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Updated: June 20, 2025
The Boy, who was still sulking in the dressing-gown, suddenly broke by a spasmodic chuckle the silence which had blended chillingly with the weather. "What's up?" I enquired, thawing joyously in the brief gleam of moral sunshine. "I was only thinking that if Innocentina wants to convert Joseph from heresy she'd better not lecture him to-day about eternal fire. The idea is too inviting.
"See, Monsieur, a worm; he comes up out of his hole, and the earth clings to him as he walks abroad. If he were clean, that would be a sign of another bad day to follow." "At least we are going down to summer again," I replied; "also to the young Monsieur; and to Innocentina. But perhaps you are glad of a rest from her sharp tongue." Joseph shrugged his shoulders.
I took them to be rival mothers-in-law, and they could have taught Innocentina some choice new expressions valuable to test upon donkeys or other heretics; but they sent me a steaming bowl of excellent coffee, when I half expected poison; fried me a couple of eggs with crisp brown lace round the edges, and took for my benefit, from one of the shelves that lined the nursery wall, the newest of a hundred loaves of hard black bread.
"You have been so good to us, don't be un-good now. I suppose one may hate men, yet be grateful to one man anyhow, till one finds him out? I can't very well find you out between here and Aosta, can I? so we may be friends, if you'll walk beside me, neither behind nor in front. I am excited, and feel as if I must have someone to talk to, but I am a little tired of conversation with Innocentina.
Having intruded upon him suddenly, behind the screen of snow-cloud, I found him engaged in the Samaritan act no doubt carried out on purely humanitarian principles of warming one of Innocentina's hands in his. I simulated blindness with such histrionic skill that honest Joseph was deceived thereby; but not so Innocentina.
Joseph had visited the Hospice many times, and knew the etiquette for strangers. He bade me go in, and ring the bell at the grille, unless I should meet one of the monks before reaching it. I mounted the steps, entered the wide doorway which had framed the dog's head, and found myself in a vast, dusky corridor, resonant with strange echoings, and mysterious with flitting shadows, which might be ghosts of the past, or live beings of the present. As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, I saw that there were numerous persons in this great hall: tall monks in flowing robes of black, beggars come to solicit alms or breakfast; and dogs, many dogs, who crowded round me, with a waving of huge tails, and a gleaming of brown jewelled eyes in the dusk. I did not need to ring the bell of the iron gate beyond which, according to Joseph, no woman has ever passed. One of the monks came to me a tall, spare young man with a grave face, soft in expression, yet hardened in outline by a rigorous life and exposure to extreme cold. He gave me welcome in French, with here and there an interpellation of "Down, Turk," "Be quiet, Jupiter!" Would I like breakfast, he asked; and then yes, certainly to see the chapel, the bibliothèque, the monastery museum, and the Alpine garden? There would be plenty of time for this, and still to reach Aosta. Another monk was called, and an introduction effected. I was taken into a handsomely decorated refectory, where I opened my eyes in some astonishment at sight of the Imp, drinking coffee from a shallow bowl nearly as big as his childish head. Innocentina was no doubt at this moment shocking Joseph by some new depravity, in the salle-
The muleteer had a handful of exquisite pink cyclamen, fragrant as violets, which he had been gathering from hidden nooks among the rocks, and he was in the act of presenting the flowers to Innocentina when we arrived, but she waved them aside, exclaiming at her young master's pale face.
The Boy and I were ahead now, I sheltering him slightly from the cold blast with my body, as I walked before him. Presently the way turned abruptly, to zig-zag up a gap in the rock face, and I shouted a warning to Joseph to look after Innocentina and the animals, so steep and ruinous was the path. But I need not have been alarmed.
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