OVER MAMISON
I FOLLOWED my guide Chekai over the mountain marsh, where hundreds of
bright yellow water-lilies were in blossom. The sun had just risen, the
clouds were very white, and the clear sky was lambent greenish blue.
“It’s going to be fine,” said the shepherd. “You’ll get across safely.
In an hour you will come to the Southern Shelter, a white house; you can
go in there and rest, and one of the soldiers will show you the way on.
After the pass there is another house, but if it is stormy you won’t be
able to see it for the snow. Never mind, you will hear the bell. There
are two men on duty night and day, and they are obliged to ring the big
bell whenever it is stormy. Perhaps they don’t ring it now in the
winter, I don’t know; I’ve never been over before June when the road is
black. Not more than four Ossetines have been over this month, but the
soldiers go backwards and forwards seven or eight at a time.”
We came to the margin of the unmelted snow and followed a track for
about a mile, and then my companion began to complain that his feet were
getting frozen, and I told him that if I was now on the right track I
could dispense with him; he might go back. This evidently he was glad to
do. I paid him a rouble in small change, every coin of which he said was
bad, and we had to test them separately on a bit of rock before he would
be satisfied. We then exchanged presents, blessed one another and
parted.
I was walking on a white carpet apparently boundless. To right and to
left and ahead the rocks lifted themselves aloft in white masses. In the
sky the clouds, torn as by storm winds, rushed hither and thither, now
veiling the peaks and now the road, or filtering upward and downward at
the neck of the pass. Here is the place where the weather is
manufactured and shared out between north and south. The sky promised
everything on the shipman’s card. The sun suddenly shone out and flashed
over all the snow with blinding brilliance, and then almost as suddenly
became overcast as a foaming wave of cloud was tossed over it. I began
to fear that the mists might hinder my crossing, or keep me waiting for
hours on the desert of snow, afraid to go forward.
The ascent became more arduous. The snow was softer, and the surface not
frozen hard enough to bear me. At every third step I sank to the knee;
the staff the shepherd had given me saved me once or twice, but I could
never tell when I should be upborne by the snow and when I should sink.
After half a mile of this I stopped and gasped. I thought I couldn’t get
on. Storm, however, threatened. I must go on. I took another step and
sank as deep as it is possible for one leg to go. In pulling myself out
I fell on one shoulder and almost went out of sight. It was like the
hindered progress in a nightmare. I must have rested ten minutes before
I set forward again, and walked fifty yards by three steps and a fall
irregularly along the faint track. I felt like Dorando at the finish of
his race at Earl’s Court.
An hour’s struggle brought me to the Southern Shelter, a military
station cold and uninviting, but even so a delight to my eyes, a very
oasis in the wilderness. I saw no one there, and therefore did not stop.
It seemed to me I must soon reach the summit. I was, however, destined
to disappointment. The track now led up a steep bank, a weary way. I was
constantly up to the waist in snow, and not a step that I took seemed to
grip or take me appreciably forward. To add to the difficulties, the
snow of last night’s storm had almost completely effaced the track; it
was only with the greatest difficulty that the eye discerned and traced
the way. One false step and I should have gone slithering over the snow
into the abyss like a riderless sledge. The clouds above my head massed
and the snow-flakes hurried down. I sat down on my travelling-bed and
surveyed the grim, silent snowstorm; to me it was then a dreadful sight,
and I began to ask myself if this would not perhaps turn out to be my
last upon this bright world. A flash of lightning and the long roll of
thunder quickened my fears. I started up again and battled forward. It
was an almost heart-breaking business truly. Every ten yards I came to a
standstill with heart palpitations, caused partly, perhaps, by the
rarity of the atmosphere—I suppose at nine thousand feet the atmosphere
is rarer—but caused in most part, without doubt, by my exertions; and my
sunburnt hands had become violet in colour. All about me the storm raged
and the mist hid the crest of the pass.
The thunder rolled once more, and then unexpectedly the sun shone
through the snow-flakes. The veiled mountains looked like workmen
disturbed while up to their eyes in some job. I looked along my way to
the crest of the mountain. It seemed to lead right up into the sky. It
would have been an ideal road for the poet Davidson. I whispered to
myself his lines:
“Alone I climb
The rugged path that leads me out of Time.”
Then, after what seemed ages of slow dying, I saw in front of me the
cross which marks the highest point of the pass. I did the impossible; I
reached that cross. The reader may imagine the bliss I experienced
sitting on my waterproof at its foot. Even if I perished in the descent
I had now been a victor; henceforth there were no more Alps.
Downward was not so difficult. I even ran as if on skis till I realised
the danger of breaking my legs. It was a delightful contrast, however,
the slipping downhill, the falling, jumping, plunging downward. My heart
was light.
I had not descended five hundred feet before I saw an extraordinary
sight—a hanging, frozen avalanche waiting for the snow, a long, high
wall of fixed but sliding snow frozen and glittering, myriadfold
icicled, and not white but pale green. Seen from below the long
pale-green wall looked ominous beyond words. A new danger now presented
itself to my mind—that of being swept away by falling snow—and suddenly
this was emphasised. I heard a long, low, sullen roar that could not be
thunder, but which I could not locate. It was followed by a second which
seemed an echo, and by a third. Then, looking to a peak, I saw the cause
of one, a falling drift of snow. I saw the slow-moving white descending,
descending, and then suddenly splashing over the cliff in brown mud.
Fast after and before followed the stones. The danger from falling
drifts was imminent, and I kept my eyes open. The storm cleared. The
bell was not ringing at the bell-house, and I did not stay there. On my
way down I met a man toiling upward, and I felt exceedingly overjoyed,
and thought to talk with him, but he was pale as a ghost and utterly
exhausted. Beyond greeting, and an inquiry as to the state of the road,
I got no further word from him.
In half an hour I was out of the snow on to the black road, and
presently I came to the first village on the north side. The inhabitants
all gathered round me and stared, and asked where I had come from and
congratulated me. One old man in particular shook hands with me,
effusively calling me _molodetse_, “fine fellow,” and everyone seemed to
combine to smile upon me. I was happy. One thing, however, was
wanting—food. The village could only supply me with cold copatchka and
salt.
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