ter. On the entrance of the Alpinist she stopped, and one
of the young men rose, the taller, a sort of moujik, a dog-man, with
hairy paws, and long, straight, shining black hair joining an unkempt
beard. He made two steps in the direction of the new-comer, looked at
him provocatively, and so fiercely that the worthy Alpinist, without
demanding an explanation, made a prudent and judicious half-turn to the
right.

"_Differemment_, they are not affable, these Northerners," he said
aloud; and he shut the door noisily, to prove to that savage that he was
not afraid of him.

The salon remained as a last refuge; he went there... _Coquin de
sort!_... The morgue, my good friends, the morgue of the Saint-Bernard
where the monks expose the frozen bodies found beneath the snows in
the various attitudes in which congealing death has stiffened them, can
alone describe that salon of the Rigi-Kulm.

All those numbed, mute women, in groups upon the circular sofas, or
isolated and fallen into chairs here and there; all those misses,
motionless be-. neath the lamps on the round tables, still holding in
their hands the book or the work they were employed on when the cold
congealed them. Among them were the daughters of the general, eight
little Peruvians with saffron skins, their features convulsed, the vivid
ribbons on their gowns contrasting with the dead-leaf tones of English
fashions; poor little _sunny-climes_, easy to imagine as laughing and
frolicking beneath their cocoa-trees and now more distressing
to behold than the rest in their glacial, mute condition. In the
background, before the piano, was the death-mask of the old diplomat,
his mittened hands resting inert upon the keyboard, the yellowing tones
of which were reflected on his face.

Betrayed by his strength and his memory, lost in a polka of his own
composition, beginning it again and again, unable to remember its
conclusion, the unfortunate Stoltz had gone to sleep while playing,
and with him all the ladies on the Rigi, nodding, as they slumbered,
romantic curls, or those peculiar lace caps, in shape like the crust of
a vol-au-vent, that English dames affect, and which seem to be part of
the canf of travelling.

The entrance of the Alpinist did not awaken them, and he himself had
dropped upon a divan, overcome by such icy discouragement, when the
sound of vigorous, joyous chords burst from the vestibule; where three
"musicos," harp, flute, and violin, ambulating mins