The Inn Page #2

"The Inn" is a short story by Guy de Maupassant that explores themes of human nature, desire, and the complexities of relationships in a rustic setting. The narrative unfolds at a remote inn, where a chance encounter between the protagonist and a local innkeeper leads to a poignant examination of love, longing, and societal expectations. Through Maupassant's evocative prose and keen insights into character psychology, the story captures the intricacies of emotion and the impact of fleeting moments in life.

								

and the young man returned to the chalet. Daddy Hari was smoking, and
when he saw his mate come in he proposed a game of cards to him, and
they sat down opposite each other, on either side of the table. They
played for a long time a simple game called brisque and then they had
supper and went to bed.

The following days were like the first, bright and cold, without any
fresh snow. Old Gaspard spent his afternoons in watching the eagles and
other rare birds which ventured on those frozen heights, while Ulrich
returned regularly to the Gemmi Pass to look at the village. Then they
played cards, dice or dominoes and lost and won a trifle, just to create
an interest in the game.

One morning Hari, who was up first, called his companion. A moving, deep
and light cloud of white spray was falling on them noiselessly and was
by degrees burying them under a thick, heavy coverlet of foam. That
lasted four days and four nights. It was necessary to free the door
and the windows, to dig out a passage and to cut steps to get over
this frozen powder, which a twelve hours' frost had made as hard as the
granite of the moraines.

They lived like prisoners and did not venture outside their abode. They
had divided their duties, which they performed regularly. Ulrich
Kunsi undertook the scouring, washing and everything that belonged to
cleanliness. He also chopped up the wood while Gaspard Hari did the
cooking and attended to the fire. Their regular and monotonous work was
interrupted by long games at cards or dice, and they never quarrelled,
but were always calm and placid. They were never seen impatient or
ill-humored, nor did they ever use hard words, for they had laid in a
stock of patience for their wintering on the top of the mountain.

Sometimes old Gaspard took his rifle and went after chamois, and
occasionally he killed one. Then there was a feast in the inn at
Schwarenbach and they revelled in fresh meat. One morning he went out as
usual. The thermometer outside marked eighteen degrees of frost, and as
the sun had not yet risen, the hunter hoped to surprise the animals at
the approaches to the Wildstrubel, and Ulrich, being alone, remained in
bed until ten o'clock. He was of a sleepy nature, but he would not have
dared to give way like that to his inclination in the presence of the
old guide, who was ever an early riser. He breakfasted leisurely with
Sam, who also spent his days and nights in sleeping in front of the
fire; then he felt low-spirited and even frightened at the solitude, and
was-seized by a longing for his daily game of cards, as one is by the
craving of a confirmed habit, and so he went out to meet his companion,
who was to return at four o'clock.

The snow had levelled the whole deep valley, filled up the crevasses,
obliterated all signs of the two lakes and covered the rocks, so that
between the high summits there was nothing but an immense, white,
regular, dazzling and frozen surface. For three weeks Ulrich had not
been to the edge of the precipice from which he had looked down on the
village, and he wanted to go there before climbing the slopes which led
to Wildstrubel. Loeche was now also covered by the snow and the houses
could scarcely be distinguished, covered as they were by that white
cloak.

Then, turning to the right, he reached the Loemmern glacier. He went
along with a mountaineer's long strides, striking the snow, which was as
hard as a rock, with his iron-pointed stick, and with his piercing eyes
he looked for the little black, moving speck in the distance, on that
enormous, white expanse.

When he reached the end of the glacier he stopped and asked himself
whether the old man had taken that road, and then he began to walk along
the moraines with rapid and uneasy steps. The day was declining, the
snow was assuming a rosy tint, and a dry, frozen wind blew in rough
gusts over its crystal surface. Ulrich uttered a long, shrill, vibrating
call. His voice sped through the deathlike silence in which the
mountains were sleeping; it reached the distance, across profound and
motionless waves of glacial foam, like the cry of a bird across the
waves of the sea. Then it died away and nothing answered him.

He began to walk again. The sun had sunk yonder behind the mountain
tops, which were still purple with the reflection from the sky, but the
depths of the valley were becoming gray, and suddenly the young man felt
frightened. It seemed to him as if the silence, the cold, the solitude,
the winter death of these mountains were taking possession of him, were
going to stop and to freeze his blood, to make his limbs grow stiff and
to turn him into a motionless and frozen object, and he set off running,
fleeing toward his dwelling. The old man, he thought, would have
returned during his absence. He had taken another road; he would, no
doubt, be sitting before the fire, with a dead chamois at his feet. He
soon came in sight of the inn, but no smoke rose from it. Ulrich walked
faster and opened the door. Sam ran up to him to greet him, but Gaspard
Hari had not returned. Kunsi, in his alarm, turned round suddenly, as
if he had expected to find his comrade hidden in a corner. Then he
relighted the fire and made the soup, hoping every moment to see the old
man come in. From time to time he went out to see if he were not coming.
It was quite night now, that wan, livid night of the mountains, lighted
by a thin, yellow crescent moon, just disappearing behind the mountain
tops.

Then the young man went in and sat down to warm his hands and feet,
while he pictured to himself every possible accident. Gaspard might
have broken a leg, have fallen into a crevasse, taken a false step and
dislocated his ankle. And, perhaps, he was lying on the snow, overcome
and stiff with the cold, in agony of mind, lost and, perhaps, shouting
for help, calling with all his might in the silence of the night.. But
where? The mountain was so vast, so rugged, so dangerous in places,
especially at that time of the year, that it would have required ten or
twenty guides to walk for a week in all directions to find a man in that
immense space. Ulrich Kunsi, however, made up his mind to set out with
Sam if Gaspard did not return by one in the morning, and he made his
preparations.

He put provisions for two days into a bag, took his steel climbing iron,
tied a long, thin, strong rope round his waist, and looked to see that
his iron-shod stick and his axe, which served to cut steps in the ice,
were in order. Then he waited. The fire was burning on the hearth, the
great dog was snoring in front of it, and the clock was ticking, as
regularly as a heart beating, in its resounding wooden case. He waited,
with his ears on the alert for distant sounds, and he shivered when
the wind blew against the roof and the walls. It struck twelve and he
trembled: Then, frightened and shivering, he put some water on the fire,
so that he might have some hot coffee before starting, and when the
clock struck one he got up, woke Sam, opened the door and went off in
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