The cold and the increasing thickness of the snow-storm drove us down, but it was glorious while it lasted.
The next morning at breakfast we observed for the last time the amiable manners of the young Frenchman with the downy moustache who always kissed his father, mother and two sisters on the forehead before sitting down to his coffee, and admired once more the embroidered napkin-covers of the English family. Then we asked for our bill. The sun was really out that morning and the clouds looked as if they might lift, but we did not feel that we could stay longer in Chamonix. Antonio’s time in Switzerland was growing very limited, and we must give him a few days to rest at the Châlet Edelweiss before starting on the homeward journey.
The amiable French proprietress blandly presented us with a bill about twice the size agreed upon. Then followed heavy weather. If there is anything under heaven I hate, it is an altercation over a bill, but my three companions stood expectantly beside me, and I can be voluble in French when I have to be. So I girded up my loins and did my duty. Back and forth we hurled the language, up and down we shrugged our shoulders, using hands and eye-brows to intensify our effects. She was much bigger than I, and her voice was louder. Also she had doubtless had more practice. But the Three stood firm behind me to block retreat, and the consciousness of being in the right presumably buoyed me up.
All at once, without the slightest warning of an approaching change of front, the proprietress dropped her blustering voice, yielded the point at issue with an incredible gracefulness, made out the bill anew in the way it ought to be, and devoted the last few minutes of our stay to making an agreeable impression. The clouds were lifting. Ah, we should have a view of Mont Blanc before we left! Quick, François, bring the big telescope and have it all ready. Ah—ah—joy! There go the clouds! There at last is Mont Blanc!
There it was, and we were very glad we did not have to leave Chamonix without seeing it. But aside from this academic satisfaction, Mont Blanc is very disappointing,—a wide, rounded excrescence on a long mountain range, hardly any higher apparently than the surrounding peaks, some of which are infinitely more picturesque in form. In fact, the dominating feature of the Chamonix scenery is not that broad lumpy saddle-back of Mont Blanc, but the serrated rows of needle peaks called Aiguilles rising black above the snow, uptilted rock-strata worn away by erosion, the most spectacular objects, except the Matterhorn, in all the Alps.
A party who had ascended Mont Blanc the day of our arrival, before the rain came on, and had been imprisoned at the summit ever since, were taking advantage of this first clearing to get down. Through the telescope we could see them plainly—little moving black specks on the snow field, descending towards the Grands Mulets.
We left them presently, Madame and François and the rest of the hotel staff in a perfect ferment of amiability and politeness, and walked up the valley to Argentière, then, sharply turning to the left, followed the diligence road over the Tête Noire.