against something stronger than himself. 'It was the mountain that got her,' he said, 'that God-damned mountain, Monte Verita. There's a sect there, a closed order, they shut themselves up for life — there, on that mountain. I never dreamed there could be such a thing. I never knew. And she's there. On that damned mountain. On Monte Verita…'
I sat there with him in the nursing-home all afternoon, and little by little had the whole story from him.
The journey itself, Victor said, had been pleasant and uneventful. Eventually they reached the centre from which they proposed to explore the terrain immediately below Monte Verita, and here they met with difficulties. The country was unknown to Victor, and the people seemed morose and unfriendly, very different, he said, to the sort of folk who had welcomed us in the past. They spoke in a patois hard to understand, and they lacked intelligence.
'At least, that's how they struck me,' said Victor. 'They were very rough and somehow undeveloped, the sort of people who might have stepped out of a former century. You know how, when we climbed together, the people could not do enough to help us, and we always managed to find guides. Here, it was different. When Anna and I tried to find out the best approach to Monte Verita, they would not tell us. They just stared at us in a stupid sort of way, and shrugged their shoulders. They had no guides, one fellow said; the mountain was — savage, unexplored.'
Victor paused, and looked at me with that same expression of despair.
'You see,' he said, 'that's when I made my mistake. I should have realised the expedition was a failure — to that particular spot at any rate — and suggested to Anna that we turned back and tackled something else, something nearer to civilization anyhow, where the people were more helpful and the country more familiar. But you know how it is. You get a stubborn feeling inside you, on the mountains, and any opposition somehow rouses you.
'And Monte Verita itself. ' he broke off and stared in front of him. It was as though he was looking upon it again in his own mind. 'I've never been one for lyrical description, you know that,' he said. 'On our finest climbs I was always the practical one and you the poet. For sheer beauty, I have never seen anything like Monte Verita. We have climbed many higher peaks, you and I, and far more dangerous ones, too; but this was somehow… sublime.'
After a few moments' silence he continued talking. 'I said to Anna, 'What shall we do?', and she answered me without hesitation, 'We must go on.' I did not argue, I knew perfectly well that would be her wish. The place had put a spell on both of us.'
They left the valley, and began the ascent.
'It was a wonderful day,' said Victor, 'hardly a breath of wind, and not a cloud in the sky. Scorching sun, you know how it can be, but the air clean and cold. I chaffed Anna about that other climb, up Snowdon, and made her promise not to leave me behind this time. She was wearing an open shirt, and a brief kilted skirt, and her hair was loose. She looked… quite beautiful.'
As he talked, slowly, quietly, I had the impression that it must surely be an accident that had happened, but that his mind, unhinged by tragedy, baulked at Anna's death. It must be so. Anna had fallen. He had seen her fall and had been powerless to help her. He had then returned, broken in mind and spirit, telling himself she still lived on Monte Verita.
'We came to a village an hour before sundown,' said Victor. 'The climb had taken us all day. We were still about three hours from the peak itself, or so I judged. The village consisted of some dozen dwellings or so, huddled together. And as we walked towards the first one, a curious thing happened.'
He paused and stared in front of him.
'Anna was a little ahead of me,' he said, 'moving swiftly with those long strides of hers, you know how she does. I saw two or three men, with some children and goats, come on to the track from a piece of pasture land to the right of us. Anna raised her hand in salute, and at sight of her the men started, as if terrified, and snatching up the children ran to the nearest group of hovels, as if all the fiends in hell were after them. I heard them bolt the doors and shutter the windows. It was the most extraordinary thing. The goats went scattering down the track, equally scared.'
Victor said he had made some joke to Anna about a charming welcome, and that she seemed upset; she did not know what she could have done to frighten them. Victor went to the first hut and knocked upon the door.
Nothing happened at all, but he could hear whispers inside and a child crying. Then he lost patience and began to shout. This had effect, and after a moment one of the shutters was removed and a man's face appeared at the gap and stared at him. Victor, by way of encouragement, nodded and smiled. Slowly the man withdrew the whole of the shutter and Victor spoke to him. At first the man shook his head, then he seemed to change his mind and came and unbolted the door. He stood in the entrance, peering nervously about him, and, ignoring Victor, looked at Anna. He shook his head violently and, speaking very quickly and quite unintelligibly, pointed towards the summit of Monte Verita. Then from the shadows of the small room came an elderly man, leaning on two sticks, who motioned aside the terrified children and moved past them to the door. He, at least, spoke a language that was not entirely patois.
'Who is that woman?' he asked. 'What does she want with us?'
Victor explained that Anna was his wife, that they had come from the valley to climb the mountain, that they were tourists on holiday, and they would be glad of shelter for the night. He said the old man stared away from him to Anna.
'She is your wife? ' he said. ' She is not from Monte Verita?'
'She is my wife,' repeated Victor. 'We come from England. We are in this country on holiday. We have never been here before.'
The old man turned to the younger and they muttered together for a few moments. Then the younger man went back inside the house, and there was further talk from the interior. A woman appeared, even more frightened than the younger man. She was literally trembling, Victor said, as she looked out of the doorway towards Anna. It was Anna who disturbed them.
'She is my wife,' said Victor again, 'we come from the valley.'
Finally the old man made a gesture of consent, of understanding.
'I believe you,' he said. 'You are welcome to come inside. If you are from the valley, that is all right. We have to be careful.'
Victor beckoned to Anna, and slowly she came up the track and stood beside Victor, on the threshold of the house. Even now the woman looked at her with timidity, and she and the children backed away.
The old man motioned his visitors inside. The living-room was bare but clean, and there was a fire burning.
'We have food,' said Victor, unshouldering his pack, 'and mattresses too. We don't want to be a nuisance. But if we could eat here, and sleep on the floor, it will do very well indeed.'
The old man nodded. 'I am satisfied,' he said, 'I believe you.'
Then he withdrew with his family.
Victor said he and Anna were both puzzled at their reception, and could not understand why the fact of their being married, and coming from the valley, should have gained them admittance, after that first odd show of terror. They ate, and unrolled their packs, and then the old man appeared again with milk for them, and cheese. The woman remained behind, but the younger man, out of curiosity, accompanied the elder.
Victor thanked the old fellow for his hospitality, and said that now they would sleep, and in the morning, soon after sunrise, they would climb to the summit of the mountain.
'Is the way easy?' he asked.
'It is not difficult,' came the reply. 'I would offer to send someone with you, but no one cares to go.'
His manner was diffident, and Victor said he glanced again at Anna.
'Your wife will be all right in the house here,' he said. 'We will take care of her.'
'My wife will climb with me,' said Victor. 'She won't want to stay behind.'
A look of anxiety came into the old man's face.
'It is better that your wife does not go up Monte Verita,' he said. 'It will be dangerous.'
'Why is it dangerous for me to go up Monte Verita?' asked Anna.
The old man looked at her, his anxiety deepening. 'For girls,' he said, 'for women, it is dangerous.'
'But how?' asked Anna. 'Why? You told my husband the path is easy.'
