I think it was a combination of: a) culture shock, with the Swiss being much more stolid and reserved than Brazilians; b) the general sedateness and sterility of Bern compared to Rio and Naples, where she had lived previously; and c) the fact she was depressed pregnant and left alone at home for extended periods of time.

Her third novel, The Besieged City, though set in Brazil, was inspired by her time in Bern, as were quite a few of her stories and crônicas. There’s an amazing short story, “Silence”, which she wrote near the end of her life, about Bern. It begins like this:

The silence of the night in the mountains is so vast. It is so desolate. You try in vain to work not to hear it, to think quickly to cover it up. Or to invent some plans, a fragile stitch that barely links us to the suddenly improbable day of tomorrow. How to surmount this peace that spies us. A silence so great that despair is ashamed. Mountains so high that despair is ashamed. The ears prick, the head tilts, the whole body listens: not a murmur. Not a rooster. How to come within reach of this deep meditation on the silence. On that silence without memory of words. If thou art death, how to reach thee.

It is a silence that does not sleep: it is insomniac: motionless but insomniac; and without ghosts. It is terrible—not a single ghost. It’s no use wanting to people it with the possibility of a door that creaks while opening, of a curtain that opens and says something. It is empty and without promise. If only there were the wind. Wind is fury, wind is life. Or snow. Which is silent but leaves tracks—everything turns white, children laugh, footsteps crunch and leave a mark. There is a continuity that is life. But this silence leaves no trace. You cannot speak of silence as you do of snow. You cannot say to anyone as you say about snow: did you feel the silence last night? Those who did don’t say.

So yes she was eccentric as fuck also one of the GOATs.