o
get to the top, and I was there. It was far more impossible to get down,
and we were going to try. That was interesting. I had never been so
interested before. For though I hoped we should succeed I did not think
it likely. So I took in what I could, while I could, and stared at the
visible anatomy of the Mischabel and the patina-stained floor of the
white world with intense, yet aloof, interest. After a mere five
minutes' rest we started on our ridiculous errand. But though I was as
sure in my mind that we should not get down as I had been that we should
not get up, there was an instant reversal of feeling. My instincts had
been trying to prevent my ascending; they were eagerly bent on
descending. I did not mind going down each difficult place, for I was
going back into the known. Every step took me nearer the usual. I was
going home to humanity. These mountains were cold company; they were
indifferent. I was close up against cold original causes, which did not
come to me mitigated and warmed by human contact or the breath of a
city. I had had enough of them.

There are gaps in my memory; strange lacunae. I remember the Roof, the
slabs, the big snow patch above the Shoulder. Much that comes between I
know nothing of. But the snow-patch is burnt into my mind, for though it
was but a hundred _metres_ across it took us half-an-hour's slow care to
get down it. Without the stakes set in it and the reserve rope it would
have been almost impossible. It only gradually dawned on me that this
care was needed to prevent the whole snow-field from coming away with
us. I breathed again on rock. But the little _couloirs_ that we had
crossed coming up were now dangerous. I threw a handful of snow into
several, and the snow that lay there quietly whispered, moved, rustled,
hissed like snakes, and went away. But I could hardly realise that there
was danger here or there. There was, of course, danger to come, yonder,
round the corner of some rock. But the guides were very careful and a
little anxious. It dawned on me, as I watched them with a set mind, that
this was rather a bad day for the Matterhorn.

The distances now seemed appalling. After hours of work I looked round
and saw the wedge stand up just over me. It made me irritable. When, in
the name of Heaven, were we coming to the upper hut? When we did at
last get there I began to feel that by happy chance we might really
reach Zermatt again after all.

Once more I had vowed a