in the embrasure of a window the tall figure of otto von raabe was silhouetted more darkly against the shadow of the night; he stooped a little to reply in a low voice to the subdued and quiet questions of paul léon, who was standing beside him. both had their faces turned towards the room; every now and then they threw a glance to the back of it. outside, over their shoulders, a portion of the sky shone with stars.
"to gather flowers?" asked the french poet, after a long silence, his eyes apparently veiled by deep, inward thought.
"yes, to gather flowers, merely to gather flowers," murmured the german.
"flowers? what flowers?" insisted the frenchman strangely.
"some beautiful flowers he was told were up there; he went to look for them."
"and did he find them?"
"he found them—he always used to find them—they are still in his hands."
"they left them with him."
"of course, look," said the german, pointing to the back of the room.
on a little white bed lay the corpse of massimo granata. the little body broken by the tremendous fall from the precipice, at the skirts of the pizota, was piously laid out, and covered with a dark red, silk quilt, right to the breast; and the little body of the poor rickety, deformed man scarcely raised the covering. the head had been bandaged, and the pinched yellow countenance was framed by the whiteness of its lines, whose eyes, full of goodness and dreams, were closed for ever; and even the face seemed diminished and like that of a child, dead from some incurable disease endured since birth. the pallid hands, long and fleshless, with knotty fingers, were crossed on the breast, and they still clasped a little bunch of unknown alpine flowers; they clasped them in a last act of love over the heart that beat no more. some long strings of mountain flowers had been scattered loosely on the quilt, as if to surround in a garland of flowers the corpse of massimo granata. on the simple furniture of the simple room flowers had been placed here and there in big and little vases; some were already withered, which had been gathered two or three days before his death; others, fresher, had been gathered recently, before his last walk. on a night table before the humble little bed there were an ivory crucifix and two candlesticks with two lighted candles—all placed on a white cloth. the two electric lamps of the room had been veiled. karl ehbehard, the great consumption doctor, was seated on one side at the foot of the bed, motionless and silent, with bowed head.
"karl ehbehard was the first to be told," added otto von raabe, shaking his head, fixing the closed, granite-like face of the doctor with his indescribably blue eyes. "he has known him for more than twenty years; he loved him."
"was his assistance of no avail?" paul léon asked very softly.
"quite useless. massimo had been dead for ten hours when they brought him here."
"and who brought him?"
"some shepherds up above," continued otto von raabe, his voice breaking with mortal sadness. "everyone knew him at the alp laret, at the alp nova, at the fiori. everyone used to greet him and speak to him. you know that."
"everywhere it was so," added paul léon, with lowered eyes.
"they saw him pass early in the morning. they warned him that the ascent was rough and dangerous. when, after so many hours, they did not see him descending again, they climbed to look for him."
"those shepherds are used to that."
"they are used to it, poor people. they searched a long time, and at last they discovered him at the foot of a precipice. it seems that the edge was hidden by those flowers. he leant over too much."
"he died like a child in a fairy tale, like a child," said the poet, his bright eyes now veiled.
two other people entered without making a noise the room where massimo granata was sleeping the first night of his last sleep; the one was giovanni vergas, an italian gentleman, seventy years old, with beautifully trimmed white beard and aristocratic and courteous appearance; the other was monsieur jean morel, a frenchman of seventy-five, thin, withered, without any skin on his face, furrowed by a thousand little wrinkles. without speaking, they exchanged a nod with karl ehbehard and the two who were standing in the embrasure of the window, then they went and sat on a little sofa of black horsehair, which leant against a wall, and remained there silently. when the news of the tragedy arrived, at seven o'clock in the evening, both had been informed, and they had found karl ehbehard there, who, in great silence, was laying out the fractured body of the poor dead man. he washed and clothed it, then placed it quietly again on the bed, covering it with a quilt, then the good mistress of the house, frau von scheidegg, scattered two rows of flowers around the corpse, as she wept silently. don giovanni vergas and jean morel had remained there a little, then they promised to return. now they had returned to watch with the others the body of the lover of the mountains, of him who had given his life for his love. paul léon, being informed, had arrived later than the others from sils maria, and he was still asking questions to learn everything, with a trembling and sorrowful curiosity, from otto von raabe, of the beautiful, dreamy soul, of the heart sensitive and soft in spite of his rough, wild appearance.
slowly, with cautious steps, they approached the other two and sat beside them, forming a little restricted circle, as they bent their heads to breathe forth the sorrowful words of their sad conversation. isolated, and wrapped up in his silence, karl von ehbehard watched over his friend and companion, his brother in love of the mountains.
"how old could he be?" asked jean morel.
"sixty, perhaps," replied giovanni vergas.
"he looked more," murmured paul léon.
"he never was young; he never has been healthy; he always suffered so much," explained otto von raabe.
"only here he did not suffer," concluded the french poet.
some minutes of silence passed, each appeared immersed in his own intimate thoughts.
"he has been here for many years," resumed paul léon. "i remember him for such a long time, and i have been coming for twenty years."
"and i now for ten," concluded jean morel. "i was one of the first here."
"he seems always to have lived in this furnished room. the lady of the house was very fond of him; she and her daughter are mourning below."
"he was poor, was he not?" asked paul léon.
"yes, poor," replied the german, "a very humble professor; for relations he had one brother and some nephews. we have sent them a telegram."
they were again silent. frau von scheidegg entered discreetly. she carried a great mass of fresh flowers. approaching the circle of the four men, she said quietly:
"two ladies, friends of the herr professor, sent them—the misses ford and james. i will place the flowers at his feet."
advancing, and after crossing herself and saying a short prayer, the old german woman deposited the mass of fresh flowers on the quilt, where the two marble feet of the defunct raised the silken fabric a little, on those feet which had taken their last steps, and which would never more impress their tread on the grass of the high meadows, and amidst the dust of the broken rocks. then she crossed herself again, and left.
"do you think, von raabe, that the brother will come to fetch him away?"
"no," replied a different voice. "no, he will not go away."
it was karl von ehbehard who replied thus. he got up from his place, joined the other four, and stood in their midst, tall and thin, but breathing will and energy, and the others looked at him with sympathy and admiration; for they knew his history and life. the five worshippers of the high mountains, the five lovers of the engadine were united in a group; jean morel, who had been for forty years; paul léon, the french poet, who had been for twenty; don giovanni vergas, the head of a princely italian house, who fled the yellow sands and the blue of italy for the white heights of the grissons; otto von raabe, the german millionaire banker, who had all the poesy of nature and heart in his mind, and karl von ehbehard, he who had found life up there, and who was trying to give it back to others—all the little group of mountain lovers were watching round another of them, who had been the victim of his love, on his funeral night.
"he will not go away," replied ehbehard, "too much money is wanted to take away a corpse to italy, and the granata are poor. our friend will rest here among us——" and suddenly the hard, cold voice broke.
"we ought to give him a great procession to-morrow," exclaimed paul léon, after glancing at the bandaged face of the dead man, which seemed like that of a child. "carry him away loaded with flowers, through the broad roads, and give him a triumph, this hero of the mountains."
"that will not be possible," said karl von ehbehard, his voice suddenly becoming hard.
"why?" asked otto von raabe.
"because they won't allow it," said the doctor roughly.
"who won't allow it? who?" asked paul léon, with agitation.
"all do not wish it; no one wishes it," replied the great doctor bitterly. "the people in the hotels of the dorf do not wish to see the dead, do not wish to know of disease; they have a horror of all that. these pleasure-seekers have for a motto, 'evviva la vita!' they want to enjoy their pleasures here to the last without being disturbed; so the authorities, hotel-keepers, and others try in every way to prevent these pleasure-seekers from seeing a melancholy spectacle, for fear that they will leave two or three days sooner, or even one day. when people die here, no one knows when they are taken to the cemetery; no one is aware of it."
"what cruelty!" said otto von raabe sorrowfully.
"what infamy!" cried paul indignantly.
"and shall we carry poor massimo away thus?" asked giovanni vergas, trembling with horror.
"we shall bear him away the same as the others," said doctor karl von ehbehard gloomily; "at dawn, when all the pleasure-seekers are sleeping, we shall carry him away on a simple bier, covered with a white cloth, and carried on the shoulders of two strong men, without any other funeral pomp, and we shall have to climb up through the wood from the dorf, along steep and unknown paths, so that no one may meet us or see us, so there will only be us to accompany him, we who loved him and love the same things that he loved."
there was a lugubrious silence, and if the eyes of all those men were not shedding tears, weeping was within their desolate souls. meanwhile two people entered quietly, approached the corpse, and contemplated it—lucio sabini and lilian temple. lucio sabini, too, had been warned to come and see the unfortunate man who had perished on high in a morning of the declining august, holding in his hands a bunch of flowers, and who had lain for hours at the foot of a precipice, and had been brought back on a bier of tree trunks, covered by the rough garments of the shepherds who had found him, to the bed where he had slept for twenty beautiful seasons amidst his mountains. lucio promised to return, and had done so, accompanied by lilian. the english girl was wearing a black dress and hat, and her pure, virginal face seemed whiter than ever, and more blond her soft hair. side by side they gazed at the deformed face, with its pointed cheek-bones and large, pallid mouth, the face that had suffered so much and had never had peace and joy save amid the lofty peaks, near the sky, in silent, benignant solitude, amid the aroma of trees and the fragrance of leaves and flowers.
"poor, poor massimo," said lucio, as if to himself.
"do not weep for him," said the firm, soft voice of lilian beside him, "you should not weep for him."
he questioned her with his glance.
"he died for his passion and his dream; we ought to envy him, and not weep for him," said the girl, seriously and sincerely.
she added no more. they had now joined the other five in a single group at the back of the death chamber.
karl ehbehard said to them:
"we will accompany him through the waldpromenade, from st. moritz dorf towards chassellas, to the cemetery of st. moritz bad, to the little solitary cemetery amidst the woods and meadows, beneath the gentle suvretta, opposite the majestic margna, in front of the lakes of silvaplana and sils. there we will bury him among the humble engadiners, and among those strangers who come here from other countries to die, as he came."
lilian gave lucio a sweet, expressive glance, as if to remind him how in that place, in the soft summer twilight, they had known each other; and he remembered and smiled, sadly and sweetly.
"he will sleep there, like so many others who have died here, without anyone being aware of it," added the doctor, relapsing into his thoughts and dreams.
the english girl drew near to him softly.
"you need not weep for him to-morrow or to-day, doctor," she said in a quiet, soft voice; "i am sure that he desired to be buried there in the little cemetery; i am sure that it is the best place for his long rest."
