“Well, well; the sad minutes are moving,
Though loaded with trouble and pain;
And some time the loved and the loving
Shall meet on the mountain again.” ¹

The man closed the book of poetry and put it in his pack.  Glancing upward he noticed that Horu, as the locals call it, had a cloud pinned to its peak.  The man was here at the Matterhorn to climb as high as he could, until he could go no further.

That morning started early, with a brisk walk to the gondola station. Then came a ride up through Furi to Schwarzsee in a cable car.  After a bit of hiking, he came upon a bench.  It offered a respite to rest the knees, catch the breath – and read a verse or two.

Thoughts turned introspective as his feet again turned up the path.  Images of his parents came to mind.  They had carried him along, lifted high on his father’s shoulders so he could watch the world go by, or cradled in the arms of his mother as he napped.  Eventually he left their gondola and struck out on his own.

Traversing a break in the ridge he spied a woman sitting on a slab ahead.  On his approach she nodded at him.  “Gehst du zur bergstation?”

He smiled.  “I’m going to the Hörnlihütte.”

“American.  Let me walk with you for a bit. To the bergstation.”

She donned her pack and the two were soon strolling together.  The man found his new companion to be fine company indeed.  They talked in a manner which suggested more intimacy than expected from two strangers who had just met.  Her laughter filled the air. She turned often to look into his eyes.  Their connection was exhilarating, and his heart seemed to beat faster than was required for the hike.  

He hoped the morning would never end, but eventually they reached the bergstation.  The man’s eyes darted from the trail marker to the forking paths.  He desperately wanted to postpone their goodbye.  He could tell she felt the same.  Finally she said, “Well, thank you for the company.  I must leave you here, for I am going to Trockener Steg.  A hug?”

They hugged and the man felt a pit in his stomach.  He knew they would not meet again, for this scene had played many times before with others.  His eyes watched her lithe frame grow smaller as she walked across the slope, finally disappearing around a bend.  A cloud rolled in to block the sun, and it seemed to darken his mood as well.

Faces drifted past in his mind, as pages of an open book flipping in the wind.  Memories of lovers and friends who had traveled alongside over the years.  A woman who stayed the longest held his focus for but an instant.  In the end their hearts held nothing.  There were others like that, but some faces lingered.  Those who left him before he was ready, or so he thought.

Finally he managed to reach the Hörnlihütte and relaxed with some soup at a table outside.  Sitting on the patio he could see Trockener Steg on the slope below.  But it was too far to catch sight of her – the one he had lost.  

Finished with his meal, onward he went.  A few hundred yards above the hut the Hörnli ridge abruptly went vertical and his climb was at an end, well shy of the summit as he knew it would be. He sat there on the gneiss, looking again into the valley below.

The man had only been thirty years old at the apex of his career – joining a company just in time to help launch a new product which became famous in industry.  The decades in a job which followed were mostly unremarkable.

His hair was graying.  His heart and lungs were tired.  Yet his legs could still climb Horu.  He didn’t want to be like Harry in Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilimanjaro.”  Death came unexpectedly to Harry, who was filled with regret for all the things left undone.  Harry wanted to go to the mountain of his dreams, and in the end redeemed his regrets and got his wish, if only in a final reverie. 

In the distance the man could see over a dozen peaks.  He thought of mountains which have inspired our stories from ancient times. 

Mount Olympus formed after a battle between upstart Olympians and Titans of the old order.  Mount Fuji became a volcano when the emperor tried to send a letter to a moon princess – by burning elixir atop Japan’s highest peak – a fire that was never extinguished.  Mount Etna is the eye of Cyclops, pierced by Odysseus’ lance. Or the lair of Typhon, a fire-spewing dragon punished by Zeus – depending on which story one reads.

The Swiss have similarly attached legends to their massifs.  Pontius Pilate, the Roman prefect of Judaea, is buried on Mount Pilatus according to tradition. Nearby are three peaks named after a maiden (Jungfrau), monk (Moench), and ogre (Eiger).  And yet of all the mountains in Switzerland, one is most famous for its recognizable form.

Indeed it is the Matterhorn which inspired a legend of giants fallen to earth.  They were named Gargantua (or depending on the story one hears, his friend Cervin).  Cervin slipped on the ice and clove the Alpine range, leaving Horu as a consequence.

Rested, the man decided it was time to head back down Cervin’s fallen imprint.

Descending would be harder than the climb, even though it would take less time.  On the way up there was energy, hope, and anticipation.  Going down promised just the strain of doing – stiffness in hips, soreness in ankles.  Everything had already been seen and done.  Now there was merely the joy of being.  Which was not a bad thing.

Below the hut the trail branched and he decided to take the long way back.  The path turned left and took him under the horn’s north face.  

The pace here was easier and the solitude was complete – there were few hikers this way.  He thought again of old friends, some of whom had passed.  Many others had simply faded away, going in directions which took them out of sight.

The pinwheel of faces stopped on one and refused to move.  Her body joined her contenance, and mingled with him in an embrace.  He heard her laughter again – rippling through the years.  Tears welled up in the man’s eyes.  He suddenly missed her very much.  Of course she would be older now.  She had been to Horu with him once.  Many years ago, when they were young, and still of a mind that they would finish their journey together.

He decided that each had wandered a different path, traveling together briefly before going separate ways.  The loved and the loving would not meet on the mountain again.  Or would they?  If Harry could dream of Kilimanjaro, then the man could dream too.  Suddenly he was there with her, all those years ago, laughing on Horu’s side.  He smiled, hoping she found happiness on her own journey.

“Danke,” he said – but only the mountain heard.

—————–

The Matterhorn  © 2021-2024 by Dean Jen

¹  Emily Brontë, “Loud Without the Wind was Roaring,” Public Domain, 1846