“Pooh! young man, at your age, to talk of life with such aversion, such
anger... What has life done to you?”
“Nothing; it bores me.” He had studied philosophy at Christiania, and
since then, won to the ideas of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, he had found
existence dreary, inept, chaotic. On the verge of suicide he shut his
books, at the entreaty of his parents, and started to travel, striking
everywhere against the same distress, the gloomy wretchedness of this
life. Tartarin and his friends, he said, seemed to him the only beings
content to live that he had ever met with.
The worthy P. C. A. began to laugh. “It is all race, young man.
Everybody feels like that in Tarascon. That’s the land of the good God.
From morning till night we laugh and sing, and the rest of the time we
dance the farandole... like this... _té!_” So saying, he cut a double
shuffle with the grace and lightness of a big cockchafer trying its
wings.
But the delegates had not the steel nerves nor the indefatigable spirit
of their chief. Excour-baniès growled out: “He ‘ll keep us here till
midnight.” But Bravida jumped up, furious. “Let us go to bed, _vé!_
I can’t stand my sciatica...” Tartarin consented, remembering the
ascension on the morrow; and the Tarasconese, candlesticks in hand, went
up the broad staircase of granite that led to the chambers, while Baltet
went to see about provisions and hire the mules and guides.
“_Té!_ it is snowing...”
Those were the first words of the worthy Tartarin when he woke in the
morning and saw his windows covered with frost and his bedroom inundated
with white reflections. But when he hooked his little mirror as usual
to the window-fastening, he understood his mistake, and saw that Mont
Blanc, sparkling before him in the splendid sunshine, was the cause of
that light. He opened his window to the breeze of the glacier, keen and
refreshing, bringing with it the sound of the cattle-bells as the
herds followed the long, lowing sound of the shepherd’s horn. Something
fortifying, pastoral, filled the atmosphere such as he had never before
breathed in Switzerland.
Below, an assemblage of guides and porters awaited him. The Swede was
already mounted upon his mule, and among the spectators, who formed a
circle, was the minister’s family, all those active young ladies, their
hair in early morning style, who had come for another “shake hands” with
the hero who had haunted their dreams.
“Splendid weather! make haste!..” cried the landlord, whose skull was
gleaming in the sunshine like a pebble. But though Tartarin himself
might hasten, it was not so easy a matter to rouse from sleep his dear
Alpinists, who intended to accompany him as far as the Pierre-Pointue,
where the mule-path ends. Neither prayers nor arguments could persuade
the Commander to get out of bed. With his cotton nightcap over his
ears and his face to the wall, he contented himself with replying to
Tartarin’s objurgations by a cynical Tarasconese proverb: “Whoso has the
credit of getting up early may sleep until midday...” As for Bom-pard,
he kept repeating, the whole time, “Ah, _vaï_, Mont Blanc... what a
humbug...” Nor did they rise until the P. C. A. had issued a formal
order.
At last, however, the caravan started, and passed through the little
streets in very imposing array: Pascalon on the leading mule, banner
unfurled; and last in file, grave as a mandarin amid the guides
and porters on either side his mule, came the worthy Tartarin, more
stupendously Alpinist than ever, wearing a pair of new spectacles
with smoked and convex glasses, and his famous rope made at Avignon,
recovered--we know at what cost.
Very much looked at, almost as much as the banner, he was jubilant
under his dignified mask, enjoyed the picturesqueness of these Savoyard
village streets, so different from the too neat, too varnished Swiss
village, looking like a new toy; he enjoyed the contrast of these hovels
scarcely rising above the ground, where the stable fills the largest
space, with the grand and sumptuous hotels five storeys high, the
glittering signs of which were as much out of keeping with the hovels
as the gold-laced cap of the porter and the pumps and black coats of the
waiters with the Savoyard head-gear, the fustian jackets, the felt hats
of the charcoal-burners with their broad wings.
On the square were landaus with the horses taken out, manure-carts side
by side with travelling-carriages, and a troop of pigs idling in the sun
before the post-office, from which issued an Englishman in a white linen
cap, with a package of letters and a copy of _The Times_, which he read
as he walked along, before he opened his correspondence. The cavalcade
of the Tarasconese passed all this, accompanied by the scuffling of
mules, the war-cry of Excourbaniès (to whom the sun had restored the use
of his gong), the pastoral chimes on the neighbouring slopes, and the
dash of the river, gushing from the glacier in a torrent all white and
sparkling, as if it bore upon its breast both sun and snow.
On leaving the village Bompard rode his mule beside that of the
president, and said to the latter; rolling his eyes in a most
extraordinary manner: “Tartarin, I _must_ speak to you...”
“Presently...” said the P. C. A., then engaged in a philosophical
discussion with the young Swede, whose black pessimism he was
endeavouring to correct by the marvellous spectacle around them, those
pastures with great zones of light and shade, those forests of sombre
green crested with the whiteness of the dazzling _névés_.
After two attempts to speak to the president, Bompard was forced to give
it up. The Arve having been crossed by a little bridge, the caravan
now entered one of those narrow, zigzag roads among the firs where
the mules, one by one, follow with their fantastic sabots all the
sinuosities of the ravines, and our tourists had their attention fully
occupied in keeping their equilibrium by the help of many an “_Outre!..
Boufre!_.. gently, gently!..” with which they guided their beasts.
At the chalet of the Pierre-Pointue, where Pas-calon and Excourbaniès
were to wait the return of the excursionists, Tartarin, much occupied in
ordering breakfast and in looking after porters and guides, still paid
no attention to Bompard’s whisperings. But--singular fact, which was not
remarked until later--in spite of the fine weather, the good wine,
and that purified atmosphere of ten thousand feet above sea-level,
the breakfast was melancholy. While they heard the guides laughing and
making merry apart, the table of the Taras-conese was silent except for
the rattle of glasses and the clatter of the heavy plates and covers on
the white wood. Was it the presence of that morose Swede, or the visible
uneasiness of Bompard, or some presentiment? At any rate, the party set
forth, sad as a battalion without its band, towards the glacier of the
Bossons, where the true ascent begins.
On setting foot upon the ice, Tartarin could not help smiling at the
recollection of the Guggi and his perfected crampons. What a difference
between the neophyte he then was and the first-class Alpinist he felt he
had become! Steady on his heavy boots, which the porter of the hotel had
ironed that very morning with four stout nails, expert in wielding
his ice-axe, he scarcely needed the hand of a guide, and then less to
support him than to show him the way. The smoked glasses moderated the
reflections of the glacier, which a recent avalanche had powdered with
fresh snow, and through which little spaces of a glaucous green
showed themselves here and there, slippery and treacherous. Very calm,
confident through experience that there was not the slightest danger,
Tartarin walked along the verge of the crevasses with their smooth,
iridescent sides stretching downward indefinitely, and made his way
among the _séracs_, solely intent on keeping up with the Swedish
student, an intrepid walker, whose long gaiters with their silver
buckles marched, thin and lank, beside his alpenstock, which looked like
a third leg. Their philosophical discussion continuing, in spite of the
difficulties of the way, a good stout voice, familiar and panting, could
be heard in the frozen space, sonorous as the swell of a river: “You
know me, Otto...”
Bompard all this time was undergoing misadventures. Firmly convinced, up
to that very morning, that Tartarin would never go to the length of his
vaunting, and would no more ascend Mont Blanc than he had the Jungfrau,
the luckless courier had dressed himself as usual, without nailing his
boots, or even utilizing his famous invention for shoeing the feet of
soldiers, and without so much as his alpenstock, the mountaineers of the
Chimborazo never using them. Armed only with a little switch, quite in
keeping with the blue ribbon of his hat and his ulster, this approach to
the glacier terrified him, for, in spite of his tales, it is, of
course, well understood that the Impostor had never in his life made an
ascension. He was somewhat reassured, however, on seeing from the top of
the moraine with what facility Tartarin made his way on the ice; and he
resolved to follow him as far as the hut on the Grands-Mulets, where it
was intended to pass the night. He did not get there without difficulty.
His first step laid him flat on his back; at the second he fell forward
on his hands and knees: “No, thank you, I did it on purpose,” he said to
the guides who endeavoured to pick him up. “American fashion, _vé!_.. as
they do on the Chimborazo.” That position seeming to be convenient,
he kept it, creeping on four paws, his hat pushed back, and his ulster
sweeping the ice like the pelt of a gray bear; very calm, withal, and
relating to those about him that in the Cordilleras of the Andes he had
scaled a mountain thirty thousand feet high. He did not say how much
time it took him, but it must have been long, judging by this stage to
the Grands-Mulets, where he arrived an hour after Tartarin, a disgusting
mass of muddy snow, with frozen hands in his knitted gloves.
In comparison with the hut on the Guggi, that which the commune of
Chamonix has built on the Grands-Mulets is really comfortable. When
Bompard entered the kitchen, where a grand wood-fire was blazing, he
found Tartarin and the Swedish student drying their boots, while the
hut-keeper, a shrivelled old fellow with long white hair that fell in
meshes, exhibited the treasures of his little museum.
Of evil augury, this museum is a reminder of all the catastrophes known
to have taken place on the Mont Blanc for the forty years that the
old man had kept the inn, and as he took them from their show-case, he
related the lamentable origin of each of them... This piece of cloth and
those waistcoat buttons were the memorial of a Russian _savant_, hurled
by a hurricane upon the Brenva glacier... These jaw teeth were all that
remained of one of the guides of a famous caravan of eleven travellers
and porters who disappeared forever in a _tourmente_ of snow... In the
fading light and the pale reflection of the _névés_ against the window,
the production of these mortuary relics, these monotonous recitals, had
something very poignant about them, and all the more because the old man
softened his quavering voice at pathetic items, and even shed tears on
displaying a scrap of green veil worn by an English lady rolled down by
an avalanche in 1827.
In vain Tartarin reassured himself by dates, convinced that in those
early days the Company had not yet organized the ascensions without
danger; this Savoyard _vocero_ oppressed his heart, and he went to the
doorway for a moment to breathe.
Night had fallen, engulfing the depths. The Bossons stood out, livid,
and very close; while the Mont Blanc reared its summit, still rosy,
still caressed by the departed sun. The Southerner was recovering his
serenity from this smile of nature when the shadow of Bompard rose
behind him.
“Is that you, Gonzague... As you see, I am getting the good of the
air... He annoyed me, that old fellow, with his stories.”
“Tartarin,” said Bompard, squeezing the arm of the P. C. A. till he
nearly ground it, “I hope that this is enough, and that you are going to
put an end to this ridiculous expedition.”
The great man opened wide a pair of astonished eyes.
“What stuff are you talking to me now?”
Whereupon Bompard made a terrible picture of the thousand deaths that
awaited him; crevasses, avalanches, hurricanes, whirlwinds...