At the Grimsel we received and sent off mail, including Belle Soeur’s
and my knapsacks, that we might be in the lightest possible marching
order. We also invested in provisions,—ground coffee, cheese, bread,
chocolate and hard-boiled eggs. And Frater, at Biner’s suggestion,
humbled his pride so far as to purchase an alpenstock. Also we indulged
in an excellent lunch.
The weather had been beautiful all the morning, as it had been the
day before, but it did not look so well after luncheon. The sky was
graying, and there was a suggestion in the air of approaching snow.
However, it was not definitely bad and might be all right by morning,
so Biner thought there was no reason for postponing our start.
The method of crossing the Strahlegg is to leave the Grimsel in the
afternoon and spend the night at the Dollfus Pavilion, one of the
Alpine Club refuge huts, and get a very early start for the long day’s
trip to Grindelwald. There is another club hut, the Schwarzegg, on the
Grindelwald side of the pass, where the second night can be spent if
one is belated—a most fortunate circumstance for us as it turned out.
Biner broke to us the news that there was another party besides
ourselves of three “gentlemen” going to start over the Strahlegg that
afternoon. We were quite disappointed at this, for we wanted the club
hut to ourselves, and the scenery, too, for that matter, and had
supposed that so late in the season there would be no trouble about
it. However, it was the fortune of war, and it seemed foolish to wait
over another day and risk bad weather to escape them. Biner seemed to
be rather pleased at the prospect. He said it would make it much easier
and safer for us to join forces with the other party and all be roped
together for the next day’s climb. We reserved decision on this point.
Shortly after lunch we started forth, so as not to be hurried. The
other party were ahead of us. Our way led over glacier débris and along
a moraine, stony, scrambly, but presenting no difficulties. We seemed
to be charging directly at the Finsteraarhorn. The “Infant Aar” had
been lost to sight in the great glaciers that gave it birth. We were
approaching the heart of the High Alps at last.
By way of acquiring information, I asked Biner as we walked along of
what nationality the gentlemen might be who belonged to the other
party. The question visibly embarrassed him. “They are Swiss,” he said.
“But—well, they are _not_ gentlemen. They are employees of the Grimsel
hotel, which is about to close for the season, and they are going home
this way for pleasure. They are all good mountaineers, so they will be
very useful to us.” A little more questioning elicited the fact that
they were the chief cook, the barber, and a stableman who often served
as porter to climbing parties and hoped some day to be a guide. We
were rather relieved than otherwise by this information. Tourists, if
underbred, might have proved annoying in such close quarters, but these
people would doubtless be entirely unobtrusive.
The Dollfus Pavilion is a thick-walled stone hut built on a cliff
overhanging the glacier. The altitude is 7850 feet. By the time we
reached it, the evening winds were holding high and chilly carnival
around it and the clouds were closing down.
As we opened the door of the hut, we stepped into an atmosphere almost
unbreathable with wood smoke from the stove combined with liquor
fumes from a steaming kettle. Half-choking, we beat a hasty retreat
into the open air. The occupants of the hut rushed out with exuberant
hospitality, begging us to come in and get warm and partake of the
“tea” they were brewing. The smoke would soon be gone. The fire had
been hard to start, but was all right now. We thanked them, but said
we preferred the outer air for the present. These self-effacing hotel
employees did not seem to be turning out exactly as we had expected. We
had not reckoned on the cognac.
It was cold outside and getting colder. Snowflakes began sifting down
on us. Had there been any possibility of getting back to the Grimsel we
certainly would have done so. But it was out of the question at that
time. Presently Biner came out and said our supper was ready. He had
had nothing to prepare except the coffee.
The smoke had cleared away, so we could see the room, its furniture and
occupants. There was a long deal table with a bench at each side, set
with enamel ware cups and plates. There was a small but energetic stove
and a simple outfit of cooking utensils. These were all furnished by
the Alpine Club. Printed notices on the wall requested those availing
themselves of the hut to leave everything clean and in order. An open
door showed us the hut’s other room. It contained a raised platform
heaped high with straw, long enough for a dozen people to sleep on in a
row. On a cord above were hung a generous supply of gray blankets.
Considerably to our disgust, we found that the other party’s supper and
ours were to be celebrated simultaneously. But in this refuge provided
for all alike, we clearly had no right to object, if their own sense
did not show them the desirability of keeping to themselves. Our guide,
on the other hand, positively declined to sit down at the table with
us, whether to set his fellow-countrymen a good example or simply
because he was on duty (which they were not), I do not know.
We gave Belle Soeur the protected seat in the middle. Frater had the
barber next to him, and the stable man was next to me, the cook beyond.
Let me now state that the cook was, so far as we were concerned, an
entirely respectable and unobjectionable member of society. If he drank
too much of their precious tea and cognac mixture, he did not show it,
and he did not obtrude himself on us in any way.
The barber did not show any signs of intoxication at this time, but he
was an unthinkably unpleasant little beast, curled, powdered, perfumed,
dressed in a flamboyant tourist costume which included plaid golf
stockings and knickerbockers, and possessed of a most colossal nerve.
He evidently regarded himself as a lady-killer. He knew a few words
of English, and armed with them he proceeded to be polite to Belle
Soeur. Belle Soeur can be pretty chilly when she likes and Frater’s
snubs were of the knockdown variety, but nothing seemed to make any
impression on the barber’s cuticle. He had a camera along and offered
to take our pictures in the morning. This was finally declined so that
he understood it, but it took a battle-ship’s broadside to do it. He
appeared to be sure that our feet must be cold and wet and that we were
too timid to avail ourselves of the fleece-lined wooden shoes which are
part of the outfit of an Alpine hut. From the time of our arrival at
the front door to our retiring for the night, he urged these shoes upon
us at fifteen-minute intervals.
During supper the barber and the stableman vied with each other in
pressing upon us each and every article of their rather elaborate menu.
The stableman was in the maudlin and verbose stage. He assured us
that among the eternal snows of the upper Alpine regions all social
distinctions are obliterated, and high and low, rich and poor, meet on
a plane of equality. (This in explanation of their sharing the table
and benches with us, I suppose.) I said unresponsively that there
could be no objection to anyone’s poverty and lowliness so long as he
was sober and respectable. At this he almost dissolved into tears and
confided to me that he knew he had drunk too much, that it was a very
bad thing to do, that he was very sorry, but what would you? After a
summer’s hard work, the first day of freedom, etc.
Meanwhile, Frater, who could not follow the German, was wanting to know
whether my neighbor was saying anything sufficiently objectionable to
merit personal chastisement. I reassured him, and we tried to keep
up the conversation among ourselves, ignoring our neighbors. But
they declined to stay ignored and kept offering this, that, and the
other article of food or drink. They seemed unable to believe that
our declining these overtures was prompted by anything but shyness.
“The High Alps are not like cities,” the stableman explained. “In the
High Alps all men are brothers and share all things equally. No one
feels any hesitation in either giving or receiving. We are so small
and helpless in the hands of God! We must do all we can to help one
another.”
Shall I ever forget that hideous meal? We got through as quickly as
possible and left the table. It was snowing too hard and was too
bitterly cold to go outdoors again. We went through into the other
room and shut the door and held a council of war. Should we sit up all
night? That would involve returning next day to the Grimsel. We clearly
could not sit up all night and take the trip over the Strahlegg, too.
It had seemed a matter of course to Belle Soeur and me at the Nieder
Rawyl cheese-hut to roll up in blankets and go to sleep in an
apartment shared by our escorts and two cowherds. It was physically
uncomfortable, but not in the least morally so. But the thought of
dividing that hay-heaped sleeping-shelf with those drunken animals in
the next room was revolting to the point of nausea. It was impossible.
Biner joined us for a few minutes and came to our rescue with a
suggestion. We could curtain off a portion of the shelf for Belle Soeur
and me with blankets. No sooner said than done. We chose our end, and
in front and on the unprotected side hung blankets. It was arranged
that Frater was to sleep immediately outside and Biner next to him, so
that the precious trio of fellow-Alpinists would be kept at as great a
distance as possible.
When we had completed our arrangements, we sat down and tried to
distract our minds by playing cards. It was one of the saddest games
I ever indulged in. In the next room, free from the restraint of our
presence, the revelry waxed more and more boisterous as the cognac
tea circulated. I was a bit worse off than the others for catching a
word here and there of the talk. It did not make me happier to realize
that they were talking about _us_. I learned afterwards that they were
arranging the order in which the combined parties were to be roped next
day. But the fragments that I caught had a singularly unpleasant sound.
I did not wish to be a sensationalist and I knew the limitations of
my German, so I did not say anything to the others about it, but I am
afraid my game of cards was _distrait_.
This was my birthday. I had spent the previous ones in very various
quarters of the world and in very various company—but never anything
like this before, and may the like never be my lot again!
Belle Soeur and I now retired to our tent, which, after all, gave us as
much privacy as one gets in a sleeping-car, and Frater rolled himself
along our only unprotected boundary. Naturally, we did not sleep. Aside
from our nervousness, the men in the next room were making too much
noise. I have no means of knowing how late they kept it up, but it must
have been till after midnight. There were moments when they seemed to
be quarreling violently, and we half-hoped they would wind things up
neatly by cutting each others’ throats. At other times they were merely
hilarious.
All at once the door opened, and they rolled in, still noisy, and
bringing with them such a smell of concentrated liquor as I never
imagined. They paused and gazed at the blanket-wrapped form of Frater.
“_Ist das der Herr?_” whispered the barber to one of his companions.
From the depths of the blankets I heard my brother’s voice growl in
disgusted English, “No, you thundering fool, I’m the two ladies.”
The revelers now disposed themselves for slumber, but for another hour
or two we heard their giggles and whispers, and the alcohol fumes in
the close air were unspeakably nauseating. From time to time Frater
pressed my hand under the blanket curtain to reassure me, and I did as
much for Belle Soeur.
We were of course in no physical danger. Not only could Frater and the
guide have easily handled the trio, but Frater could have done it,
I doubt not, single-handed. But the unpleasantness of it was beyond
words. We felt as if a month of spiritual Turkish baths would hardly
make us clean.
I have told this somewhat unsavory story in all its unsavoriness as a
warning to others, the moral being that a party including ladies should
never plan for a night in an Alpine Club hut unless they are assured of
having it to themselves. Mountaineering is not _all_ poetry, and there
might be terrors encountered beside which crevasses and avalanches
become attractive.