The two men and the beast remain till the spring in this prison of snow, with nothing before their eyes save the immense white slope of the Balmhorn; they are surrounded by pale, gleaming peaks, shut in, blockaded, and buried under the snow that rises round them, enveloping, embracing and crushing the little house, heaping itself high upon the roof, reaching to the windows, and walling up the door.
It was the day on which the Hauser family was to return to Loëche, for winter was approaching and the descent becoming perilous.
Three mules went in front, loaded with clothes and luggage, 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.
The father followed them, accompanied by the two guides, who were to escort the family as far as the summit of the actual descent.
First they rounded the little lake, frozen now, at the bottom of the great cavity in the rocks that lay in front of the inn, then they pursued their way along the valley, featureless as a sheet and dominated by snow peaks on every side.
The sun poured down on this dazzling white frozen desert, illuminating it with a cold, blinding glare. No life stirred in this sea of hills; there was no movement in the limitless solitude; no sound disturbed the profound silence.
Little by little the young guide, Ulrich Kunsi, a tall, long-legged Swiss, drew away from Hauser and old Gaspard Hari, and overtook the mule that bore the two women.
The younger of them watched him coming, and seemed to call him with her sad eyes. She was a small, fair peasant girl, whose milky cheeks and pale hair seemed bleached by her long sojourn amid the ice.
When he had caught up with the animal that carried her, he put his hand on its buttock and slowed his pace. Old Madame Hauser began to speak to him, enumerating with infinite detail all her recommendations for the winter. It was the first time that he was staying up, whereas old Hari had already spent fourteen winters under the snow at the Schwarenbach Inn.
Ulrich Kunsi listened, but did not appear to understand; he never took his eyes off the young girl. From time to time he would answer: “Yes, Madame Hauser,” but his thoughts seemed far away, and his calm face remained impassive.
They reached the Lake of Daube, whose long frozen surface stretched, perfectly motionless, at the bottom of the valley. To their right, the Daubenhorn thrust up its black rocks, rising to a peak, near the enormous moraines of the Loemmern glacier, dominated by the Wildstrubel.
As they drew near the Gemmi pass, where the descent to Loëche begins, they came suddenly upon the vast rim of the Alps of the Valais, from which they were separated by the deep broad valley of the Rhône.
It was a distant host of white, uneven summits, some sharp, others flattened at the top, and all gleaming in the sun: the Mischabel with its two horns, the powerful bulk of the Wissehorn, the weighty Brunnegghorn, the high and formidable pyramid of the murderous Matterhorn, and that monstrous jade, the Dent-Blanche.
Then, right below them, in an enormous cavity at the bottom of a fearful abyss, they caught sight of Loëche, whose houses were like grains of sand thrown into that huge crevice, ended and enclosed by the Gemmi, and opening out, below, on to the Rhône.
The mule halted at the edge of the path that runs, twisting, turning endlessly, and coiling back in fantastic and marvellous fashion, down the mountains on the right, as far as to the almost invisible little village at their feet. The women jumped down into the snow.
The two old men had caught them up.
“We must be off,” said Hauser. “Goodbye, and keep your spirits up, friends; see you next year.”
“Next year,” repeated old Hari.
They embraced. Then Madame Hauser, in her turn offered her cheeks, and the girl did the same. When it was Ulrich Kunsi’s turn, he murmured into Louise’s ear: “Don’t forget the men up above.” “No, I won’t,” she replied, so softly that he guessed it without hearing.
“Well, goodbye,” repeated Jean Hauser, “and good health to you.”
And, passing in front of the women, he began the descent.
Soon all three vanished at the first bend in the road.
And the two men turned back towards the Schwarenbach Inn.
They walked slowly, side by side, without speaking. It was over; they would be shut up alone together, for four or five months.
Then Gaspard Hari began to talk about his life there the previous winter. He had stayed up with Michel Canol, who was now too old to try it again, for an accident may easily happen during the long period of solitude. They had not been bored; it was all a matter of playing one’s proper part from the very first day; and one always succeeded in inventing various distractions, games, and other ways of passing the time.
Ulrich Kunsi listened with lowered eyes, following in thought the friends descending to the village down the winding ways of the Gemmi pass.
Soon they caught sight of the inn, scarcely visible, so small was it, a black speck at the foot of the monstrous wave of snow.
When they opened the door, Sam, the big curly-haired dog, began to gambol round them.
“Come, my son,” said old Gaspard, “we have no woman here now; we must get dinner ready, and you will peel the potatoes.”
They both sat down on wooden stools and began to dip their bread in the soup.
The next morning seemed a long one to Ulrich Kunsi. Old Hari smoked and spat into the fireplace, while the young man stared through the window at the dazzling
