Smiling softly and showing her little flashing teeth, in a mouth as
red as a carnation and whimsically opened, Mabel Clarke was counting
with the point of her umbrella the boxes on the truck--large boxes of
yellow or maroon leather, either long and soft or high and massive,
with shining brass clasps and locks, and long stripes painted a vivid
white and red, upon which was described a large red "C." Standing
beneath the roof of the pretty little station of Coire, amongst the
crowd that surged, as it waited from minute to minute the departure
of the Engadine Express, Mabel Clarke, tall, slender, upright, in her
pearl-grey, tailor-made dress, which outlined all her youthful grace,
not wanting in a certain expression of robustness and strength, watched
the porters who were placing their boxes in the train. She counted up
to eighteen, of all forms and dimensions, with the great clamorous "C"
in blood red.
"Eighteen," she exclaimed, turning round. "Eighteen, isn't that so,
dear Broughton?"
An elderly woman, with hair more white than grey, quietly dressed in
black, nodded her head, with a gesture not lacking in respect.
"Are you sure that is all?" resumed Mabel Clarke, with a slight frown
of her dark chestnut eyebrows on the white forehead. "Eighteen seems
very few for mamma and me."
"Mrs. Clarke expects four boxes from Paris. Everything was not ready
from the tailor's to leave with us."
"Ah, very well, then!" murmured Mabel Clarke, nodding her head. Turning
her back, she approached her mother, who, patiently seated beneath the
station roof near a little buffet table, had been served with a cup of
coffee, which she was not drinking.
Mabel had continually to pass different groups of people who were
massing together for departure. Pushed about and jostled, she reached
her mother at last, and asked, with a little smile:
"All right, mamma?"
"All right, rather bored," replied Mrs. Clarke, shaking her head,
as she regarded the crowd with a lofty and silent expression of
fastidiousness.
Men, women, and children were coming and going; strolling, stopping,
and running. There were old ladies dressed in black, with awkward
round hats from which hung a dark blue or brown veil, and who were
pressing round their necks large fur tippets against the cold which had
surprised them on leaving the train. There were young women dressed
brightly, with large, light travelling-cloaks left open, beneath which
appeared short skirts and elegantly booted feet, and hats enveloped
in white veils. There were children of various ages, watched over
carefully by nurses and governesses, and there was even a nurse with a
dress of white and grey stripes, a large white and grey cloak, and an
encircling cap of white ribbons above her mass of hair: she carried the
baby in her arms, wrapped in a little white fur jacket, all rosy in its
infantile sleep.
Men of every race and age mingled with the women they were
accompanying: they separated from them, returned and disputed.
There were fine old men--tall and thin, of energetic and handsome
countenance--beardless old men, with invincible, lordly stamp in face
and person, and other old men, stout, with heightened complexion and
heavy moustaches, with a gay and thoughtless air; then middle-aged
men, some of a consumptive appearance, but bearing traces of former
virile beauty, others showing signs of pleasures enjoyed too violently.
There were robust young men, well made, whose faces, though regular
and perfect in feature, lacked expression; while other youths, whose
appearance was fashionable, but slender and delicate, had colourless
complexions, and in all their aspect an absence of health. On all this
curious and attractive variety--a great mass of men of every age--there
was a decided ugliness, a common awkwardness, though varied in form,
and a proud, harsh expression. According to their ages and conditions
this rudeness, imperiousness, and clownishness assumed different
aspects, but it was manifest in the high and insolent voices that
spoke German, in the gestures, now grotesque and now solemn, but ever
imperious--the German crowd dominating nearly all the other nations.
Beyond the peculiar character of their clothes there were to be
recognised those whom the trains from Calais, Brussels, Vienna, and
Berlin had brought together at Paris or Basle to make up the great
cosmopolitan Engadine train: the Englishman with white shoes, check
overcoat, turned-up trousers, cloth cap; the Frenchman with light
cloak, which he was wrapping round himself, as he already felt chilly
and caught by the keen mountain air. Finally, and above all, there
was the great mass of Germans, clothed in suits which were too baggy,
or too long, or too short, of strange cut and gloomy colours, and in
stranger cloaks. But especially there was the Tyrolese costume, with
its short breeches, jacket of big pleats, and belt of the same cloth;
on the head a green cap always too small, with a narrow crease, a
myrtle-green cap, like the suit, with a Tyrolese feather behind that
resembled an interrogation mark. These suits were worn on fat bodies
and thin, or broad and bony, and the cap on a square head, with ruddy
cheeks, blond moustaches, and peeling neck in reddish-purple folds.
Lower down, standing apart, one of them, one only, had an imposing
stature and a robust head, a face with a black beard, rough and
bristly, with two eyes of sweetest blue; he the only one among so many,
apart, solitary, and silent.
While the long and complicated work of loading the baggage of the crowd
was being accomplished, Mabel Clarke, keeping close to her mother,
watched with her large grey eyes, full of an ardent curiosity of life,
those who were moving around her. Not far from her two ladies were
seated round another _café_ table. One of them was of uncertain age,
dressed in black, with a black hat and a decided grey veil; the other
was a very young figure, bending as she wrote the addresses on several
post cards. Nothing was revealed save the lines of a white and delicate
face and the curve of a pretty mouth, closed and smileless. Beneath the
light blue veil her hair was very blond and pleasant to the eye, while
the hand that ran over the cards as she wrote was very white.
"English," said Mabel, almost to herself, with a rather pretty little
laugh of disparagement.
"Yes," replied her mother, with a rather more pronounced laugh. The
writer raised her head, and revealed a quite pale face beneath whose
very transparent complexion coursed a pink flush. The _tout ensemble_
was white and virginal, an appearance which was still more increased by
the white travelling-dress. The smile round Mabel Clarke's beautiful
but jesting mouth increased.
"_Poitrinaire, peut-être_," murmured her mother in French, with a
strong American accent.
The daughter's eyes were averted, attracted by another feminine figure:
a young woman who beside her was sprinkling drops of water on a bunch
of roses that she was pressing to herself, which appeared faded owing
to the length of the journey.
She was slender and tall, with a little erect and proud head, and a
refined face with charming features, without true beauty, but charming
in their harmony, with a staidness of postures and gestures and a
ladylike and disdainful aloofness from whatever was happening around
her. Two or three times Mabel regarded her and made some lively
movement to attract her attention. The other did not turn round and
observed nothing in her gracious and proud aloofness.
"French: exquisite," sighed Mabel Clarke.
"Exquisite," sighed her mother, even more deeply.
Meanwhile the guttural German cries announced the departure for the
Engadine, and the crowd thronged at the doors, carrying characteristic
hand luggage; tennis-rackets in their coverings, travelling-cloaks,
sticks with chamois-horn handles and iron-spiked tips, and leather
cases with golf-clubs.
As they clambered up, from short skirts the ladies disclosed dainty
feet, shod some of them as if they were to walk through the boulevards
of Paris, and others as if they must immediately climb the Bernina.
Mabel Clarke and her mother, followed step by step, like a shadow, by
Mrs. Broughton, approached without undue hurry the large compartment
which they had reserved. A railway official advanced, as if searching
amidst the crowd, with a yellow envelope in his hands.
At once Mrs. Clarke summoned him.
"A telegram for Clarke?"
"_Ja_," said the man, offering the envelope.
Mrs. Clarke read her telegram quietly.
Mabel in a whisper asked:
"Papa! all right?"
"All right."
Loudly the German voices of the railway officials resounded.
"Thusis, Preda, Bergun, Tiefenkastel, St. Moritz--St. Moritz--St.
Moritz."
As the train left overflowing with travellers, from the lowered windows
there was an appearing and disappearing of heads, veiled in white and
grey, in blue and brown; there was a fluctuating of faces, fresh or
consumptive, while some large German face all aflame, with great yellow
moustaches and green Tyrolese cap that pressed the square forehead,
would lean out to exchange loud and harsh German words with a friend,
who might have been his brother, so much did he resemble him, as he
raised his head from the station platform.
"St. Moritz! St. Moritz! St. Moritz!"
This was the last feeble echo which reached the travellers who were
already on their way. For some minutes there was a sound of windows
being raised rapidly against the fresh, almost cold, evening air; and
no face leant out throughout the long train to gaze at the country
where the Tamina places its whirlpool gorges beneath high rocks, while
the flowering gardens of La Rezia smile around pretty white villas,
which are more Italian than Swiss. For some time no one passed in the
narrow corridor that flanked the first-class compartments; everyone
remained quietly in his place.
In their reserved compartment--six places for three people--Mrs.
Clarke and Miss Mabel Clarke of the great house of Clarke of New
York, of which John Clarke, husband and father, was the soul, with
his great talent and magnificent business activity--the house of
Clarke rated at six hundred actual millions, John Clarke himself at
three hundred millions, and Miss Mabel credited with a dowry of fifty
millions--mother and daughter, silent and quiet, were receiving the
most minute attentions from Mrs. Broughton, so that the remainder of
the journey of three hours and a half might be comfortable for the
two ladies. Mrs. Clarke especially accepted these attentions with
the aspect of a cold and silent idol. Mrs. Broughton opened some
large travelling rugs of fur and the little white and grey feathers
of the eider, and wrapped them round the two ladies. She drew forth
five or six cushions of stamped leather and Liberty silk, and placed
them behind Mrs. Clarke's shoulders and at her side; she made long
play with a silver and cut-glass scent bottle, sending into the air,
on the windows and seats of the compartment, a little shower of eau
de Cologne, together with another, rather stronger, perfume, perhaps
a disinfectant; and she hung on the linings of the compartment two
or three portable electric lamps to illuminate them when night came,
and to enable them to read better. In an open, red leather case, a
_nécessaire_, full of everything for making tea in the train, shone
with its warm tones of silver-gilt. Afterwards she gave a questioning
and respectful glance to her chief mistress, Mrs. Clarke, who either
did not notice her, or did not deign to do so, and another glance at
Mabel Clarke, who replied with the shortest little nod in the negative.
Mrs. Broughton settled herself in a far corner of the compartment, drew
forth from a bag a long note-book, and with a small pencil began to
write some notes and figures therein. Suddenly Mrs. Clarke awoke from
her proud torpor, and said:
"Broughton, the big and small boxes?"
The woman understood at once, and rising, pointed to two long boxes,
or rather coffers, on the rack, of yellow leather with steel locks and
clasps, and added:
"I checked them before starting."
Suddenly Mabel asked:
"Mamma, did you bring your large pearl necklace?"
"Yes, dear."
"And the large diadem?"
"Of course."
"And, mamma, did you bring the tiara?"
"The tiara, of course! It was necessary."
Mabel approved, with a charming smile. Then she resumed:
"Mamma, they say the Italians at St. Moritz have extraordinary jewels."
"Do you believe it, Mabel?"
"They say so. Also some South American ladies have great pearls and
diamonds, mamma."
"Do you believe all of them can be more beautiful than my jewels?
Mabel, do you think so?"
And a keen expression of uneasiness, the first that had animated that
marble countenance, seized her.
"To me it seems impossible," added Mabel thoughtfully.
"Also to me it seems impossible."
In the next compartment were two ladies alone, who had also taken six
places for themselves. One was a woman of thirty, with a very white
face slightly coloured as to the cheeks, with two marvellous large eyes
of deep grey, somewhat velvety, while the whites of the pupils had a
blue reflection. Her mouth was vivid and sinuous, more expressive than
beautiful. Her hair was of a very bright and fine chestnut, massed
round the neck and waving over the temples. Only the temples showed a
streak of blue veins, and the little ears were exceedingly white. One
of the hands, bared of its kid glove, showed long, graceful, but bony
fingers. She who accompanied her was the image of her, though with
thirty more years; but she was very fat, with an expression of perfect
good-nature on the broad face and an unexplainable sense of fear in the
eyes that had remained childish.
The younger woman was dressed in white cloth; but she wore a long
jacket of otter with chinchilla facings of a soft grey, which suited
her rather morbid beauty, and she remained huddled in her furs, as
if cold, with her head snuggled in the collar. Sometimes she coughed
a little. Then her mother started, became disturbed, and questioned
her a little anxiously in German. The daughter scarcely replied, in a
whisper, and settled herself better in her corner, as she dreamed with
closed eyes. A scent of sandal emanated from her, and all the minute,
very elegant luggage bore her initials, an "E." and an "L."--Else
Landau--with a baronial coronet.
All was silent, too, in a compartment further on, full of ladies. The
exquisite French lady, of the faded roses, preserved her aspect of one
who neither sees nor hears, since she neither wishes to see nor hear.
Her hands, gloved in new white gloves, held an open book, whose title
was not to be discovered, since it was hidden in an antique silk book
cover. She turned over the pages very seldom, perhaps keeping the book
open so as not to occupy herself with her neighbours. There was a dark
lady, with fine arched eyebrows, black, passionate eyes, a carnal and
florid mouth, and all this beauty augmented and made artificial by the
rouge on the cheeks, the black beneath the eyes, and the carmine on
the lips. She was still a very young woman, but she was got up like an
old one. Every now and then the dark woman, so strangely embellished,
exchanged a word with her husband, who came to see her from another
compartment, where he had found a seat. The husband was tall and gross,
with a rather truculent countenance and big rings on his fingers. They
spoke Spanish. The third lady, the English girl, she who was writing
post cards in the station at Coire, kept silence behind the window that
gave on to the corridor. Now all the virginal purity of her very white
face was apparent beneath the slightly blue shadow of her veil. Beneath
the mother-of-pearl complexion a rosiness spread itself almost at every
beating of the arteries. The closed lips, together with the eyes of
periwinkle-blue, which gazed in sweetness and candour, all spoke of the
fragile and fascinating beauty of Anglo-Saxon women, whose grace is
invincible. Her companion was beside her; but she must have been used
to the patient silences of long journeys.
As the train climbed in bizarre curves and loops the great pass of
Albula, crossing daring bridges and more daring viaducts, ever climbing
from Thusis, from Solis, from Tiefenkastel, not one of those travellers
gave a thought to the singular and powerful ascent of the train, as it
elevated itself ever more and more towards its lofty point of arrival.
Here there was a lively chattering in German, in French, in English,
especially in German; there someone was slumbering in his seat; here
two men and two women were playing bridge. Others were trying to read
big papers like the "Koelnische Zeitung," "The Times," and the "Temps."
Some governesses and nurses were watching two or three compartments
full of children. A French preceptor, a priest, was talking in a low
voice to a youth who was accompanying him; the nurse was walking with
her baby in the corridor with slow and heavy step. Now and then some
young man came and went hurriedly in the corridor, giving a glance at
all the compartments where the ladies were, stopping behind the windows
where some feminine profile was to be seen, with particular curiosity
at the last compartment, where Mrs. Clarke, very bored with the slow
journey, as she said, had lowered the blinds.
No one knew anything, or wished to, of that summer night and its cold
gusts passing over the heights of the Lenzerhorn and mounting to
Preda, to Filisur, to Bergun, penetrating the heart of the mountains,
and issuing from them to cross the deep valleys, leaving to right and
left peaks covered with snow, to which no one gave a glance through
the windows as they rumbled across fantastic bridges that joined two
precipices. No one knew or wished to know how rich with Alpine perfumes
was the summer night, nor how the voices of forest, meadow, and waters
around the train were forming the great mountain chorus without words.
No one knew or wished to know what a tremendous and mortal thing it had
been for mind and hands and life of man to construct that iron road of
the high mountains, and how many existences had been scattered there.
Each trembled with impatience, anticipating the halting of the train at
little stations all of wood behind which some houses gleamed white or a
church tower rose.
The women were slumbering or thinking or dreaming behind their veils.
Each repressed her impatience to arrive up there, whither she was
carrying either a great, keen longing, or one more subdued, or an
unrestrainable curiosity, a need of health, or a humble, secret dream.
Some were talking to cheat the waiting, and exchanging names of hotels;
and old frequenters of the Engadine were instructing novices with a
knowing air. There was not one of them who was not aspiring with secret
ardour--sprung from the idlest or perhaps most puerile instincts, or
moral and material necessity, or from a dream--to the goal, to St.
Moritz; careless of everything except of arriving up there, where their
life should suffer the whip's lash, or the triumph of vanity, or the
victory of ambition, or health regained, or pleasure broadly conquered,
or an unknown fortune taken by assault. And when in the evening the
word _Samaden_ was clearly and precisely heard, and each felt that the
goal was almost touched, every torpor was scattered, every silence was
interrupted, every dream released before the reality. Jumping to their
feet in extreme impatience, all of them crowded to the windows and
doors. Still some minutes and yet more, and then the word resounded
from carriage to carriage, repeated softly and loudly from a hundred
voices:
"St. Moritz! St. Moritz! St. Moritz!"
In the obscurity of the night the spectacle unfolded itself as if in
a broad, deep stage setting. All the hill was gleaming with lights,
now feeble, now flaming. In capricious and charming lines burnt the
lights of the Palace Hotel, in lines direct and uniform those of the
Schweizerhof; like an immense edifice perforated with a thousand
windows, like a colossal plaything of giant babies, flamed the white
Grand Hotel, and further on high, at the summit, in triple lines,
gleamed at the foot of the mountains, the Hôtel Kulm. Around these
mastodons shone the other houses and smaller hotels.
The blaze of lights from the Palace and the Grand hotels, and from the
whole crown of large lamps which illuminated the road from the village
to the baths, was wonderfully reflected in the dark lake; thus the
lights were multiplied and eyes and soul were dazed thereby. On the
opposite bank the wood, which skirted the lake, the Acla Silva, had
neither house nor light in its sylvan austerity. Directly above on the
Rosatch and Curvatsch the whiteness of the snow became even purer in
the dark night. Very far-away, in a circle on the horizon, the snows of
the Julier, the Polaschin, and the Albana gleamed whitely, and still
further away at the extremity glistened the Margna with her twin peaks.
A thousand eyes could not turn away from that beacon of light which
streamed from hotels and houses in patches, while from below, from the
Bad, long green streaks of colour flickered as they were reflected in
the lake. At the vision which scorched eyes and heart, as the train
drew up at the little terminus, there was a crowding and jostling to
descend and touch that land of every promise, and to be immersed in
that light.
The omnibus conductors of the great hotels were running hither and
thither as they gathered together their travellers; noisily luggage
was piled upon luggage, and carriages departed and carriages returned
in rapid movement. White, green, and grey omnibuses were crammed with
travellers, and the laden vehicles turned and disappeared to the rapid
trot of their good horses, towards the upper village and the baths on
the shores of the lake. St. Moritz Dorf flamed scintillatingly in the
night, and flamed more blandly and afar St. Moritz Bad.
Around Mrs. Clarke and the smiling Mabel Clarke a circle of railway
officials, servants, and porters was formed; the secretary of the
"Palace" arrived in a hurry in a private carriage, and was obsequiously
talking in English in a low voice. Mollified, the mother received the
homage, and Mabel smiled at the flaming lights of the uplands where for
a month she was to pass a gay and vivid existence, where her fresh and
strong youth should be intoxicated with joy. They left in the carriage
with Mrs. Broughton and the secretary.
The exquisite French lady also left alone in a carriage, still
tranquil, still aloof, gave the address of the "Palace." The Viennese,
Else von Landau, with the large otter furs, who coughed and smelled of
sandal-wood, got into a carriage, and the mother with the startled eyes
climbed in with her and gave an address towards St. Moritz Bad.
The young Spanish woman, so made up, who was bound for the Grand Hotel,
departed, disputing in rapid Spanish with her husband and appearing
annoyed at going to an hotel different from the Palace Hotel, whither
she had seen so many people of aristocratic appearance bound. But no
one, whether climbing into omnibus, or jumping into carriage, or taking
on foot the path that leads to the Dorf, gave a single glance to the
majestic mountains that had seen the passing of the ages, to the proud
and solitary peaks so near to the sky, to the quiet and dark waters of
the lake, to the brown woods, whence came fresh and sharp fragrances.
None gave them a glance. All were trembling with satisfaction at having
arrived at last; and were eager to immerse themselves in the exalting
stream of life up there amidst the light and the luxury and joy of
fantasy and senses. The young English girl only, of the virginal
countenance, before climbing into the "Kulm" bus, raised her veil, and
gazed with her periwinkle-blue eyes at the white heights so deserted
and imposing. A smile for the first time bloomed on the pure mouth.