Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen

Travellers who have been ascending a mountain in a carriage and have long felt the force of gravity pulling against them are invariably surprised and relieved when they finally top the crest and begin to roll down the other slope, aided instead of hindered. They now have the impression of being personally favoured by a new and friendly power after having overcome the unreasonable opposition of the old. That this impression is unconsciously taken for granted by them is only to say that it is the more profound. Then, to this fundamental feeling of release and relief is immediately added speed; speed, which confers an added illusion of freedom and power.

It was certainly so with the passengers of the berlin. Their sudden access of good spirits upon topping the pass lasted them half-way down the first descent. The night spent in the company of the French engineers near the crest did nothing to take the edge off their exhilaration; quite the contrary. But they were no longer so impressed by the tremendous height. It had become external. Their passage next morning through the new, arched ways under the glaciers, where icicles hung like dripping stalactites, became merely a novelty, an adventure in the realm of ice. The galleries of shelter for voiding avalanches were only a clever convenience whose pillars threw amusing effects of swiftly alternating light and shade into the berlin. The brakes seemed to be answering the nasal twang of the detachments of General Turreau's sapeurs doing their best to make the way smooth for cannon before winter came. With these ragged soldiers lately detached from the Army of the Rhine Pujol exchanged a hundred carnal remarks about their scarecrow appearance. Remarks which, as it proved later, were to be remembered against him. But nothing could now dampen the high spirits of the young Aristide, a Frenchman returning to France.