"With this rope a man has been hung in the Canton of Unterwald..."
Tartarin, with a shudder, swore that he had nothing to do with it.
"We shall see!"
The Italian tenor was now introduced,--in other words, the police spy whom the Nihilists had hung to the branch of an oak-tree on the Brunig, but whose life was miraculously saved by wood-choppers.
The spy looked at Tartarin. "That is not the man," he said; then at the delegates, "Nor they, either... A mistake has been made."
The prefect, furious, turned to Tartarin. "Then, what are you doing here?" he asked.
"That is what I ask myself, _ve!_.." replied the president, with the aplomb of innocence.
After a short explanation the Alpinists of Tarascon, restored to liberty, departed from the Castle of Chillon, where none have ever felt its oppressive and romantic melancholy more than they. They stopped at the Pension Muller to get their luggage and banner, and to pay for the breakfast of the day before which they had not had time to eat; then they started for Geneva by the train. It rained. Through the streaming windows they read the names of stations of aristocratic villeggiatura: Clarens, Vevey, Lausanne; red chalets, little gardens of rare shrubs pa.s.sed them under a misty veil, the branches of the trees, the turrets on the roofs, the galleries of the hotels all dripping.
Installed in one corner of a long railway carriage, on two seats facing each other, the Alpinists had a downcast and discomfited appearance.
Bravida, very sour, complained of aches, and repeatedly asked Tartarin with savage irony: "Eh _be!_you"ve seen it now, that dungeon of Bonnivard"s that you were so set on seeing... I think you have seen it, _que?_" Excourbanies, voiceless for the first time in his life, gazed piteously at the lake which escorted them the whole way: "Water! more water, _Boudiou!_.. after this, I "ll never in my life take another bath."
Stupefied by a terror which still lasts, Pascalon, the banner between his legs, sat back in his seat, looking to right and left like a hare fearful of being caught again... And Tartarin?.. Oh! he, ever dignified and calm, he was diverting himself by reading the Southern newspapers, a package of which had been sent to the Pension Muller, all of them having reproduced from the _Forum_ the account of his ascension, the same he had himself dictated, but enlarged, magnified, and embellished with ineffable laudations. Suddenly the hero gave a cry, a formidable cry, which resounded to the end of the carriage. All the travellers sat up excitedly, expecting an accident. It was simply an item in the _Forum_, which Tartarin now read to his Alpinists:--
"Listen to this: "Rumour has it that V. P. C. A. Costecalde, though scarcely recovered from the jaundice which kept him in bed for some days, is about to start for the ascension of Mont Blanc; to climb higher than Tartarin!.." Oh! the villain... He wants to ruin the effect of my Jung-frau... Well, well! wait a bit; I "ll blow you out of water, you and your mountain... Chamounix is only a few hours from Geneva; I"ll do Mont Blanc before him! Will you come, my children?"
Bravida protested. _Outre!_ he had had enough of adventures.
"Enough and more than enough..." howled Excourbanies, in his almost extinct voice.
"And you, Pascalon?" asked Tartarin, gently.
The pupil dared not raise his eyes:--
"Ma-a-aster..." He, too, abandoned him!
"Very good," said the hero, solemnly and angrily. "I will go alone; all the honour will be mine... _Zou!_ give me back the banner..."
XII.
Hotel Baltet at Chamonix. "I smell garlic!" The use of rope in Alpine climbing. "Shake hands." A pupil of Schopenhauer.
At the hut on the Grands-Mulets. "Tartarin, I must speak to you."
Nine o"clock was ringing from the belfry at Chamonix of a cold night shivering with the north wind and rain; the black streets, the darkened houses (except, here and there, the facades and courtyards of hotels where the gas was still burning) made the surroundings still more gloomy under the vague reflection of the snow of the mountains, white as a planet on the night of the sky.
At the Hotel Baltet, one of the best and most frequented inns of this Alpine village, the numerous travellers and boarders had disappeared one by one, weary with the excursions of the day, until no one was left in the grand salon but one English traveller playing silently at backgammon with his wife, his innumerable daughters, in brown-holland ap.r.o.ns with bibs, engaged in copying notices of an approaching evangelical service, and a young Swede sitting before the fireplace, in which was a good fire of blazing logs. The latter was pale, hollow-cheeked, and gazed at the flame with a gloomy air as he drank his grog of kirsch and seltzer.
From time to time some belated traveller crossed the salon, with soaked gaiters and streaming mackintosh, looked at the great barometer hanging to the wall, tapped it, consulted the mercury as to the weather of the following day, and went off to bed in consternation. Not a word; no other manifestations of life than the crackling of the fire, the pattering on the panes, and the angry roll of the Arve under the arches of its wooden bridge, a few yards distant from the hotel.
Suddenly the door of the salon opened, a porter in a silver-laced coat came in, carrying valises and rugs, with four shivering Alpinists behind him, dazzled by the sudden change from icy darkness into warmth and light.
"_Boudiou!_ what weather!.."
"Something to eat, _zou!_"
"Warm the beds, _que!_"
They all talked at once from the depths of their m.u.f.flers and ear-pads, and it was hard to know which to obey, when a short stout man, whom the others called "_presidain_" enforced silence by shouting more loudly than they.
"In the first place, give me the visitors" book," he ordered. Turning it over with a numbed hand, he read aloud the names of all who had been at the hotel for the last week: ""Doctor Schwanthaler and madame." Again!..
"Astier-Rehu of the French Academy... "" He deciphered thus two or three pages, turning pale when he thought he saw the name he was in search of. Then, at the end, flinging the book on the table with a laugh of triumph, the squat man made a boyish gambol quite extraordinary in one of his bulky shape: "He is not here, _ve!_ he has n"t come... And yet he must have stopped here if he had... Done for! Coste-calde...
lagadigadeou!.. quick! to our suppers, children!.. "And the worthy Tartarin, having bowed to the ladies, marched to the dining-room, followed by the famished and tumultuous delegation.
Ah, yes! the delegation, all of them, even Bravida himself... Is it possible? come now!.. But--just think what would be said of them down there in Tarascon, if they returned without Tartarin? They each felt this. And, at the moment of separation in the station at Geneva, the buffet witnessed a pathetic scene of tears, embraces, heartrending adieus to the banner; as the result of which adieus the whole company piled itself into the landau which Tartarin had chartered to take him to Chamonix. A glorious route, which they did with their eyes shut, wrapped in their rugs and filling the carriage with sonorous snores, unmindful of the wonderful landscape, which, from Sallanches, was unrolling before them in a mist of blue rain: ravines, forests, foaming waterfalls, with the crest of Mont Blanc above the clouds, visible or vanishing, according to the lay of the land in the valley they were crossing. Tired of that sort of natural beauty, our Tarasconese friends thought only of making up for the wretched night they had spent behind the bolts of Chillon. And even now, at the farther end of the long, deserted dining-room of the Hotel Baltet, when served with the warmed-over soup and _entrees_ of the _table d"hote_, they ate voraciously, without saying a word, eager only to get to bed. All of a sudden, Excourbanies, who was swallowing his food like a somnambulist, came out of his plate, and sniffing the air about him, remarked: "I smell garlic!.."
"True, I smell it," said Bravida. And the whole party, revived by this reminder of home, these fumes of the national dishes, which Tartarin, at least, had not inhaled for so long, turned round in their chairs with gluttonous anxiety. The odour came from the other end of the dining-room, from a little room where some one was supping apart, a personage of importance, no doubt, for the white cap of the head cook was constantly appearing at the wicket that opened into the kitchen as he pa.s.sed to the girl in waiting certain little covered dishes which she conveyed to the inner apartment.
"Some one from the South, that"s certain," murmured the gentle Pascalon; and the president, becoming ghastly at the idea of Costecalde, said commandingly:--
"Go and see, Spiridion... and bring us word who it is..."
A loud roar of laughter came from that little apartment as soon as the brave "gong" entered it, at the order of his chief; and he presently returned, leading by the hand a tall devil with a big nose, a mischievous eye, and a napkin under his chin, like the gastronomic horse.
"_Vi!_ Bompard..."
"_Te!_ the Impostor..."
"_He!_ Gonzague... How are you?"
"_Differemment_, messieurs: your most obedient..." said the courier, shaking hands with all, and sitting down at the table of the Tarasconese to share with them a dish of mushrooms with garlic prepared by _mere_ Baltet, who, together with her husband had a horror of the cooking for the _table d"hote_.
Was it the national concoction, or the joy of meeting a compatriot, that delightful Bompard with his inexhaustible imagination? Certain it is that weariness and the desire to sleep took wings, champagne was uncorked, and, with moustachios all messy with froth, they laughed and shouted and gesticulated, clasping one another round the body effusively happy.
"I"ll not leave you now, _ve!_" said Bompard. "My Peruvians have gone...
I am free..."
"Free!.. Then to-morrow you and I will ascend Mont Blanc."
"Ah! you do Mont Blanc to-morrow?" said Bompard, without enthusiasm.
"Yes, I knock out Costecalde... When he gets here, _uit!_.. No Mont Blanc for him... You"ll go, _que_, Gonzague?"
"I "ll go... I "ll go... that is, if the weather permits... The fact is, that the mountain is not always suitable at this season."
"Ah! _va_! not suitable indeed!.." exclaimed Tartarin, crinkling up his eyes by a meaning laugh which Bompard seemed not to understand.
"Let us go into the salon for our coffee... We "ll consult _pere_ Baltet. He knows all about it, he "s an old guide who has made the ascension twenty-seven times."
All the delegates cried out: "Twenty-seven times! _Boufre!_"
"Bompard always exaggerates," said the P. C. A. severely, but not without a touch of envy.