Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece | Page 6

the sable spires. Sometimes the cloud descends
and blots out everything. Again it lifts a little, showing cottages and
distant Alps beneath its skirts. Then it sweeps over the whole valley
like a veil, just broken here and there above a lonely châlet or a thread
of distant dangling torrent foam. Sounds, too, beneath the mist are more
strange. The torrent seems to have a hoarser voice and grinds the stones
more passionately against its boulders. The cry of shepherds through
the fog suggests the loneliness and danger of the hills. The bleating of

penned sheep or goats, and the tinkling of the cowbells, are
mysteriously distant and yet distinct in the dull dead air. Then, again,
how immeasurably high above our heads appear the domes and peaks
of snow revealed through chasms in the drifting cloud; how desolate
the glaciers and the avalanches in gleams of light that struggle through
the mist! There is a leaden glare peculiar to clouds, which makes the
snow and ice more lurid. Not far from the house where I am writing,
the avalanche that swept away the bridge last winter is lying now,
dripping away, dank and dirty, like a rotting whale. I can see it from
my window, green beech-boughs nodding over it, forlorn larches
bending their tattered branches by its side, splinters of broken pine
protruding from its muddy caves, the boulders on its flank, and the
hoarse hungry torrent tossing up its tongues to lick the ragged edge of
snow. Close by, the meadows, spangled with yellow flowers and red
and blue, look even more brilliant than if the sun were shining on them.
Every cup and blade of grass is drinking. But the scene changes; the
mist has turned into rain-clouds, and the steady rain drips down,
incessant, blotting out the view. Then, too, what a joy it is if the clouds
break towards evening with a north wind, and a rainbow in the valley
gives promise of a bright to-morrow! We look up to the cliffs above
our heads, and see that they have just been powdered with the snow
that is a sign of better weather.
Such rainy days ought to be spent in places like Seelisberg and Mürren,
at the edge of precipices, in front of mountains, or above a lake. The
cloud-masses crawl and tumble about the valleys like a brood of
dragons; now creeping along the ledges of the rock with sinuous
self-adjustment to its turns and twists; now launching out into the deep,
repelled by battling winds, or driven onward in a coil of twisted and
contorted serpent curls. In the midst of summer these wet seasons often
end in a heavy fall of snow. You wake some morning to see the
meadows which last night were gay with July flowers huddled up in
snow a foot in depth. But fair weather does not tarry long to reappear.
You put on your thickest boots and sally forth to find the great cups of
the gentians full of snow, and to watch the rising of the cloud-wreaths
under the hot sun. Bad dreams or sickly thoughts, dissipated by
returning daylight or a friend's face, do not fly away more rapidly and

pleasantly than those swift glory-coated mists that lose themselves we
know not where in the blue depths of the sky.
In contrast with these rainy days nothing can be more perfect than clear
moonlight nights. There is a terrace upon the roof of the inn at
Courmayeur where one may spend hours in the silent watches, when all
the world has gone to sleep beneath. The Mont Chétif and the Mont de
la Saxe form a gigantic portal not unworthy of the pile that lies beyond.
For Mont Blanc resembles a vast cathedral; its countless spires are
scattered over a mass like that of the Duomo at Milan, rising into one
tower at the end. By night the glaciers glitter in the steady moon;
domes, pinnacles, and buttresses stand clear of clouds. Needles of every
height and most fantastic shapes rise from the central ridge, some
solitary, like sharp arrows shot against the sky, some clustering into
sheaves. On every horn of snow and bank of grassy hill stars sparkle,
rising, setting, rolling round through the long silent night. Moonlight
simplifies and softens the landscape. Colours become scarcely
distinguishable, and forms, deprived of half their detail, gain in majesty
and size. The mountains seem greater far by night than day--higher
heights and deeper depths, more snowy pyramids, more beetling crags,
softer meadows, and darker pines. The whole valley is hushed, but for
the torrent and the chirping grasshopper and the striking of the village
clocks. The black tower and the houses of Courmayeur in the
foreground gleam beneath the moon until she reaches the edge