Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece | Page 9

untroubled by the coming and the going of
the world. The clouds drift over them--the sunset warms them with a
fiery kiss. Night comes, and we are hurried far away to wake beside the
Seine, remembering, with a pang of jealous passion, that the flowers on
Alpine meadows are still blooming, and the rivulets still flowing with a
ceaseless song, while Paris shops are all we see, and all we hear is the
dull clatter of a Paris crowd.
THE ALPS IN WINTER
The gradual approach of winter is very lovely in the high Alps. The
valley of Davos, where I am writing, more than five thousand feet
above the sea, is not beautiful, as Alpine valleys go, though it has
scenery both picturesque and grand within easy reach. But when
summer is passing into autumn, even the bare slopes of the least
romantic glen are glorified. Golden lights and crimson are cast over the
grey-green world by the fading of innumerable plants. Then the larches
begin to put on sallow tints that deepen into orange, burning against the
solid blue sky like amber. The frosts are severe at night, and the
meadow grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the
fields. Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the
noonday sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the
snow begins to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The
seasons are confused; wonderful days of flawless purity are

intermingled with storm and gloom. At last the time comes when a
great snowfall has to be expected. There is hard frost in the early
morning, and at nine o'clock the thermometer stands at 2°. The sky is
clear, but it clouds rapidly with films of cirrus and of stratus in the
south and west. Soon it is covered over with grey vapour in a level
sheet, all the hill-tops standing hard against the steely heavens. The
cold wind from the west freezes the moustache to one's pipe-stem. By
noon the air is thick with a coagulated mist; the temperature meanwhile
has risen, and a little snow falls at intervals. The valleys are filled with
a curious opaque blue, from which the peaks rise, phantom-like and
pallid, into the grey air, scarcely distinguishable from their background.
The pine-forests on the mountain-sides are of darkest indigo. There is
an indescribable stillness and a sense of incubation. The wind has fallen.
Later on, the snow-flakes flutter silently and sparely through the
lifeless air. The most distant landscape is quite blotted out. After sunset
the clouds have settled down upon the hills, and the snow comes in
thick, impenetrable fleeces. At night our hair crackles and sparkles
when we brush it. Next morning there is a foot and a half of finely
powdered snow, and still the snow is falling. Strangely loom the châlets
through the semi-solid whiteness. Yet the air is now dry and singularly
soothing. The pines are heavy with their wadded coverings; now and
again one shakes himself in silence, and his burden falls in a white
cloud, to leave a black-green patch upon the hillside, whitening again
as the imperturbable fall continues. The stakes by the roadside are
almost buried. No sound is audible. Nothing is seen but the
snow-plough, a long raft of planks with a heavy stone at its stem and a
sharp prow, drawn by four strong horses, and driven by a young man
erect upon the stem.
So we live through two days and nights, and on the third a north wind
blows. The snow-clouds break and hang upon the hills in scattered
fleeces; glimpses of blue sky shine through, and sunlight glints along
the heavy masses. The blues of the shadows are everywhere intense. As
the clouds disperse, they form in moulded domes, tawny like sunburned
marble in the distant south lands. Every châlet is a miracle of fantastic
curves, built by the heavy hanging snow. Snow lies mounded on the
roads and fields, writhed into loveliest wreaths, or outspread in the

softest undulations. All the irregularities of the hills are softened into
swelling billows like the mouldings of Titanic statuary.
It happened once or twice last winter that such a clearing after snowfall
took place at full moon. Then the moon rose in a swirl of fleecy
vapour--clouds above, beneath, and all around. The sky was blue as
steel, and infinitely deep with mist-entangled stars. The horn above
which she first appears stood carved of solid black, and through the
valley's length from end to end yawned chasms and clefts of liquid
darkness. As the moon rose, the clouds were conquered, and massed
into rolling waves upon the ridges of the hills. The spaces of open sky
grew still more blue. At last the silver