wife] Alya and me there.1 My departure for Canada was planned for Monday, and the elections being on Sunday, I could still make the ceremony. Appenzell is a small mountain canton in eastern Switzerland; in fact, there are two Appenzells—two half-cantons—a Catholic and a Protestant one, that had separated from one another. We had been invited to the Catholic one. On the way there, as we passed the people walking toward the town hall (in Appenzell one goes to elections on foot—not doing so is considered inappropriate), it was impossible not to notice that the men were all carrying swords, a sign of the right to vote, which women and the young do not have. People were arriving from all directions, also walking over the meadows (the law in Appenzell states that prior to Election Day you can walk over a meadow, but afterward the grass must be allowed to grow untrampled). Many of the young men and women were wearing an earring in one ear.

The Catholic Mass was drawing to a close, the church crowded to overflowing, and around the altar hung the ornate flags of the different communes of Appenzell. From the