Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens [big ebook reader txt] 📗

steps and into the building. There was a smell within, coming up from the floor, of tethered beasts, like the smell of a menagerie of wild animals. There were strong arched galleries within, huge stone piers, great staircases, and thick walls pierced with small sunken windows⁠—fortifications against the mountain storms, as if they had been human enemies. There were gloomy vaulted sleeping-rooms within, intensely cold, but clean and hospitably prepared for guests. Finally, there was a parlour for guests to sit in and sup in, where a table was already laid, and where a blazing fire shone red and high.

In this room, after having had their quarters for the night allotted to them by two young Fathers, the travellers presently drew round the hearth. They were in three parties; of whom the first, as the most numerous and important, was the slowest, and had been overtaken by one of the others on the way up. It consisted of an elderly lady, two grey-haired gentlemen, two young ladies, and their brother. These were attended (not to mention four guides), by a courier, two footmen, and two waiting-maids: which strong body of inconvenience was accommodated elsewhere under the same roof. The party that had overtaken them, and followed in their train, consisted of only three members: one lady and two gentlemen. The third party, which had ascended from the valley on the Italian side of the Pass, and had arrived first, were four in number: a plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in spectacles, on a tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, hungry, and silent, and all in spectacles.

These three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other drily, and waiting for supper. Only one among them, one of the gentlemen belonging to the party of three, made advances towards conversation. Throwing out his lines for the Chief of the important tribe, while addressing himself to his own companions, he remarked, in a tone of voice which included all the company if they chose to be included, that it had been a long day, and that he felt for the ladies. That he feared one of the young ladies was not a strong or accustomed traveller, and had been overfatigued two or three hours ago. That he had observed, from his station in the rear, that she sat her mule as if she were exhausted. That he had, twice or thrice afterwards, done himself the honour of inquiring of one of the guides, when he fell behind, how the lady did. That he had been enchanted to learn that she had recovered her spirits, and that it had been but a passing discomfort. That he trusted (by this time he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and addressed him) he might be permitted to express his hope that she was now none the worse, and that she would not regret having made the journey.

“My daughter, I am obliged to you, sir,” returned the Chief, “is quite restored, and has been greatly interested.”

“New to mountains, perhaps?” said the insinuating traveller.

“New to⁠—ha⁠—to mountains,” said the Chief.

“But you are familiar with them, sir?” the insinuating traveller assumed.

“I am⁠—hum⁠—tolerably familiar. Not of late years. Not of late years,” replied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand.

The insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an inclination of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young lady, who had not yet been referred to otherwise than as one of the ladies in whose behalf he felt so sensitive an interest.

He hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day.

“Incommoded, certainly,” returned the young lady, “but not tired.”

The insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the distinction. It was what he had meant to say. Every lady must doubtless be incommoded by having to do with that proverbially unaccommodating animal, the mule.

“We have had, of course,” said the young lady, who was rather reserved and haughty, “to leave the carriages and fourgon at Martigny. And the impossibility of bringing anything that one wants to this inaccessible place, and the necessity of leaving every comfort behind, is not convenient.”

“A savage place indeed,” said the insinuating traveller.

The elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose manner was perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here interposed a remark in a low soft voice.

“But, like other inconvenient places,” she observed, “it must be seen. As a place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it.”

“O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs. General,” returned the other, carelessly.

“You, madam,” said the insinuating traveller, “have visited this spot before?”

“Yes,” returned Mrs. General. “I have been here before. Let me commend you, my dear,” to the former young lady, “to shade your face from the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow. You, too, my dear,” to the other and younger lady, who immediately did so; while the former merely said, “Thank you, Mrs. General, I am perfectly comfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.”

The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in the room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came strolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was dressed in the very fullest and completest travelling trim. The world seemed hardly large enough to yield him an amount of travel proportionate to his equipment.

“These fellows are an immense time with supper,” he drawled. “I wonder what they’ll give us! Has anybody any idea?”

“Not roast man, I believe,” replied the voice of the second gentleman of the party of three.

“I suppose not. What d’ye mean?” he inquired.

“That, as you are not to be served for the general supper, perhaps you will do us the favour of not cooking yourself at the general fire,” returned the other.

The young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth, cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the