It Seems That The Books I Had Read At Home, When They Said That The
Nufenen Had No Snow On
It, spoke of a later season of the year; it was
all snow now, and soft snow, and hidden by
A full mist in such a day
from the first third of the ascent. As for the Gries, there was a
glacier on the top which needed some kind of clearness in the weather.
Hearing all this I said I would remain - but it was with a heavy heart.
Already I felt a shadow of defeat over me. The loss of time was a
thorn. I was already short of cash, and my next money was Milan. My
return to England was fixed for a certain date, and stronger than
either of these motives against delay was a burning restlessness that
always takes men when they are on the way to great adventures.
I made him promise to wake me next morning at three o'clock, and,
short of a tempest, to try and get me across the Gries. As for the
Nufenen and Crystalline passes which I had desired to attempt, and
which were (as I have said) the straight line to Rome, he said (and he
was right), that let alone the impassability of the Nufenen just then,
to climb the Crystal Mountain in that season would be as easy as
flying to the moon. Now, to cross the Nufenen alone, would simply land
me in the upper valley of the Ticino, and take me a great bend out of
my way by Bellinzona. Hence my bargain that at least he should show me
over the Gries Pass, and this he said, if man could do it, he would do
the next day; and I, sending my boots to be cobbled (and thereby
breaking another vow), crept up to bed, and all afternoon read the
school-books of the children. They were in French, from lower down the
valley, and very Genevese and heretical for so devout a household. But
the Genevese civilization is the standard for these people, and they
combat the Calvinism of it with missions, and have statues in their
rooms, not to speak of holy water stoups.
The rain beat on my window, the clouds came lower still down the
mountain. Then (as is finely written in the Song of Roland), 'the day
passed and the night came, and I slept.' But with the coming of the
small hours, and with my waking, prepare yourselves for the most
extraordinary and terrible adventure that befell me out of all the
marvels and perils of this pilgrimage, the most momentous and the most
worthy of perpetual record, I think, of all that has ever happened
since the beginning of the world.
At three o'clock the guide knocked at my door, and I rose and came out
to him. We drank coffee and ate bread. We put into our sacks ham and
bread, and he white wine and I brandy.
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