On The Matterhorn

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Title:     On The Matterhorn
Author: Morley Roberts [More Titles by Roberts]

Owing to my having read very little Alpine literature, I have seen but few attempts to analyse the mental experiences of the novice who, for the first time, ascends any of the higher peaks. And having read nothing upon the subject I was naturally curious, while I was at Zermatt this last summer, as to what these experiences were. I may own frankly that the desire to find out had a great deal to do with my trying mountaineering. A writer, and especially a writer of fiction, has, I think, one plain duty always before him. He ought to know, and cannot refuse to learn, even at the cost of toil and trouble, all the ways of the human mind. And experience at second-hand can never be relied on. The average man is afraid of saying he was afraid. And the average climber is one who has long passed the interesting stage when he first faced the unknown. I was obviously a novice, and a green one, when I tried the Matterhorn. That I was such a novice is the only thing which makes me think my experience at all interesting from the psychological point of view. And to my mind that point of view is also the literary one.

On looking back I certainly believe I was very much afraid of the mountains in general and of the Matterhorn in particular. It is difficult, however, to say where fear begins and mere natural nervousness leaves off. Fear, after all, is often the note of warning sounded by a man's organism in the face of the unknown. It is hardly strange it should be felt upon the mountains. But if I was afraid of the mountains (and I thought that I was) I was certainly curious. During my first week at Zermatt I had done a good second-class peak, but had been told that the difference between the first and second class was prodigious. This naturally excited curiosity. And I began to feel that my curiosity could only be satisfied by climbing the Matterhorn. For one thing that mountain has a great name; for another it looks inaccessible. And it had only been done once that year. If I did it I should be the first Englishman on the summit for the season. And the guides were doubtful whether it would "go."

But, after all, was it not said by folks who climbed to the Schwartzsee that the mountain was really easy? Were not the slabs above the Shoulder roped? Did not processions go up it in the middle of the season? And yet it was now only the first of July and there was a good deal of new snow on the mountain. And why were the guides just a little doubtful? Perhaps they were doubtful of me; and yet Joseph Pollinger had taken me up three smaller peaks. I decided that I had hired him to do the thinking. But I could not make him do it all.

The day I had spent upon the Wellenkuppe had been a time of imagination, and I had seen the beauty of things. But from the Matterhorn I can eliminate the element of beauty. I saw very little beauty in it or from it. I had other things to do than to think of the sublime. But I could think of the ridiculous, and at one o'clock in the morning, when we started from the hut with a lantern, I said the whole proceeding was folly. I was a fool to be there. And down below me, far below me, glimmered the crevassed slopes of the Furgg Glacier. I grew callous and absorbed, and I shrugged my shoulders as the dawn came up. I did not care to turn my eyes to look upon the red rose glory of the lighted Dom and Taschhorn. Let them glow!

At the upper ice-filled hut we rested. The vastness of the mountain began to affect me. I saw by now that the Wellenkuppe was a little thing. The three thousand extra feet made all the difference. This was obviously beyond me, and I could never get to the summit. It was ridiculous of the Pollingers to think I could. I told them so quite crossly as we went on. Probably they had made a mistake; they would, no doubt, find it out on the Shoulder. It seemed rather hard that I should have to get there when it was so easy to turn back at once. But I said nothing more and climbed. My heart did its work well, and my head did not ache. This was a surprise to me, as I had looked for some sort of _malaise_ above twelve thousand feet. As it did not come I stared at the big world about me. I viewed it all with a kind of anger and alarmed surprise. Where was I being taken to? I began to see they were taking me out of the realm of the usual. I was rapidly ascending into the unknown, and I did not like it in the least. If we fell from the _arete_ we might not stop going for four thousand feet. Down below, a thin, blue line was a _bergschrund_ that was capable of swallowing an army corps. That patch of bluish patina was a tumbled mass of _seracs_. The sloping glacier looked flat.

Then the guides said we were going slowly. I knew they meant that for me, of course, and I felt very angry with them. They consoled me by saying that we should soon be at the Shoulder, and that it would not take long to reach the summit. I did not believe them and I said I should never do it. But when we got to the Shoulder I was glad. I knew many turned back at that point. We sat down to rest. The guides talked their own German, not one word of which I could understand, so turned from them and looked at the vast upper wedge of the Matterhorn. It glowed red in the morning sun; it was red hot, vast, ponderous, and yet the lower mountain held it up as lightly as an ashen shaft holds up a bronze spear-head. It was so wonderfully shaped that it did not look big. But it did look diabolic. There was some infernal wizardry of cloud-making going on about that spear-head. The wind blew to us across the Zmutt Valley. Nevertheless, the wind above the Roof, as they call it, was blowing in every direction, and the live wisps of newborn cloud went in and out like the shuttles of a loom. I came to the conclusion that this was a particularly devilish, uncanny sort of show, and stared at it open-eyed. But I was comforted by the thought that the Pollingers were rapidly coming to the belief that this was not the sort of day to go any higher. I was quite angry when they declared we could do it easily. For I knew better, or my disturbed mind thought I did. This was the absolutely unknown to me, and their experience was nothing to my alarmed instincts. I was sure that my ancestors had lived on plains, and now I was dragging them into dangers that they knew nothing of. Nevertheless, I told the guides to go on. I spoke with a kind of eager interest and desperation. For, indeed, it was most appallingly interesting. We came to the slabs where the ropes made the Matterhorn so easy, as I had been told. I wished that some of those who believed this were with me.

But with the fixed ropes to lay hold of I climbed fast. I relinquished such holds upon solidity with reluctance. That yonder was the top, said my men, but for fully half a minute I declined to go any further. For it was quite obvious to me that I should never get down again. But again I shrugged my shoulders and went on. I might just as well do the whole thing. And sensation followed sensation. My mind was like a slow plate taking one photograph on top of the other. It was like wax, something new stamped out the last minute's impression. I heard my guides telling me that we must get to the summit because the people in Zermatt would be looking through telescopes. I did not care how many people looked through telescopes. So far as I was concerned the moon-men might be doing the same. I was one of three balancing fools on a rope.

And then we came to the heavy snow on the little five-fold curving _arete_ that is the summit. Within a stone's throw of the top I declared again that I was quite high enough to satisfy me, but with a little more persuasion I went across the last three-foot ridge of snow, reached the top and sat down.

The folks at Zermatt were staring, no doubt, but I had nothing to do with them. Let them look if they wished to. For it was impossible to get to the top, and I was there. It was far more impossible to get down, and we were going to try. That was interesting. I had never been so interested before. For though I hoped we should succeed I did not think it likely. So I took in what I could, while I could, and stared at the visible anatomy of the Mischabel and the patina-stained floor of the white world with intense, yet aloof, interest. After a mere five minutes' rest we started on our ridiculous errand. But though I was as sure in my mind that we should not get down as I had been that we should not get up, there was an instant reversal of feeling. My instincts had been trying to prevent my ascending; they were eagerly bent on descending. I did not mind going down each difficult place, for I was going back into the known. Every step took me nearer the usual. I was going home to humanity. These mountains were cold company; they were indifferent. I was close up against cold original causes, which did not come to me mitigated and warmed by human contact or the breath of a city. I had had enough of them.

There are gaps in my memory; strange lacunae. I remember the Roof, the slabs, the big snow patch above the Shoulder. Much that comes between I know nothing of. But the snow-patch is burnt into my mind, for though it was but a hundred _metres_ across it took us half-an-hour's slow care to get down it. Without the stakes set in it and the reserve rope it would have been almost impossible. It only gradually dawned on me that this care was needed to prevent the whole snow-field from coming away with us. I breathed again on rock. But the little _couloirs_ that we had crossed coming up were now dangerous. I threw a handful of snow into several, and the snow that lay there quietly whispered, moved, rustled, hissed like snakes, and went away. But I could hardly realise that there was danger here or there. There was, of course, danger to come, yonder, round the corner of some rock. But the guides were very careful and a little anxious. It dawned on me, as I watched them with a set mind, that this was rather a bad day for the Matterhorn.

The distances now seemed appalling. After hours of work I looked round and saw the wedge stand up just over me. It made me irritable. When, in the name of Heaven, were we coming to the upper hut? When we did at last get there I began to feel that by happy chance we might really reach Zermatt again after all.

Once more I had vowed a thousand times that I would never climb again. But I know I shall, though I hardly know why. It is not that the fatigue is so good for the body that can endure it. Nor is it the mere sight of the wonders of Nature. The very thing that is terrifying is the attraction, for the unknown calls us always.

But if there is a great pleasure, and a terrible pleasure, in coming into (and out of) the unknown, it is intensified by the fact that one is learning what is in one's self. It is a curious fact that writers seem to have done a great deal of climbing. Many of the first explorers among the higher Alps may not unjustly be classed among men of letters, and some of them, no doubt, went on a double errand. They learnt something of the unknown in two ways.

[The end]
Morley Roberts's essay: On The Matterhorn

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