Resembling in
appearance all the wooden hostelries of the High Alps situated at the foot of
glaciers in the barren rocky gorges that intersect the summits of the
mountains, the Inn of Schwarenbach serves as a resting place for travellers
crossing the Gemini Pass.
It
remains open for six months in the year and is inhabited by the family of Jean
Hauser; then, as soon as the snow begins to fall and to fill the valley so as
to make the road down to Loeche impassable, the father and his three sons go
away and leave the house in charge of the old guide, Gaspard Hari, with the
young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, and Sam, the great mountain dog.
The
two men and the dog remain till the spring in their snowy prison, with nothing
before their eyes except the immense white slopes of the Balmhorn, surrounded
by light, glistening summits, and are shut in, blocked up and buried by the
snow which rises around them and which envelops, binds and crushes the little
house, which lies piled on the roof, covering the windows and blocking up the
door.
It was
the day on which the Hauser family were going to return to Loeche, as winter
was approaching, and the descent was becoming dangerous. Three mules started
first, laden with baggage and led by the three sons. Then the mother, Jeanne
Hauser, and her daughter Louise mounted a fourth mule and set off in their turn
and the father followed them, accompanied by the two men in charge, who were to
escort the family as far as the brow of the descent. First of all they passed
round the small lake, which was now frozen over, at the bottom of the mass of
rocks which stretched in front of the inn, and then they followed the valley,
which was dominated on all sides by the snow-covered summits.
A ray
of sunlight fell into that little white, glistening, frozen desert and
illuminated it with a cold and dazzling flame. No living thing appeared among
this ocean of mountains. There was no motion in this immeasurable solitude and
no noise disturbed the profound silence.
By
degrees the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, a tall, long-legged Swiss, left old man
Hauser and old Gaspard behind, in order to catch up the mule which bore the two
women. The younger one looked at him as he approached and appeared to be
calling him with her sad eyes. She was a young, fairhaired little peasant girl,
whose milk-white cheeks and pale hair looked as if they had lost their color by
their long abode amid the ice. When he had got up to the animal she was riding
he put his hand on the crupper and relaxed his speed. Mother Hauser began to
talk to him, enumerating with the minutest details all that he would have to
attend to during the winter. It was the first time that he was going to stay up
there, while old Hari had already spent fourteen winters amid the snow, at the
inn of Schwarenbach.
Ulrich
Kunsi listened, without appearing to understand and looked incessantly at the
girl. From time to time he replied: "Yes, Madame Hauser," but his
thoughts seemed far away and his calm features remained unmoved.
They
reached Lake Daube , whose broad, frozen surface
extended to the end of the valley. On the right one saw the black, pointed,
rocky summits of the Daubenhorn beside the enormous moraines of the Lommern
glacier, above which rose the Wildstrubel. As they approached the Gemmi pass,
where the descent of Loeche begins, they suddenly beheld the immense horizon of
the Alps of the Valais, from which the broad, deep valley of the Rhone separated them.
In the
distance there was a group of white, unequal, flat, or pointed mountain
summits, which glistened in the sun; the Mischabel with its two peaks, the huge
group of the Weisshorn, the heavy Brunegghorn, the lofty and formidable pyramid
of Mount Cervin, that slayer of men, and the Dent- Blanche, that monstrous
coquette.
Then
beneath them, in a tremendous hole, at the bottom of a terrific abyss, they
perceived Loeche, where houses looked as grains of sand which had been thrown
into that enormous crevice that is ended and closed by the Gemmi and which
opens, down below, on the Rhone.
The
mule stopped at the edge of the path, which winds and turns continually,
doubling backward, then, fantastically and strangely, along the side of the
mountain as far as the almost invisible little village at its feet. The women
jumped into the snow and the two old men joined them. "Well," father
Hauser said, "good-by, and keep up your spirits till next year, my
friends," and old Hari replied: "Till next year."
They
embraced each other and then Madame Hauser in her turn offered her cheek, and
the girl did the same.
When
Ulrich Kunsi's turn came, he whispered in Louise's ear, "Do not forget
those up yonder," and she replied, "No," in such a low voice that
he guessed what she had said without hearing it. "Well, adieu," Jean
Hauser repeated, "and don't fall ill." And going before the two
women, he commenced the descent, and soon all three disappeared at the first
turn in the road, while the two men returned to the inn at Schwarenbach.
They
walked slowly, side by side, without speaking. It was over, and they would be
alone together for four or five months. Then Gaspard Hari began to relate his
life last winter. He had remained with Michael Canol, who was too old now to
stand it, for an accident might happen during that long solitude. They had not
been dull, however; the only thing was to make up one's mind to it from the
first, and in the end one would find plenty of distraction, games and other
means of whiling away the time.
Ulrich
Kunsi listened to him with his eyes on the ground, for in his thoughts he was
following those who were descending to the village. They soon came in sight of
the inn, which was, however, scarcely visible, so small did it look, a black
speck at the foot of that enormous billow of snow, and when they opened the
door Sam, the great curly dog, began to romp round them.
"Come, my boy," old Gaspard said, "we have no women now, so we
must get our own dinner ready. Go and peel the potatoes." And they both
sat down on wooden stools and began to prepare the soup.
The
next morning seemed very long to Kunsi. Old Hari smoked and spat on the hearth,
while the young man looked out of the window at the snow- covered mountain
opposite the house.
In the
afternoon he went out, and going over yesterday's ground again, he looked for
the traces of the mule that had carried the two women. Then when he had reached
the Gemmi Pass , he laid himself down on his
stomach and looked at Loeche.
The
village, in its rocky pit, was not yet buried under the snow, from which it was
sheltered by the pine woods which protected it on all sides. Its low houses
looked like paving stones in a large meadow from above. Hauser's little
daughter was there now in one of those gray-colored houses. In which? Ulrich
Kunsi was too far away to be able to make them out separately. How he would
have liked to go down while he was yet able!
But
the sun had disappeared behind the lofty crest of the Wildstrubel and the young
man returned to the chalet. Daddy Hari was smoking, and when he saw his mate
come in he proposed a game of cards to him, and they sat down opposite each
other, on either side of the table. They played for a long time a simple game
called brisque and then they had supper and went to bed.
The
following days were like the first, bright and cold, without any fresh snow.
Old Gaspard spent his afternoons in watching the eagles and other rare birds
which ventured on those frozen heights, while Ulrich returned regularly to the Gemmi Pass
to look at the village. Then they played cards, dice or dominoes and lost and
won a trifle, just to create an interest in the game.
One
morning Hari, who was up first, called his companion. A moving, deep and light
cloud of white spray was falling on them noiselessly and was by degrees burying
them under a thick, heavy coverlet of foam. That lasted four days and four
nights. It was necessary to free the door and the windows, to dig out a passage
and to cut steps to get over this frozen powder, which a twelve hours' frost
had made as hard as the granite of the moraines.
They
lived like prisoners and did not venture outside their abode. They had divided
their duties, which they performed regularly. Ulrich Kunsi undertook the
scouring, washing and everything that belonged to cleanliness. He also chopped
up the wood while Gaspard Hari did the cooking and attended to the fire. Their
regular and monotonous work was interrupted by long games at cards or dice, and
they never quarrelled, but were always calm and placid. They were never seen
impatient or ill- humored, nor did they ever use hard words, for they had laid
in a stock of patience for their wintering on the top of the mountain.
Sometimes old Gaspard took his rifle and went after chamois, and occasionally
he killed one. Then there was a feast in the inn at Schwarenbach and they
revelled in fresh meat. One morning he went out as usual. The thermometer
outside marked eighteen degrees of frost, and as the sun had not yet risen, the
hunter hoped to surprise the animals at the approaches to the Wildstrubel, and
Ulrich, being alone, remained in bed until ten o'clock. He was of a sleepy
nature, but he would not have dared to give way like that to his inclination in
the presence of the old guide, who was ever an early riser. He breakfasted
leisurely with Sam, who also spent his days and nights in sleeping in front of
the fire; then he felt low-spirited and even frightened at the solitude, and
was-seized by a longing for his daily game of cards, as one is by the craving
of a confirmed habit, and so he went out to meet his companion, who was to
return at four o'clock.
The
snow had levelled the whole deep valley, filled up the crevasses, obliterated
all signs of the two lakes and covered the rocks, so that between the high
summits there was nothing but an immense, white, regular, dazzling and frozen
surface. For three weeks Ulrich had not been to the edge of the precipice from
which he had looked down on the village, and he wanted to go there before
climbing the slopes which led to Wildstrubel. Loeche was now also covered by
the snow and the houses could scarcely be distinguished, covered as they were
by that white cloak.
Then,
turning to the right, he reached the Loemmern glacier. He went along with a
mountaineer's long strides, striking the snow, which was as hard as a rock,
with his ironpointed stick, and with his piercing eyes he looked for the little
black, moving speck in the distance, on that enormous, white expanse.
When
he reached the end of the glacier he stopped and asked himself whether the old
man had taken that road, and then he began to walk along the moraines with
rapid and uneasy steps. The day was declining, the snow was assuming a rosy
tint, and a dry, frozen wind blew in rough gusts over its crystal surface.
Ulrich uttered a long, shrill, vibrating call. His voice sped through the
deathlike silence in which the mountains were sleeping; it reached the
distance, across profound and motionless waves of glacial foam, like the cry of
a bird across the waves of the sea. Then it died away and nothing answered him.
He
began to walk again. The sun had sunk yonder behind the mountain tops, which
were still purple with the reflection from the sky, but the depths of the
valley were becoming gray, and suddenly the young man felt frightened. It
seemed to him as if the silence, the cold, the solitude, the winter death of
these mountains were taking possession of him, were going to stop and to freeze
his blood, to make his limbs grow stiff and to turn him into a motionless and
frozen object, and he set off running, fleeing toward his dwelling. The old
man, he thought, would have returned during his absence. He had taken another
road; he would, no doubt, be sitting before the fire, with a dead chamois at
his feet. He soon came in sight of the inn, but no smoke rose from it. Ulrich
walked faster and opened the door. Sam ran up to him to greet him, but Gaspard
Hari had not returned. Kunsi, in his alarm, turned round suddenly, as if he had
expected to find his comrade hidden in a corner. Then he relighted the fire and
made the soup, hoping every moment to see the old man come in. From time to
time he went out to see if he were not coming. It was quite night now, that
wan, livid night of the mountains, lighted by a thin, yellow crescent moon,
just disappearing behind the mountain tops.
Then
the young man went in and sat down to warm his hands and feet, while he pictured
to himself every possible accident. Gaspard might have broken a leg, have
fallen into a crevasse, taken a false step and dislocated his ankle. And,
perhaps, he was lying on the snow, overcome and stiff with the cold, in agony
of mind, lost and, perhaps, shouting for help, calling with all his might in
the silence of the night.. But where? The mountain was so vast, so rugged, so
dangerous in places, especially at that time of the year, that it would have
required ten or twenty guides to walk for a week in all directions to find a
man in that immense space. Ulrich Kunsi, however, made up his mind to set out
with Sam if Gaspard did not return by one in the morning, and he made his
preparations.
He put
provisions for two days into a bag, took his steel climbing iron, tied a long,
thin, strong rope round his waist, and looked to see that his ironshod stick
and his axe, which served to cut steps in the ice, were in order. Then he
waited. The fire was burning on the hearth, the great dog was snoring in front
of it, and the clock was ticking, as regularly as a heart beating, in its
resounding wooden case. He waited, with his ears on the alert for distant
sounds, and he shivered when the wind blew against the roof and the walls. It
struck twelve and he trembled: Then, frightened and shivering, he put some
water on the fire, so that he might have some hot coffee before starting, and
when the clock struck one he got up, woke Sam, opened the door and went off in
the direction of the Wildstrubel. For five hours he mounted, scaling the rocks
by means of his climbing irons, cutting into the ice, advancing continually,
and occasionally hauling up the dog, who remained below at the foot of some
slope that was too steep for him, by means of the rope. It was about six o'clock
when he reached one of the summits to which old Gaspard often came after
chamois, and he waited till it should be daylight.
The
sky was growing pale overhead, and a strange light, springing nobody could tell
whence, suddenly illuminated the immense ocean of pale mountain summits, which
extended for a hundred leagues around him. One might have said that this vague
brightness arose from the snow itself and spread abroad in space. By degrees
the highest distant summits assumed a delicate, pink flesh color, and the red
sun appeared behind the ponderous giants of the Bernese Alps.
Ulrich
Kunsi set off again, walking like a hunter, bent over, looking for tracks, and
saying to his dog: "Seek, old fellow, seek!"
He was
descending the mountain now, scanning the depths closely, and from time to time
shouting, uttering aloud, prolonged cry, which soon died away in that silent
vastness. Then he put his ear to the ground to listen. He thought he could
distinguish a voice, and he began to run and shouted again, but he heard
nothing more and sat down, exhausted and in despair. Toward midday he
breakfasted and gave Sam, who was as tired as himself, something to eat also,
and then he recommenced his search.
When evening
came he was still walking, and he had walked more than thirty miles over the
mountains. As he was too far away to return home and too tired to drag himself
along any further, he dug a hole in the snow and crouched in it with his dog
under a blanket which he had brought with him. And the man and the dog lay side
by side, trying to keep warm, but frozen to the marrow nevertheless. Ulrich
scarcely slept, his mind haunted by visions and his limbs shaking with cold.
Day
was breaking when he got up. His legs were as stiff as iron bars and his
spirits so low that he was ready to cry with anguish, while his heart was
beating so that he almost fell over with agitation, when he thought he heard a
noise.
Suddenly he imagined that he also was going to die of cold in the midst of this
vast solitude, and the terror of such a death roused his energies and gave him
renewed vigor. He was descending toward the inn, falling down and getting up
again, and followed at a distance by Sam, who was limping on three legs, and
they did not reach Schwarenbach until four o'clock in the afternoon. The house
was empty and the young man made a fire, had something to eat and went to
sleep, so worn out that he did not think of anything more.
He
slept for a long time, for a very long time, an irresistible sleep. But
suddenly a voice, a cry, a name, "Ulrich!" aroused him from his
profound torpor and made him sit up in bed. Had he been dreaming? Was it one of
those strange appeals which cross the dreams of disquieted minds? No, he heard
it still, that reverberating cry-which had entered his ears and remained in his
flesh-to the tips of his sinewy fingers. Certainly somebody had cried out and
called "Ulrich!" There was somebody there near the house, there could
be no doubt of that, and he opened the door and shouted, "Is it you,
Gaspard?" with all the strength of his lungs. But there was no reply, no
murmur, no groan, nothing. It was quite dark and the snow looked wan.
The
wind had risen, that icy wind that cracks the rocks and leaves nothing alive on
those deserted heights, and it came in sudden gusts, which were more parching
and more deadly than the burning wind of the desert, and again Ulrich shouted:
"Gaspard! Gaspard! Gaspard." And then he waited again. Everything was
silent on the mountain.
Then
he shook with terror and with a bound he was inside the inn, when he shut and
bolted the door, and then he fell into a chair trembling all over, for he felt
certain that his comrade had called him at the moment he was expiring.
He was
sure of that, as sure as one is of being alive or of eating a piece of bread.
Old Gaspard Hari had been dying for two days and three nights somewhere, in
some hole, in one of those deep, untrodden ravines whose whiteness is more
sinister than subterranean darkness. He had been dying for two days and three
nights and be had just then died, thinking of his comrade. His soul, almost
before it was released, had taken its flight to the inn where Ulrich was
sleeping, and it had called him by that terrible and mysterious power which the
spirits of the dead have to haunt the living. That voiceless soul had cried to
the worn-out soul of the sleeper; it had uttered its last farewell, or its
reproach, or its curse on the man who had not searched carefully enough.
And
Ulrich felt that it was there, quite close to him, behind the wall, behind the
door which be had just fastened. It was wandering about, like a night bird
which lightly touches a lighted window with his wings, and the terrified young
man was ready to scream with horror. He wanted to run away, but did not dare to
go out; he did not dare, and he should never dare to do it in the future, for
that phantom would remain there day and night, round the inn, as long as the
old man's body was not recovered and had not been deposited in the consecrated
earth of a churchyard.
When
it was daylight Kunsi recovered some of his courage at the return of the bright
sun. He prepared his meal, gave his dog some food and then remained motionless
on a chair, tortured at heart as he thought of the old man lying on the snow,
and then, as soon as night once more covered the mountains, new terrors
assailed him. He now walked up and down the dark kitchen, which was scarcely
lighted by the flame of one candle, and he walked from one end of it to the
other with great strides, listening, listening whether the terrible cry of the
other night would again break the dreary silence outside. He felt himself
alone, unhappy man, as no man had ever been alone before! He was alone in this
immense desert of Snow, alone five thousand feet above the inhabited earth,
above human habitation, above that stirring, noisy, palpitating life, alone
under an icy sky! A mad longing impelled him to run away, no matter where, to
get down to Loeche by flinging himself over the precipice; but he did not even
dare to open the door, as he felt sure that the other, the dead man, would bar
his road, so that he might not be obliged to remain up there alone:
Toward
midnight, tired with walking, worn out by grief and fear, he at last fell into
a doze in his chair, for he was afraid of his bed as one is of a haunted spot.
But suddenly the strident cry of the other evening pierced his ears, and it was
so shrill that Ulrich stretched out his arms to repulse the ghost, and he fell
backward with his chair.
Sam,
who was awakened by the noise, began to howl as frightened dogs do howl, and he
walked all about the house trying to find out where the danger came from. When
he got to the door, he sniffed beneath it, smelling vigorously, with his coat
bristling and his tail stiff, while he growled angrily. Kunsi, who was
terrified, jumped up, and, holding his chair by one leg, he cried: "Don't
come in, don't come in, or I shall kill you." And the dog, excited by this
threat, barked angrily at that invisible enemy who defied his master's voice.
By degrees, however, he quieted down and came back and stretched himself in front
of the fire, but he was uneasy and kept his head up and growled between his
teeth.
Ulrich, in turn, recovered his senses, but as he felt faint with terror, he
went and got a bottle of brandy out of the sideboard, and he drank off several
glasses, one after anther, at a gulp. His ideas became vague, his courage
revived and a feverish glow ran through his veins.
He ate
scarcely anything the next day and limited himself to alcohol, and so he lived
for several days, like a drunken brute. As soon as he thought of Gaspard Hari,
he began to drink again, and went on drinking until he fell to the ground,
overcome by intoxication. And there he remained lying on his face, dead drunk,
his limbs benumbed, and snoring loudly. But scarcely had he digested the
maddening and burning liquor than the same cry, "Ulrich!" woke him
like a bullet piercing his brain, and he got up, still staggering, stretching
out his hands to save himself from falling, and calling to Sam to help him. And
the dog, who appeared to be going mad like his master, rushed to the door,
scratched it with his claws and gnawed it with his long white teeth, while the
young man, with his head thrown back drank the brandy in draughts, as if it had
been cold water, so that it might by and by send his thoughts, his frantic
terror, and his memory to sleep again.
In
three weeks he had consumed all his stock of ardent spirits. But his continual
drunkenness only lulled his terror, which awoke more furiously than ever as
soon as it was impossible for him to calm it. His fixed idea then, which had
been intensified by a month of drunkenness, and which was continually
increasing in his absolute solitude, penetrated him like a gimlet. He now
walked about the house like a wild beast in its cage, putting his ear to the door
to listen if the other were there and defying him through the wall. Then, as
soon as he dozed, overcome by fatigue, he heard the voice which made him leap
to his feet.
At
last one night, as cowards do when driven to extremities, he sprang to the door
and opened it, to see who was calling him and to force him to keep quiet, but
such a gust of cold wind blew into his face that it chilled him to the bone,
and he closed and bolted the door again immediately, without noticing that Sam
had rushed out. Then, as he was shivering with cold, he threw some wood on the
fire and sat down in front of it to warm himself, but suddenly he started, for
somebody was scratching at the wall and crying. In desperation he called out:
"Go away!" but was answered by another long, sorrowful wail.
Then
all his remaining senses forsook him from sheer fright. He repeated: "Go
away!" and turned round to try to find some corner in which to hide, while
the other person went round the house still crying and rubbing against the
wall. Ulrich went to the oak sideboard, which was full of plates and dishes and
of provisions, and lifting it up with superhuman strength, he dragged it to the
door, so as to form a barricade. Then piling up all the rest of the furniture,
the mattresses, palliasses and chairs, he stopped up the windows as one does
when assailed by an enemy.
But
the person outside now uttered long, plaintive, mournful groans, to which the
young man replied by similar groans, and thus days and nights passed without
their ceasing to howl at each other. The one was continually walking round the
house and scraped the walls with his nails so vigorously that it seemed as if
he wished to destroy them, while the other, inside, followed all his movements,
stooping down and holding his ear to the walls and replying to all his appeals
with terrible cries. One evening, however, Ulrich heard nothing more, and he
sat down, so overcome by fatigue, that he went to sleep immediately and awoke
in the morning without a thought, without any recollection of what had
happened, just as if his head had been emptied during his heavy sleep, but he
felt hungry, and he ate.
The
winter was over and the Gemmi Pass was practicable again, so the Hauser family
started off to return to their inn. As soon as they had reached the top of the
ascent the women mounted their mule and spoke about the two men whom they would
meet again shortly. They were, indeed, rather surprised that neither of them
had come down a few days before, as soon as the road was open, in order to tell
them all about their long winter sojourn. At last, however, they saw the inn,
still covered with snow, like a quilt. The door and the window were closed, but
a little smoke was coming out of the chimney, which reassured old Hauser. On
going up to the door, however, he saw the skeleton of an animal which had been
torn to pieces by the eagles, a large skeleton lying on its side.
They
all looked close at it and the mother said:
"That must be Sam," and then she shouted: "Hi, Gaspard!" A
cry from the interior of the house answered her and a sharp cry that one might
have thought some animal had uttered it. Old Hauser repeated, "Hi,
Gaspard!" and they heard another cry similar to the first.
Then
the three men, the father and the two sons, tried to open the door, but it
resisted their efforts. From the empty cow-stall they took a beam to serve as a
battering-ram and hurled it against the door with all their might. The wood
gave way and the boards flew into splinters. Then the house was shaken by a
loud voice, and inside, behind the side board which was overturned, they saw a
man standing upright, with his hair falling on his shoulders and a beard
descending to his breast, with shining eyes, and nothing but rags to cover him.
They did not recognize him, but Louise Hauser exclaimed:
"It is Ulrich, mother." And her mother declared that it was Ulrich,
although his hair was white.
He
allowed them to go up to him and to touch him, but he did not reply to any of
their questions, and they were obliged to take him to Loeche, where the doctors
found that he was mad, and nobody ever found out what had become of his
companion.
Little
Louise Hauser nearly died that summer of decline, which the physicians
attributed to the cold air of the mountains.
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