uses show through the darkness.
I enter a narrow street, formed of great gloomy buildings, their fronts
like a convent or prison. The hamlet is transformed into a little town
of hotels, very comfortable, very elegant, very dear, but very stupid
and very vulgar, with their laced porter in an admiral's hat, and their
whiskered waiters, who have the air of Anglican ministers. Oh! how I
detest them, and flee them, those hotels where the painter, or the
tourist who arrives on foot, knapsack on his back and staff in hand, his
trousers tucked into his leggings, his flask slung over his shoulder,
and his hat awry, is received with less courtesy than a lackey.

Besides those hotels, some of which are veritable palaces, and where the
ladies are almost bound to change their dress three times a day, there
is a hotel of the second and third class; and there is the old inn; the
comfortable, hospitable, patriarchal inn, with its Gothic signboard....

On leaving the village I was again in the open mountain. In the distance
the road penetrated into the valley, rising always. The moon had risen.
She stood out sharply cut in a cloudless sky, and stars sparkling
everywhere in profusion; not like nails of gold, but sown broadcast like
a flying dust, a dust of carbuncles and diamonds. To the right, in the
depths of the amphitheater of the mountains, an immense glacier looked
like a frozen cascade; and above, a perfectly white peak rose draped in
snow, like some legendary king in his mantle of silver.

Bending under my knapsack, and dragging my feet, I arrive at last at the
hotel, where I am received, in the kindest manner in the world, by the
two mistresses of the establishment, two sisters of open, benevolent
countenance and of sweet expression.

And the poor little traveler who arrives, his bag on his back and
without bustle, who has sent neither letter nor telegram to announce his
arrival, is the object of the kindest and most delicate attentions; his
clothes are brushed, he gets water for his refreshment, and is then
conducted to a table bountifully spread, in a dining-room fragrant with
good cookery and bouquets of flowers....

Beyond Campfer, its houses surrounding a third little lake, we come
suddenly on a scene of extraordinary animation. All the cosmopolitan
society of St. Moritz is there, sauntering, walking, running, in
mountain parties, on afternoon excursions. The favorite one is the walk
to the pretty lake of Campfer, with