"Did you see any idiots in Valais?" suddenly interrupted Marillac, as he
filled his pipe the second time.

"Several, and they were all horrible."

"Do you not think we might compose something with an idiot in it? It
might be rather taking."

"It would not equal Caliban or Quasimodo; will you be so kind as to spare
me just now these efforts of imagination, and listen to me, for I am
reaching the interesting part of my story?"

"God be praised!" said the artist, as he puffed out an enormous cloud of
smoke.

"The next day the Englishman was served with tea in his bedroom, and when
I asked him to go to the 'Mer de Glace' he turned his head toward the
wall; so, leaving my phlegmatic companion enveloped in bedclothes up to
his ears, I started alone for the Montanvert.

"It was a magnificent morning, and small parties of travellers, some on
foot, others mounted, skirted the banks of the Arve or climbed the sides
of the mountain. They looked like groups of mice in the distance, and
this extreme lessening in size made one comprehend, better than anything
else, the immense proportions of the landscape. As for myself, I was
alone: I had not even taken a guide, this was too favorite a resort for
tourists, for the precaution to be necessary. For a wonder, I felt
rather gay, with an elasticity of body and mind which I had not felt in
some time.