Hands to my ear and shouted to me that nothing further
could be done - he had so to shout because in among the rocks the
hurricane made a roaring sound, swamping the voice.
I asked how far we were from the summit. He said he did not know where
we were exactly, but that we could not be more than 800 feet from it.
I was but that from Italy and I would not admit defeat. I offered him
all I had in money to go on, but it was folly in me, because if I had
had enough to tempt him and if he had yielded we should both have
died. Luckily it was but a little sum. He shook his head. He would not
go on, he broke out, for all the money there was in the world. He
shouted me to eat and drink, and so we both did.
Then I understood his wisdom, for in a little while the cold began to
seize me in my thin clothes. My hands were numb, my face already gave
me intolerable pain, and my legs suffered and felt heavy. I learnt
another thing (which had I been used to mountains I should have
known), that it was not a simple thing to return. The guide was
hesitating whether to stay in this rough shelter, or to face the
chances of the descent. This terror had not crossed my mind, and I
thought as little of it as I could, needing my courage, and being near
to breaking down from the intensity of the cold.
It seems that in a _tourmente_ (for by that excellent name do the
mountain people call such a storm) it is always a matter of doubt
whether to halt or go back. If you go back through it and lose your
way, you are done for. If you halt in some shelter, it may go on for
two or three days, and then there is an end of you.
After a little he decided for a return, but he told me honestly what
the chances were, and my suffering from cold mercifully mitigated my
fear. But even in that moment, I felt in a confused but very conscious
way that I was defeated. I had crossed so many great hills and rivers,
and pressed so well on my undeviating arrow-line to Rome, and I had
charged this one great barrier manfully where the straight path of my
pilgrimage crossed the Alps - and I had failed! Even in that fearful
cold I felt it, and it ran through my doubt of return like another and
deeper current of pain.
