g impatiently for the rising of the sun, the most vigorous among
them having climbed to a little belvedere, the steps of which, wadded
with snow, could be whitely distinguished in the vanishing darkness.

A gleam was beginning to light the Orient, saluted by a fresh blast from
the Alpine horn, and that "Ah!!" of relief, always heard in theatres
when the third bell raises the curtain.

Slight as a ray through a shutter, this gleam, nevertheless, enlarged
the horizon, but, at the same moment a fog, opaque and yellow, rose from
the valley, a steam that grew more thick, more penetrating as the day
advanced. 'T was a veil between the scene and the spectators.

All hope was now renounced of the gigantic effects predicted in the
guide-books. On the other hand, the heteroclite array of the dancers of
the night before, torn from their slumbers, appeared in fantastic and
ridiculous outline like the shades of a magic lantern; shawls, rugs, and
even bed-quilts wrapped around them. Under varied headgear, nightcaps
of silk or cotton, broad-brimmed female hats, turbans, fur caps with
ear-pads, were haggard faces, swollen faces, heads of shipwrecked beings
cast upon a desert island in mid-ocean, watching for a sail in the
offing with staring eyes.

But nothing--everlastingly nothing!

Nevertheless, certain among them strove, in a gush of good-will, to
distinguish the surrounding summits, and, on the top of the belvedere
could be heard the clucking of the Peruvian family, pressing around a
big devil, wrapped to his feet in a checked ulster, who was pointing out
imperturbably, the invisible panorama of the Bernese Alps, naming in a
loud voice the peaks that were lost in the fog.

"You see on the left the Finsteraarhorn, thirteen thousand seven hundred
and ninety-five feet high... the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the Monk,
the Jungfrau, the elegant proportions of which I especially point out to
these young ladies..."

"_Be! ve!_ there's one who does n't lack cheek!" thought Tartarin; then,
on reflection, he added: "I know that voice, _au mouain._"

He recognized the accent, that accent of the South, distinguishable
from afar like garlic; but, quite preoccupied in finding again his fair
Unknown, he did not pause, and continued to inspect the groups--without
result. She must have reentered the hotel, as they all did now, weary
with standing about, shivering, to no purpose, so that presently no one
remained on the cold and desolate p