When I had been in Aix-les-Bains before, I had made the excursion to
Mont Revard, as all the world makes it, by the funicular railway; and
after half an hour in the little train, I had arrived at the top for
lunch and the view, both being enjoyed in a conventional manner. Now,
all was to be changed. The Boy and I did not regard ourselves as
tourists, but as pilgrims.
Among other things that self-respecting pilgrims cannot do, is to
ascend a mountain by means of a funicular railway; better stay at the
bottom, and look up with reverence. Therefore, instead of strolling
out to the little station about twelve o'clock, with the view of
reaching the restaurant on the plateau in time for _dejeuner_, we met
on the balcony of the Bristol at seven in the morning. There we
fortified ourselves for a long walk, with eggs and _cafe au lait_,
while Innocentina and Joseph grouped the animals at the foot of the
steps.
The day was divinely young, and most divinely fair, when we set forth.
Only the soft fall of an occasional leaf, weary of keeping up
appearances on no visible means of support, told that autumn had
come. The weather put me in mind of a beautiful woman of forty, who
can still cheat the world into believing that she is in the full
summer of her prime, and is making the most of the few good years left
before the crash.
As we struck up the steep hill that leads out of Aix-les-Bains and
civilisation, passing with all our little procession into the oak
copses which fringe the lower slopes of Mont Revard, the Boy and I
agreed that nothing became the town so well as the leaving it behind.
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