La Nuit des Drus, by Charles Gos. 8 vo. New edition. Neuchatel: Attinger, 1934. Price Fr. 3.50.

It would appear at first glance inconceivable that a volume could be written on the subject of one night’s bivouac close to the summit of a mountain peak ; yet this is just what M. Gos achieves. In this gripping story, almost melodramatic in its intensity, M. Gos and his young companion are overtaken by darkness on a high and desolate Alpine crag. Their lofty perch can hardly be graced by the name of bivouac. Huddled together, they watch the slow approach of dusk, its lengthy deepening into night. The minutes drag one by one ; each quarter of an hour seems an eternity. They converse and doze. M. Gos watches with growing concern the sufferings of his delicate and lame friend who shows signs of dying from cold and exposure. He brews tea, only to have it kicked down the precipice. He gives the boy his last drop of cognac, wraps him up in the spare rope for extra warmth ; and finally sacrifices his own ice-axe which he shaves into kindling in order to make more tea—in a metal flask ; and, finally, plays the old game of make-believe.

It is in this volume that M. Gos evokes the beautiful prayer which is in the heart, consciously or otherwise, of every mountain climber :

“Little pebbles that drone like maddened hornets, lacerating the air in your falling, have pity on us !

“Rocky callosity which our hand grasps, support us !

“Slabs split by space and trampled by our climbing feet, retain your tomb-like immobility !

“Overhang whose corbelling pushes our body with wheedling gentleness toward the open spaces of the abyss, have pity on us !

“Minute out-jutting, keep our foot whilst a blind arm tentatively feels over the polished rock ; tiny protuberance that bears our life, oh, be pitiful !

“Walls flagellated by the wind,

double attraction of the abyss, upward and downward ;

specks of snow abandoned by the light, and which die like

violets in inaccessible retreats ;

impetuous upheaval of ridges assaulting the sky ;

hanging glacial gardens, jade-green and royal-blue, glacial

gardens

with cliffs of a glass-cutter’s crystal ;

crackling whiteness of sunlit glaciers slack as a calm sea ;

litanies of silence ;

litany of the horizons ;

melopoeias of distant torrents and invisible avalanches ;

cruel smell of rock ;

stale odor of snow ;

mustiness of the abyss ;

have pity on us ! protect us !

Beauty of sky ;

beauty of light ;

beauty of the colors ;

beauty of everything;

presence of death ;

constant presence of death ;

have pity on us ! protect us !

O Beauty of Living, may your power within us raise us to the summit.

Accept our solitary struggles as the purest pledge of our faith.”

G. I. F.-G.