ah, well, everything comes to an end, even the longest up-climb. so, after much sweat and effort and crossness, hepburn and hannele emerged on to the rounded bluff where the road wound out of that hideous great valley cleft into upper regions. so they emerged more on the level, out of the trees as out of something horrible, on to a naked, great bank of rock and grass.
‘thank the lord!’ said hannele.
so they trudged on round the bluff, and then in front of them saw what is always, always wonderful, one of those shallow, upper valleys, naked, where the first waters are rocked. a flat, shallow, utterly desolate valley, wide as a wide bowl under the sky, with rock slopes and grey stone-slides and precipices all round, and the zig-zag of snow-stripes and ice-roots descending, and then rivers, streams and rivers rushing from many points downwards, down out of the ice-roots and the snow-dagger-points, waters rushing in newly-liberated frenzy downwards, down in waterfalls and cascades and threads, down into the wide, shallow bed of the valley, strewn with rocks and stones innumerable, and not a tree, not a visible bush.
only, of course, two hotels or restaurant places. but these no more than low, sprawling, peasant-looking places lost among the stones, with stones on their roofs so that they seemed just a part of the valley bed. there was the valley, dotted with rock and rolled-down stone, and these two house-places, and woven with innumerable new waters, and one hoarse stone-tracked river in the desert, and the thin road-track winding along the desolate flat, past first one house, then the other, over one stream, then another, on to the far rock-face above which the glacier seemed to loll like some awful great tongue put out.
‘ah, it is wonderful!’ he said, as if to himself.
and she looked quickly at his face, saw the queer, blank, sphinx-look with which he gazed out beyond himself. his eyes were black and set, and he seemed so motionless, as if he were eternal facing these upper facts.
she thrilled with triumph. she felt he was overcome.
‘it is wonderful,’ she said.
‘wonderful. and forever wonderful,’ he said.
‘ah, in winter— ’ she cried.
his face changed, and he looked at her.
‘in winter you couldn’t get up here,’ he said.
they went on. up the slopes cattle were feeding: came that isolated tong-tong-tong of cow-bells, dropping like the slow clink of ice on the arrested air. the sound always woke in him a primeval, almost hopeless melancholy. always made him feel navré. he looked round. there was no tree, no bush, only great grey rocks and pale boulders scattered in place of trees and bushes. but yes, clinging on one side like a dark, close beard were the alpenrose shrubs.
‘in may,’ he said, ‘that side there must be all pink with alpenroses.’
‘i must come. i must come!’ she cried.
there were tourists dotted along the road: and two tiny low carts drawn by silky, long-eared mules. these carts went right down to meet the motor-cars, and to bring up provisions for the glacier hotel: for there was still another big hotel ahead. hepburn was happy in that upper valley, that first rocking cradle of early water. he liked to see the great fangs and slashes of ice and snow thrust down into the rock, as if the ice had bitten into the flesh of the earth. and from the fang-tips the hoarse water crying its birth-cry, rushing down.
by the turfy road and under the rocks were many flowers: wonderful harebells, big and cold and dark, almost black, and seeming like purple-dark ice: then little tufts of tiny pale-blue bells, as if some fairy frog had been blowing spume-bubbles out of the ice: then the bishops-crosier of the stiff, bigger, hairy mountain-bell: then many stars of pale-lavender gentian, touched with earth colour: and then monkshood, yellow, primrose yellow monkshood and sudden places full of dark monkshood. that dark-blue, black-blue, terrible colour of the strange rich monkshood made hepburn look and look and look again. how did the ice come by that lustrous blue-purple intense darkness? — and by that royal poison? — that laughing-snake gorgeousness of much monkshood.
