While all this noise and hurry were rife among the living travellers,
there, too, silently assembled in a grated house half-a-dozen paces
removed, with the same cloud enfolding them and the same snow flakes
drifting in upon them, were the dead travellers found upon the mountain.
The mother, storm-belated many winters ago, still standing in the corner
with her baby at her breast; the man who had frozen with his arm raised
to his mouth in fear or hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips
after years and years. An awful company, mysteriously come together! A
wild destiny for that mother to have foreseen! 'Surrounded by so many
and such companions upon whom I never looked, and never shall look,
I and my child will dwell together inseparable, on the Great Saint
Bernard, outlasting generations who will come to see us, and will never
know our name, or one word of our story but the end.'
The living travellers thought little or nothing of the dead just then.
They thought much more of alighting at the convent door, and warming
themselves at the convent fire. Disengaged from the turmoil, which was
already calming down as the crowd of mules began to be bestowed in the
stable, they hurried shivering up the 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.