, when we
started from the hut with a lantern, I said the whole proceeding was
folly. I was a fool to be there. And down below me, far below me,
glimmered the crevassed slopes of the Furgg Glacier. I grew callous and
absorbed, and I shrugged my shoulders as the dawn came up. I did not
care to turn my eyes to look upon the red rose glory of the lighted Dom
and Taschhorn. Let them glow!

At the upper ice-filled hut we rested. The vastness of the mountain
began to affect me. I saw by now that the Wellenkuppe was a little
thing. The three thousand extra feet made all the difference. This was
obviously beyond me, and I could never get to the summit. It was
ridiculous of the Pollingers to think I could. I told them so quite
crossly as we went on. Probably they had made a mistake; they would, no
doubt, find it out on the Shoulder. It seemed rather hard that I should
have to get there when it was so easy to turn back at once. But I said
nothing more and climbed. My heart did its work well, and my head did
not ache. This was a surprise to me, as I had looked for some sort of
_malaise_ above twelve thousand feet. As it did not come I stared at the
big world about me. I viewed it all with a kind of anger and alarmed
surprise. Where was I being taken to? I began to see they were taking me
out of the realm of the usual. I was rapidly ascending into the
unknown, and I did not like it in the least. If we fell from the
_arete_ we might not stop going for four thousand feet. Down below, a
thin, blue line was a _bergschrund_ that was capable of swallowing an
army corps. That patch of bluish patina was a tumbled mass of _seracs_.
The sloping glacier looked flat.

Then the guides said we were going slowly. I knew they meant that for
me, of course, and I felt very angry with them. They consoled me by
saying that we should soon be at the Shoulder, and that it would not
take long to reach the summit. I did not believe them and I said I
should never do it. But when we got to the Shoulder I was glad. I knew
many turned back at that point. We sat down to rest. The guides talked
their own German, not one word of which I could understand, so turned
from them and looked at the vast upper wedge of the Matterhorn. It
glowed red in the morning sun; it was red hot, vast, ponderous, and yet
the lower mountain held it up as lightly as an ashen shaft holds up a
bronze spear-head. It was so wonderfully shaped that it did not look
big. But it did look dia