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Updated: June 15, 2025
We marched on again when Finois had been reloaded, the party keeping well together, lest we should lose each other in this mist which was snow, this snow which was mist. The Boy and I walked ahead at first; I silent lest I should laugh, he silent probably lest he should cry.
The morning was bitterly chill, but the tingling water soon sent the blood racing through my veins, and by ten o'clock I was knocking at the Boy's door. No answer came, and thinking that he must already be down, I was on my way across the white, frozen grass to the restaurant, when I met the muleteer coming up with Finois. "Hallo, Joseph!" I exclaimed in surprise. "Where are Fanny and Souris?"
Joseph promised other choice bits of interest in and near mountain-ringed Chambéry; but I had small appetite for sightseeing without the Boy, and after my brief reverence to the elephants, I hurried the muleteer and mule to the hotel. At the door we were met by a porter, far too polite a person to betray the surprise which my companions Joseph and Finois invariably excited in civilisation.
I broke in, heedless of antiquities, in my surprise at seeing two of those animals which experience had taught me to look upon as more rare than Joseph's "seldom plant." "Two donkeys in front of the inn. Where on earth can they have sprung from? I would have given a good deal for that sight a few days ago, but now" and I glanced at the dignified Finois "I can regard them simply with curiosity."
I found him alone with Finois. The donkeys and their fair guardian had gone. "Well," said I, as we got upon our way, "I trust you had an agreeable spell of rest? The lady in the Riviera hat looked promising. If her conversation matched her appearance, you were in luck, and well repaid for taking your refreshment out of doors."
It was during one of these, while Finois cropped an indigestible branch, that Joseph opened his heart, and told me his life's history. It had been more or less adventurous, and it had held a tragedy, for Joseph had loved, and the fair had jilted him on the eve of their marriage, for a prosperous baker.
We were off, Joseph, Finois, and I; there was no getting round it; and as we ambled away along the hot white road, we seemed but small things in the scheme of a busy and indifferent world mere cards, shuffled by the hands of an expert, for a game in which our destination was unknown. The Brat "Be kind and courteous to this gentleman; hop in his walk and gambol in his eyes."
Joseph appeared to be the one human being of more importance for Finois than the moving bough of an inedible tree, bush, or shrub, and even Molly could win him to no change of facial expression, though he ate her offered sugar. There was a pang when I turned my back irrevocably upon my friends, having waved my hand or my panama so often that to do so again would he ridiculous.
"He shall consent, or I will know the reason why," I said to myself fiercely; but aloud I merely answered that I would be glad of a few minutes' conversation with the young gentleman. My host led me to the house door, introduced me to a handsome sister, who was my hostess, explained to her the situation, with the view of it we had arrived at, and descended to show Joseph where to shelter Finois.
Joseph and Innocentina, who had been driving Finois and Souris, allowing Fanny to follow at will, had called a halt with the three animals, in a green dell where the way widened.
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