The man stood motionless, like a soldier before his officer, and fixed an ardent look on his mistress, who continued: "Go quickly, you great idiot, we are not in the wood to-day, and Rosalie will attend to me better than you would." He turned on his heels and went, and the little Baroness asked nervously: "But what shall you say to your maid?" "I shall tell her what we have been doing! No, I shall merely get her to unlace me; it will relieve my chest, for I can scarcely breathe. I am drunk ... my dear ... so drunk that I should fall, if I were to get up from my chair." THE INN Like all the wooden inns in the higher Alps, which are situated in the rocky and bare gorges which intersect the white summits of the mountains, the inn of Schwarenbach stands as a refuge for travelers who are crossing the Gemmi. It remains open for six months in the year, and is inhabited by the family of Jean Hauser; then, as soon as the snow begins to fall, and fills the valley so as to make the road down to Loeche impassable, the father and his three sons go away, and leave the house in charge of the old guide, Gaspard Hari, with the young guide, Ulrich Kunzi, and Sam, the great mountain dog. The two men and the dog remained till the spring in their snowy prison, with nothing before their eyes except the immense, white slopes of the Balmhorn; they were surrounded by light, glistening summits, and shut up, blocked up and buried by the snow which rose around them, and which enveloped, bound and crushed the little house, which lay piled on the roof, reached to the windows and blocked up the door. It was the day on which the Hauser family were going to return to Loeche, as winter was approaching, and the descent was becoming dangerous. Three mules started first, laden with baggage and led by the three sons. Then the mother, Jean Hauser and her daughter Louise mounted a fourth mule, and set off in their turn, and the father followed them, accompanied by the two men in charge, who were to escort the family as far as the brow of the descent. First of all they passed round the small lake, which was now frozen over, at the bottom of the mass of rocks which stretched in front of the inn, and then they followed the valley, which was dominated on all sides by the snow covered summits. A ray of sunlight fell into that little white, glistening, frozen desert, and illuminated it with a cold and dazzling flame; no living thing appeared among this ocean of hills; there was nothing more in this immeasurable solitude, and no noise disturbed the profound silence.