Never Did A Mountain Seem So Close; Its Big Sides Seemed
At One's Very Elbow, And Its Majestic Dome, And The Lofty
Cluster Of Slender Minarets That Were Its Neighbors,
Seemed To Be Almost Over One's Head.
It was night
in the streets, and the lamps were sparkling everywhere;
the broad bases and shoulders of the
Mountains were in
a deep gloom, but their summits swam in a strange rich
glow which was really daylight, and yet had a mellow
something about it which was very different from the hard
white glare of the kind of daylight I was used to.
Its radiance was strong and clear, but at the same time
it was singularly soft, and spiritual, and benignant.
No, it was not our harsh, aggressive, realistic daylight;
it seemed properer to an enchanted land - or to heaven.
I had seen moonlight and daylight together before, but I
had not seen daylight and black night elbow to elbow before.
At least I had not seen the daylight resting upon an object
sufficiently close at hand, before, to make the contrast
startling and at war with nature.
The daylight passed away. Presently the moon rose up
behind some of those sky-piercing fingers or pinnacles
of bare rock of which I have spoken - they were a little
to the left of the crest of Mont Blanc, and right over
our heads - but she couldn't manage to climb high
enough toward heaven to get entirely above them.
She would show the glittering arch of her upper third,
occasionally, and scrape it along behind the comblike row;
sometimes a pinnacle stood straight up, like a statuette
of ebony, against that glittering white shield, then seemed
to glide out of it by its own volition and power,
and become a dim specter, while the next pinnacle glided
into its place and blotted the spotless disk with the black
exclamation-point of its presence. The top of one pinnacle
took the shapely, clean-cut form of a rabbit's head,
in the inkiest silhouette, while it rested against the moon.
The unillumined peaks and minarets, hovering vague and
phantom-like above us while the others were painfully
white and strong with snow and moonlight, made a peculiar effect.
But when the moon, having passed the line of pinnacles,
was hidden behind the stupendous white swell of Mont Blanc,
the masterpiece of the evening was flung on the canvas.
A rich greenish radiance sprang into the sky from behind
the mountain, and in this same airy shreds and ribbons of vapor
floated about, and being flushed with that strange tint,
went waving to and fro like pale green flames. After a while,
radiating bars - vast broadening fan-shaped shadows - grew up
and stretched away to the zenith from behind the mountain.
It was a spectacle to take one's breath, for the wonder of it,
and the sublimity.
Indeed, those mighty bars of alternate light and shadow
streaming up from behind that dark and prodigious form
and occupying the half of the dull and opaque heavens,
was the most imposing and impressive marvel I had ever
looked upon. There is no simile for it, for nothing
is like it. If a child had asked me what it was,
I should have said, "Humble yourself, in this presence,
it is the glory flowing from the hidden head of the Creator."
One falls shorter of the truth than that, sometimes,
in trying to explain mysteries to the little people.
I could have found out the cause of this awe-compelling
miracle by inquiring, for it is not infrequent at Mont
Blanc, - but I did not wish to know. We have not the
reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has,
because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we
gained by prying into the matter.
We took a walk down street, a block or two, and a
place where four streets met and the principal shops
were clustered, found the groups of men in the roadway
thicker than ever - for this was the Exchange of Chamonix.
These men were in the costumes of guides and porters,
and were there to be hired.
The office of that great personage, the Guide-in-Chief
of the Chamonix Guild of Guides, was near by. This guild
is a close corporation, and is governed by strict laws.
There are many excursion routes, some dangerous and
some not, some that can be made safely without a guide,
and some that cannot. The bureau determines these things.
Where it decides that a guide is necessary, you are
forbidden to go without one. Neither are you allowed to be
a victim of extortion: the law states what you are to pay.
The guides serve in rotation; you cannot select the man
who is to take your life into his hands, you must take
the worst in the lot, if it is his turn. A guide's fee
ranges all the way up from a half-dollar (for some trifling
excursion of a few rods) to twenty dollars, according to
the distance traversed and the nature of the ground.
A guide's fee for taking a person to the summit of Mont
Blanc and back, is twenty dollars - and he earns it.
The time employed is usually three days, and there is
enough early rising in it to make a man far more "healthy
and wealthy and wise" than any one man has any right to be.
The porter's fee for the same trip is ten dollars.
Several fools - no, I mean several tourists - usually go together,
and divide up the expense, and thus make it light;
for if only one f - tourist, I mean - went, he would have
to have several guides and porters, and that would make the
matter costly.
We went into the Chief's office. There were maps
of mountains on the walls; also one or two lithographs
of celebrated guides, and a portrait of the scientist
De Saussure.
In glass cases were some labeled fragments of boots
and batons, and other suggestive relics and remembrances
of casualties on Mount Blanc.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 114 of 152
Words from 116416 to 117436
of 156082
