Frightened, Kunzi turned about, as though expecting to find his companion hiding in a corner. Then he re-lit the fire and made the soup, still hoping to see the old man come in.
From time to time he would go out to see whether he were not in sight. Darkness had fallen, the wan darkness of the mountains, a pale, livid darkness, illumined on the sky’s rim by a slender yellow crescent that hovered on the verge of sinking behind the peaks.
Then the young man would return, sit down, warm his feet and hands, and turn over in his mind various possible accidents.
Gaspard might have broken his leg, have fallen into a hole or made a false step and sprained his ankle. And he must be lying in the snow, overcome and stiffened by the cold, in agony of mind, screaming, lost, shouting for help, perhaps, shouting with all the strength of his voice through the silence of the night.
But where? The mountains were so vast, so cruel, and their lower slopes so perilous, especially at that time of year, that it needed ten or twenty guides, walking for a week in every direction, to find a man lost in their immensity.
But Ulrich Kunzi resolved to go out with Sam if Gaspard Hari did not return between midnight and one o’clock in the morning.
He made his arrangements.
He put provisions for two days into a bag, took his steel climbing-irons, wound a long, thin, strong cord about his waist, and made sure that his iron-tipped stick and the ax he used for cutting steps in the ice were in order. Then he waited. The fire blazed in the hearth; the big dog snored in the light of the flames; in its sonorous wooden case the clock sounded its regular tick, like the beating of a heart.
He waited, his ear attuned for distant sounds, shivering when the light breeze swept along the roof and the walls.
Midnight struck; he shuddered. Then, feeling shaky and frightened, he set water on the fire, so as to have a drink of good hot coffee before he set out.
When the clock struck one, he rose, woke Sam, opened the door, and set off in the direction of the Wildstrubel.
For five hours he ascended, scaling the rocks by means of his climbing-irons, cutting steps in the ice, always pressing forward, and sometimes using the rope in order to haul up the dog from the bottom of a wall of rock too steep for him. It was about six o’clock when he reached one of the peaks to which old Gaspard often went in search of chamois.
He waited for daybreak.
The sky paled overhead, and suddenly a fantastic glow, lit none knows whence, came at one stride over the immense sea of pale crests that extended all round him for a hundred leagues. This vague light seemed to pour from the snow and spread itself abroad. Little by little the loftiest summits in the distance were all tinged with a pink soft as flesh, and the red sun rose behind the massive giants of the Bernese Alps.
Ulrich Kunzi set off again. He walked like a hunter, stooping, searching for traces, and bidding the dog:
“Rout him out, boy; rout him out.”
He was now going back down the mountain, examining the crevasses, and sometimes calling, sending forth a prolonged shout that died very swiftly in the mute immensities of space. Then he would set his ear to the ground to listen; he fancied he could discern a voice, would begin to run, shouting again, would hear nothing more and would sit down, exhausted and despairing. At about midday he had lunch and gave food to Sam, who was as weary as himself. Then he recommenced his search.
When evening came on he was still walking, having scoured over fifty kilometres of the mountains. Finding himself too far from the house to return to it, and too tired to drag himself any further, he dug a hole in the snow, and huddled inside it, with the dog, under a blanket he had brought. There they lay, one against the other, the man and the beast, warming each other’s bodies, but, even so, frozen to the marrow.
Ulrich scarcely slept at all; his mind was haunted by visions, and his limbs racked by shivering fits.
Day was breaking when he rose. His legs were as stiff as iron bars, his spirit so weak that he was ready to scream with anguish, and his heart so wildly pulsing that he grew dizzy with excitement whenever he thought he heard a noise.
Suddenly he thought that he too was doomed to die of cold out in the solitude, and his terror of such a death whipped up his energy and revived his strength.
He was descending now towards the inn, stumbling and recovering himself, followed in the distance by Sam, who was limping along on three legs.
They did not reach Schwarenbach until about four in the afternoon. The house was empty. The young man lit the fire, ate some food, and went to sleep, too stupefied with exhaustion to think of anything.
He slept for a long, a very long time, in a slumber like death. But suddenly a voice, a cry, a name: “Ulrich,” broke through to the depths of his unconsciousness and made him start up. Had he been dreaming? Was this one of the fantastic calls that pierce the dreams of an uneasy mind? No, he heard that quivering cry still, piercing his ears and still present in his body’s being, in the tips of his muscular fingers. Assuredly someone had shouted, someone had called “Ulrich!” Someone was there, near the house. He could not doubt it. So he opened the door and yelled: “Is that you, Gaspard?” with all the strength in his throat.
Nothing answered; no sound, no murmur, no groan, nothing. It was dark. The snow was ghostly.
The wind
