The clouds kept climbing continually behind the hill of the Maloja,
suspended by an impetuous wind, which sometimes grew quiet for a while
and then rose again violently and rudely in immense gusts. The clouds
appeared in great masses white as snow and silver, with a light,
delicate grey, a grey mixed with lily, and a leadlike grey, in every
gradation from white to grey. They appeared in deep, vast masses,
suspended by the wind and spread over the Engadine; they covered the
whole sky and almost seemed to touch the summits of the less lofty
mountains. They were reflected in all their gigantesque forms and
changing colours on the lakes of Sils, of Silvaplana, Campfer, and St.
Moritz. They took away the blue from the sky and the brightness of the
sun from the little towns, villages, and districts, giving them a pale
grey tint. They passed, running and almost galloping, over the large
hill that encloses St. Moritz at the foot of its lake, and passed over
the valley of Samaden down towards Bevers, where the Engadine begins to
descend.
Experienced eyes, which were raised to the sky in the morning,
curiously and anxiously, perhaps hoped for, and believed in, one of
those sudden and surprising passages of storm clouds which rise from
the Val Bregaglia, the Italian clouds which traverse for an hour or two
the immense plain of the upper Engadine, then descend behind the Valley
of Samaden, towards the lower Engadine, and disappear, leaving the sky
pure and clear, as if their passage had cleansed it. Experienced eyes
had hoped and believed this, relying chiefly on the great wind that
pursued the clouds, that caused the surfaces of the lakes to be covered
with a thousand ripples, that almost formed these little waves with
white crests like a sea; relying on this wind that caused the dust to
whirl on the road from the Maloja to Samaden and all the trees with
their lofty green plumes to rustle lamentingly; trusting that this
terrible wind, which filled with its crashing the whole Engadine, would
at last chase away the Italian clouds, and precipitate them into the
lower Engadine.
But for hours and hours the clouds continued to ascend from Bregaglia.
For hours they substituted themselves for those which already had
vanished afar, precipitated towards Scanfs and Tarasp; for hours
they came and joined themselves to the clouds not already dispersed,
and added and heaped themselves upon them, more thickly, closely,
and gigantically. Experienced eyes then understood that not even the
imperious and boisterous wind which was rising incessantly from the
Val Bregaglia and spreading them victoriously over all the Engadine,
that was pressing and pursuing them with fury behind the horizon of the
Val di Samaden; they understood sorrowfully that not even that wind
would conquer and overcome the clouds, to free the blue sky and bright
sun. Moreover, suddenly the exhausted and vanquished wind fell. The
conquering clouds ceased to gallop, and spread themselves, at first
quietly and then without movement, like an immense deep pavement, now
white, now pearl-grey, now leaden-grey, over all the Upper Engadine.
Everything became the colour of the clouds: the air, the waters of the
lakes, the colouring of the little rustic houses, lordly villas, towns
and districts; the larches became darker and more gloomy in their brown
verdure.
It was two in the afternoon. But beneath the deep veil of clouds,
beneath that great canopy which hid the lofty summits, which fringed
the lower peaks and almost razed the more modest hills, in that
atmosphere tinted with a monotonous colour, now white, now grey, but
always pale and lifeless, time seemed not to exist, and it seemed as
if it were a long, equal day, half dead, without dawn, afternoon,
or evening. The furious wind that irritates and excites, exalts and
exasperates, had vanished, and instead the calm sadness, broad and
motionless, of an afternoon without end had spread itself everywhere.
Even sadder in its imposing lines was the great Valley of Samaden, shut
out and divided from that of St. Moritz by the hill of Charnadüras,
peculiarly cut in two, covered to the right by a pretty little wood
of shady trees, aromatic plants, and Alpine flowers, so austere and
dominated here by the Corvatsch and Rosatch, which are girded and
hemmed in by the Muottas Muraigl, while in the middle, where it is
broadest, the valley opens, showing in the background, over the Roseg
glacier, the very lofty, white, virginal beauty of the tremendous
Bernina. This great valley lacks the grace and fascination of the
delightful lakes of Sils, Silvaplana, and St. Moritz, while through its
immense green meadows flow, foaming white like milk, the Flatzbach,
which comes from the Bernina singing its subdued song, and the little
brook Schlattenbeich. But these foaming, fleeting waters do not succeed
in enlivening and vivifying the countryside--the great valley where
little Cresta and tiny Celerina seem lost, and even Samaden seems
lost in the remote corner of the plain; the great valley that seems
inanimate, although the railway crosses it, and equipages, carriages,
and pedestrians of all kinds traverse it, going and coming from St.
Moritz and Pontresina. The isolated villas gleam white against the
green of the meadows; the hotels of Cresta and Celerina show their
verandahs shaded by awnings and straw or canvas protections for those
who like the open air but fear wind and sun. The Cresta Palace raises
its four storeys with its hundred rooms, carved balconies, and Swiss
banner. Carriages come and go rapidly and slowly from every part, but
the Valley of Samaden preserves its solitary austerity, and this close
veil of clouds which extends from St. Moritz to the extreme horizon
seems as if made to cover it completely, and it seems as if that
colourless, pale air belonged to the Valley of Samaden, and that this
dead afternoon was its afternoon, which better suited its vastness,
solitude, and immense melancholy.
The villa of Karl Ehbehard rises isolated in a broad meadow, that
gradually slopes from a façade with two storeys to the opposite façade
with three. It is situated between Cresta and Celerina; the principal
façade, that with two storeys, is almost on the side of the high road
which goes from Cresta to Celerina. Round the villa, which is very
new in the bright colouring of its stones, in the light wood and
carving of its verandahs, runs a strip of land which forms a little
garden enclosed by a wooden fence, and in front, at the edge of the
road, by a trellis. This tiny garden which surrounds and embraces
the Villa Ehbehard is planted with shrubs and bright Swiss flowers,
red, yellow, purple, and white; but still all these little plants and
flowers have not had much time in which to grow. The wooden windows
and the central verandah, with their carved balustrades and little
roofs, are also adorned with vases of flowers, mountain carnations,
Alpine geraniums, and winter roses. On the grey, almost white stones
and bright wood these flowers, miraculously cultivated at such an
altitude, smile brightly. At the rear façade of Villa Ehbehard, which
is the taller, looking towards the meadows that billow peculiarly
in little mounds and ditches, on the first floor there is a large
covered, yet open terrace, supported by pillars--an Italian terrace. In
the centre is a large table covered with books and newspapers; there
are a few chairs and arm-chairs, and on the stone parapet are placed
vases with plants. And if from the windows and verandah of the chief
façade of Villa Ehbehard there is a continuous spectacle of people
passing in carriages, on bicycles and on foot, and the train is to be
seen passing from Albula to disappear in the tunnel beneath the hill
of Charnadüras, and opposite there is the Cresta Palace with all its
movement of a caravanserai, and further on the little Hôtel Frizzoni
with its confectionery shop and tea garden, full of tables at which
to take tea at five, and full of people, from the terrace in the rear
of Villa Ehbehard the whole scene changes completely. Here in front a
broad landscape spreads in every direction. To the right, below, is
the gloomy gorge of the Inn, whence it issues like a ribbon of shining
metal amidst the tumultuous billows of the meadows, and near the river
is the brown, almost black wood that jealously hides the sad, little,
deserted lake of Statz; then there is the great canopy of larches
that follows, from the estuary of the Meierei, the road that leads to
Pontresina. To the left in the lifeless air is the little church and
campanile of San Gian di Celerina, where nowadays only the office for
the dead is said, and for the departed who have been buried and have
slept for so many years in the little cemetery; the broad green stretch
towards Samaden, and on high the white peaks of Languard and Albris,
and very far-off the Roseg glacier, and the lady of the mountains, of
snow and ice--the white and fearsome Bernina. It is a landscape of
silence and peace, a landscape of thought and dream.
On that day, as usual at that hour, Doctor Karl Ehbehard was seated
alone in an arm-chair, reading and yet not reading, as he contemplated
the landscape thoughtfully. Of tall stature, thin and muscular, Karl
Fritz Ehbehard presented an aspect of strength, and his face one of
energy. On the large white forehead, his black hair, which was quite
streaked with white at the temples, formed a thick, untidy tuft,
mixed with white hairs, a rebellious tuft that was displaced by
every movement of the head. Above the mouth a large thick moustache
sprinkled with white hid the expression of the lips and the smile. The
profile was fine and strong, the complexion a rather pale tan. But the
piercing, very piercing, grey eyes were peculiar and impregnated with
a sadness that could also be pride and harshness; peculiar eyes that
pierced the face of whomsoever was present, and spoke with such a flow
of penetration that the timid were frightened and the proud offended.
His neck in the high white collar was rather thin, and so were his
hands. He is in the prime of life, since he has not yet reached fifty,
every act and gesture of his and every change of expression always
indicating a complete fusion of physical force and moral energy. His
eyes hurt with their cutting glance; but still in their depths escape
the sadness which humanly tempers everything and humanly assuages.
A servant entered with a visiting-card on a tray. With a fastidious air
Karl Ehbehard interrupted his reading and threw a glance at the name on
the card. After a moment of hesitation he said to the man in German:
"Here."
Ehbehard put down his books and got up, advancing towards the door of
the terrace which gave on to the apartment. A lady appeared and stopped
at the threshold as if doubtful of coming out. Just bowing slightly
Doctor Karl Ehbehard said to her, pointing to a chair:
"It is better here, Your Highness."
Enveloped in a large coat of marten fur, over which she had placed a
fur tippet, with a veil of the finest white lace, the Grand Duchess
of Gotha advanced to the chair, into which she let herself fall, as
if tired by the stairs she had been forced to climb, and after taking
breath for a while, she raised her white veil and carried her fur muff
to her mouth, so as not to breathe suddenly and directly the fresh
air. And Karl Ehbehard saw again the woman's face with its Teutonic
ugliness, spreading features, forehead too high, mouth too broad,
eyes with lashes too bright, eyebrows too light, temples hollowed,
and in addition the traces of disease--a complexion rendered yellow
everywhere, and pinkish on the cheek-bones, the ears very white, the
lips bloodless, and the neck very thin. There was an expression of
fear, oppression, and loss in the almost white eyes. The yellowish hair
was precociously whitened, and drawn back without grace and tightened
into a bunch. All that was feminine was a great richness of apparel,
of lace, and furs over a long, thin, bony body. The Grand Duchess, as
she breathed, opened her lips with a certain effort, showing her large,
yellowish teeth. But in spite of all this she preserved a sovereign air.
"Still the same, Herr Doctor," she said, in a rather rough voice.
"Your Highness has slept?" asked the great doctor, indifferently.
"Slept, yes; five or six hours."
"That is sufficient. Did you cough on waking?"
"As every day."
"Not more?"
"No."
"Fever?"
"A degree or two yesterday evening; four or five degrees."
"Perspiration?"
"A little--as usual."
"Then, Your Highness, there is nothing fresh."
"Nothing fresh indeed!" she exclaimed, raising her voice, like a little
cry, and coughing immediately afterwards.
Very coldly and quietly, the great phthisis doctor waited for the Grand
Duchess to begin all the daily grievances, which she came every day to
explain to him, at least to get consolation.
"I get no better, Herr Doctor."
"But Your Highness gets no worse."
"How long can all this last?"
"A long time, a long time yet."
She looked at him, with her light eyes more troubled than ever: she
looked at him, half consoled and uncertain.
"Do you believe that this can last, _mein Herr_?"
"I believe so," he said, still coldly but firmly.
"Shall I not die within a month or a year, _mein Herr_? Tell me."
Coldly, icily, he looked at her with his terribly penetrating eyes,
which, however, were sad and even pitiful. Without hesitation he
answered her.
"Neither within a month nor a year."
She bowed her head and sighed deeply: and an expression of comfort
spread itself on the face worn with disease, which had neither beauty
nor grace, but yet inspired interest and pity.
"May I not leave for Gotha?" she murmured anxiously.
"Certainly not, Your Highness."
"The Grand Duke complains of my long absence."
"Does that matter?"
"My children are alone; why may I not see them?"
"Your presence, Your Highness, would do them more harm than good."
"I am bored here."
"But you live, Your Highness."
"Yes, I live, it is true; but I don't care either for the country or
the people," she said, with an accent of disgust.
"And why?"
"Because I am ill; because I can no longer do what the others do. I
only like you here, Herr Doctor."
And she looked at him as at a sacred image, with reverence and almost
with fear.
"But why?" he asked, without showing surprise.
"Because you, _mein Herr_, know the secret of my life and death. Won't
you come to Gotha?"
"No, Your Highness."
"Not even for me?"
"Not even for you, Your Highness."
"Are you so fond of this country? Why do you like it so much?" she
asked weakly, still a little discouraged.
"Because it has a secret of life and not of death, Your Highness,"
added Doctor Karl Ehbehard mysteriously, with a slight bow.
She understood and rose. She came towards him, took his two hands in
hers, and pressing them said:
"Do you really believe that I ought to remain in this country?"
"I believe so, Your Highness."
"When shall I be able to go away?"
"I don't know. Certainly not now. Perhaps after a long time."
She bowed her head and added nothing further.
"Thanks, _mein Herr_, good-bye till to-morrow."
"Till to-morrow, Your Highness."
Without undue hurry, correctly but silently, he led her within the
apartment and let the servant accompany her below to the carriage, to
which were attached two spirited, dapple-grey horses. The Grand Duchess
of Gotha wrapped her marten mantle better around her, pressed to her
neck the fur tippet, closed her mouth firmly behind the close veil,
drew over her knees the soft carriage-rug, and alone and silently,
looking at no one, wrapped in herself, but preserving a regal air, she
vanished to the rapid trotting of her horses towards St. Moritz and
Campfer, where she dwelt in the solitary Villa Sorretta.
Afterwards the servant ushered in to the doctor on the terrace two
other patients, the brothers Freytag, the great bankers of Vienna,
who only came once or twice a week, the sons and nephews of the great
Freytags, bankers of Frankfort, Hamburg, and London, bankers and
shippers as well.
Since the winter, which they had passed at the Hôtel Kulm at the
Dorf, save for a break of two months, April and May, when the one had
returned to Vienna and the other to Frankfort, they had repaired to
Doctor Karl Ehbehard twice a week. Of the two Freytag brothers one
only seemed to be ill, because in spite of his thirty-five years his
tall figure was bent, his slender shoulders beneath his navy-blue coat
formed a curve, his breast beneath the white woollen waistcoat with
the gold buttons seemed as narrow as that of a bird. Already his black
hair was scanty and always seemed to be moist; beneath the eyebrows the
eyes were hollow. But underlying all this was a fineness of feature,
a sweetness of expression, and a lordliness of manner that made Max
Freytag even more interesting. The other brother, younger by four or
five years, seemed most healthy. Of middle stature, fat, with a rather
thick throat and neck, very fair with heavy moustaches and bright hair,
Ludwig Freytag had a good-natured, healthy, middle-class appearance.
Max first began to relate in German all that had happened to him during
the three days that he had not been to Villa Ehbehard. He spoke slowly
with a rather suave voice, saying that every degree of fever had
vanished, that the cough was less, but that he was not sleeping and
eating, that he was not digesting and could not contrive to conquer the
insomnia. The doctor listened, with his hands on the arms of his chair,
motionless and indifferent.
"Is Frau Freytag still with you?" he suddenly asked.
"She is still with me."
"It is a grave imprudence and great sacrifice."
"I know it is," murmured Max Freytag; "but I can't prevent her. I have
tried, and I cannot."
"She loves you, and you love her?" asked the doctor harshly.
"Yes," murmured the other, in an even lower voice.
"Why did you marry her when you were ill?"
"I did not wish to marry her because I knew I was ill. She wished to
marry me because I was ill."
"Frau Freytag is an angel," said the doctor icily.
"An angel," agreed the other, and became silent.
After a moment's silence Max Freytag resumed:
"Do you believe, doctor, that her presence and propinquity does me harm
physically?"
And all the egoism of an invalid, of a consumptive, was in the anxiety
of this question.
"No," replied the doctor precisely, "it does you no harm."
"Without her I could not live," groaned the consumptive.
"But she could die," declared Karl Ehbehard, fixing Max Freytag with
his sharp eyes, and piercing his soul.
"Charlotte is so young, so strong, so beautiful," stammered Max Freytag.
The doctor said nothing more. Then Ludwig Freytag opened his thick,
florid lips and slowly told the doctor the progress of his malady. It
was graver than that of his brother, and while nothing revealed it
externally, while nothing but the expert eye of Karl Ehbehard could
have discovered its creeping, it was making a constant, destructive,
almost invincible progress. While he spoke of the long fits of coughing
that suffocated him, morning, evening, and night, of his agitated
slumbers, of his profuse nocturnal sweating, of the fever that assailed
him at every dawn; fat, gross, rosy, with a bull neck, and his round,
limpidly-blue eyes, almost obese on his short legs, Ludwig Freytag
seemed the picture of health. Seized by the fixed idea of the disease
that was consuming them, Max Freytag, who seemed the more ill, and
Ludwig Freytag, actually the more ill although he did not recognise
it, began to lament, now the one, then the other, of the horrible
existence they were living--Max for ten years, Ludwig for five, the one
thirty-five, the other thirty--an existence consisting only of medical
cures, of a rigorous régime, of obligatory sojournings and obligatory
journeys. Ah, how above everything the two brothers complained of
having to live far-away from Vienna, from Frankfort, from Hamburg, from
London; far from their banking-houses, from the colossal port whence
their ships departed, far from their powerful businesses and their vast
interests, and so losing their great chances of gaining millions with
their stagnating fortune.
"To be rich does not matter, it is to live that matters," interrupted
Doctor Ehbehard, with a cutting glance.
"Yes, that was too true," groaned the two brothers, Max with his soft,
sweet voice and perfect distinction, Ludwig fretting, fuming, always
seeming to suffocate. After all living mattered, but _that_ life
apart from every festivity, from every distraction, like two paupers
separated from the world and its pleasures, condemned to measure even
what they ate, to analyse what they drank, destined to live in the
great centres of joy and luxury, like two wandering shadows, avoiding
rooms too warm, verandahs too cold, and smoking-rooms--what a life of
renunciation!
"One must make renunciations to live," declared Doctor Karl, slightly
pale, with lowered eyes.
"Yes, renunciations," they said, Max Freytag in an almost weeping
voice, and Ludwig with one of grotesque anger; but what a destiny for
both to be struck down by this cruel disease, which no one in their
family had ever had--both sons of the head of the House of Freytag, the
only sons of the House of Freytag--as if stricken to death by a curse,
although they could live perhaps and drag out their life, yet they must
implacably die of it.
Suddenly both became silent, in consternation, Max pale and as if
convulsed, Ludwig heated and asthmatical. They became silent, gazing
with eyes full of tears at Doctor Ehbehard, with an expression of great
sorrow and supplication. He from his seat looked at the two ailing
brothers, vowed to infirmity and death; he looked at them and his
eyes lost all indifference and harshness. Perhaps beneath his thick,
sprinkled moustache his lips trembled; for he was slow to answer them.
Before and around the two men the great Alpine landscape, even more
lifeless, beneath the weight of its motionless clouds, spread itself.
And not a noise nor a breath of wind came to give them the living sense
of life.
Slowly, meaning every word, with a sagacity which did not only come
from science, Doctor Ehbehard began to discuss, one by one, all
the complaints of the brothers, and if there was no promise in his
just words, if there was no false hope in his phrases, at any rate
they inspired patience, and calm hope; they restored equilibrium,
tranquillity, and peace to those agitated spirits. Like two children,
fixing and holding his eyes with their imploring eyes, noting every
word and impressing them on their memory, making no gesture so as to
lose nothing of what he was saying, so as not to lose a fleeting
expression, like children who wished for succour, protection, and
strength, Max and Ludwig Freytag regained courage and moral vigour in
the presence of Karl Ehbehard. He did not speak entirely to Max, who
was the less ill of the two and who might be cured, but he told them
both that their life was still tenacious, and that their youth could
not be conquered either easily or soon. He did not promise them perfect
health, but he promised them the superior energy that supports disease
and ends by obeying it. Karl Ehbehard did not pity their cruel destiny,
which in them was destroying their fortune and their house, but he
invited them to pity so many other invalids, thousands and hundreds
of thousands who were languishing and perishing for want of care and
medicine, sick and languishing of gloomy misery, who had no more means
of supporting their families, and dying, would leave them in extreme
poverty. And all the human sorrow of disease that finds no obstacles or
contrasts, of the disease that ruins, that tortures, that whips, that
slays, since its companion is misery, all the human sorrow of hundreds
of thousands of sufferers who were perishing without succour, medicine
and food, in narrow death-dealing houses, on hard beds of cold and
want--all this inconsolable, disconsolate human suffering was reviewed
in the calm, firm words of Karl Ehbehard, shone from his glance, and
flowed from his voice. The two brothers felt calmed and soothed, as if
their little insignificant sorrow were dissolved in their mind.
When they had left, Doctor Ehbehard remained for some time quite alone
on his terrace, where he was wont to pass the afternoon, and where, to
the surprise of all his new clients, he preferred to receive the visits
of the sick instead of in his large consulting-room, furnished like
the other rooms, and which looked out on the principal façade at the
back. Again his reading absorbed him, but it was more a concentration
of spirit, a recollection of his thoughts, since he seldom turned over
the pages. Twice while he was thus taken and conquered by his interior
life, his faithful servant appeared at the doorway to tell his master
something, but knowing him quite well and seeing him thus immersed
in silence, and motionless, he had not dared to call him. At last,
at the third time, he ventured to disturb a chair to attract Doctor
Karl's attention, who, raising his head, as if aroused from a lethargy,
looked at him as in a dream. He read the visiting-card that the servant
offered him twice.
"_La Vicomtesse de Bagdad_," he read in French, and then added to the
servant in German:
"New?"
"New."
She whom Doctor Karl Fritz Ehbehard covered with a most rapid
scrutinising glance, hardly had she appeared on the terrace hesitating
to advance, was a woman of forty-five, very dark and pale, with a thick
mass of black hair without a thread of white, with a face of perfect
features without a wrinkle, of a complete beauty, already mature, and
which, perhaps, would still last for years before declining. Cunningly
this mature beauty was supported by dominant, but not offensive, traces
of cosmetics and bistre--a light shade of pink on the cheeks a little
too pale, a slight trace of rouge on the well-designed lips. There was
an even more cunning taste in the dressing of the hair, in her clothes
and hat, an intense but discreet luxury, an exquisite but yet prudent
elegance. But over all this beauty, which must have been invincible
twenty years ago, and dazzling ten years ago, there was a proud and
scornful expression. At some moments this mature beauty became rather
austere or even gloomy, in the blackness of the eyes, in the soft and
knotted eyebrows, in the closed mouth, as if hermetically sealed. At
a nod from the doctor, who, without showing interest, continued to
scrutinise her, she sat down.
"Madame has come to consult a doctor?" he asked in French, with a
German accent, but as if he attached no importance to the reply.
"Yes, Doctor. But do we have to discuss here?" she observed, with a
slight gesture of wonder and perhaps of impatience.
"Here, Madame," he replied tranquilly.
"Can we not retire into a room? Will it not be better?"
"No," he declared, "it is better to remain in the open air in the
Engadine."
"For sick people?"
"For sick and healthy," he added, "nothing is of greater value than air
in this country."
And he threw a glance around at the landscape. The lady bowed, perhaps
not convinced but mollified.
"Are you ill, Madame?"
"No, Herr Doctor," she replied.
And a sudden pallor caused her dark face to become livid.
"Someone who is most dear to me," she added with lowered eyes, "my
son--my only son--I fear consumption."
Again a rush of pallor passed over her features.
"Why did you not bring him with you, Madame?"
She raised her magnificent black eyes, where an immense pride was
apparent, and looked at the doctor.
"Through fear, through fear," she stammered.
"Fear, Madame?"
"For fear that you might have something serious to tell my son. He is
twenty-five, Doctor."
"I should have said nothing before him," said the great consumption
doctor slowly. "I should have told you afterwards."
"Ah, he would have understood everything!" exclaimed the woman
sorrowfully.
"Is he so ill, then?"
"Very, very ill, Herr Doctor."
"For how long?"
"For a year."
"And how old is he?"
"Twenty-five, Herr Doctor; I was twenty when I had him," she declared,
without circumlocution.
"Have you ever suffered from what he is suffering, Madame?" asked the
doctor coldly.
"No; never, never," she replied at once.
"And the father?" asked the doctor.
"The father of my son was not my husband. I have never been married."
She said this without timidity and without boldness, with a calm
certainty, as if Doctor Ehbehard ought to know or guess at once who she
was.
"And was he ill, Madame? Try to remember."
"Not ill, but very delicate."
"This illness, then, comes from the father," concluded the doctor.
"But you will cure him, won't you, Herr Doctor?" she exclaimed
anxiously. "I am come first to tell you all. Doctor, I have only this
son. You must cure him. You must tell me everything, and I will do
everything you tell me. I am very rich, Herr Doctor. My friends have
been very generous to me. I am the _Vicomtesse de Bagdad_; have you
never heard my name? A false name, Herr Doctor. I am not called so. My
real name doesn't matter, nor would my money matter if it were not of
use to cure my son Robert."
Now she seemed another woman. The disdain and pride which rendered
her beauty austere, and at times gloomy, had disappeared. Anguish was
transforming the womanly face that had lived so many years solely for
pleasure, the senses, and voluptuousness. Each feature revealed simple,
bare, maternal suffering--the suffering of every mother.
"Doctor, they are sending us away from the hotel where we are! In fact,
all the women tremble for their husbands and sons on my account. They
do not know that I see them not, and know them not. I do not wish to
see or know their men. But in a way it is right. Think, Doctor--the
_Vicomtesse de Bagdad_!"
Two long tears of anger, shame, and sorrow descended the pallid cheeks
and fell on her bosom. She wiped her face at once, feverishly.
"Do not disturb yourself," he said in a firm tone, in that tone which
was wont to raise the mind of whomsoever listened to him. "If they send
you away from the hotel, go into a villa; you will find one."
"Yes, I will find one," she exclaimed, consoled at once. "And you will
come there, Doctor? You will come? You are a virtuous and great man;
if you come to the villa you will have no scandal: you will only find
Robert and me, ourselves alone, the poor mamma with her poor son. You
will come, won't you?"
"As soon as you have found the villa I will come."
"And you will cure Robert, Doctor?"
"I do not know: I don't know at all."
"But you will try, won't you? You will try?" seizing his hands, with a
mother's cry.
"I promise to try my best," he replied.
A short sigh broke the voice of the woman who had lived only for
pleasure and vice, and who now was a mother grieved to the heart. She
choked in her cambric handkerchief, fragrant with a delicate perfume.
She bowed her head a minute to compose herself before leaving, and then
left followed by the silken rustling of her train.
When Karl Ehbehard was again alone on the terrace, that projected into
the solitary and imposing landscape in the declining day, he did not
resume his reading, nor did he contemplate thoughtfully the austere
lines of the mountains and the great curtain of trees which hid the
road, and the waters running and leaping amidst the thick grass of the
meadows. As if tired, he let his head fall on his breast, and all that
he had seen and heard on that day was weighing on his mind.
All the morning he had visited in his carriage sick people who could
not leave their houses, from those isolated in far-off villas to those
isolated in the _dépendances_ of hotels, since in the summer-time,
especially, no hotel-keeper wished to have consumptives in his own
hotel, so as not to put to flight other travellers who came to
the Engadine, travellers who came there through love of gaiety,
of pleasure, of luxury, who came to the high mountains through a
refinement of the senses, wishing to unite the spectacle of the beauty
of things to an ardent, febrile, worldly life.
All the morning, to the trotting of his horses, he had gone to the
Dorf, to the Bad, even to Campfer, awaited everywhere with anxiety.
He had touched fleshless hands still feverish from the night; he had
stooped to gather, with acute ear, at the naked breast of the sick,
the hoarse, interior breathing; he had heard the dry attacks of
coughing following each other precipitously, leaving the sick without
breath; and he had listened to the long, lamenting conversation of
those who felt that they were not growing better, who felt that they
were growing worse and declining to a fatal solution. Indeed, the
whole morning, with persuasive glance, with cold and calm words, with
whatever there was in him of moral force and energy, he had striven
to console all those who were tormented by the fear of death; he had
striven to comfort them without lying to them, without promising them
anything, lest on the morrow they should be bitterly deluded. He had
striven to excite patience in them and tranquil courage, telling them
that when one wishes to grow better and wishes it intensely, one does
grow better, and that a secret of escaping death is to wish not to
die with all the mysterious vigour of will-power. And once again,
morning and afternoon, before the hundred sadnesses more incurable
than phthisis itself, before the hundred woes of poor beings devoured
by disease, he had seen the singular, amazing miracle performed; he
had seen the sick grow calm and serene, resume vigour, and smile, yes,
smile, with vague, indefinite, infinite hope. Through his presence and
will-power for good, through his firm serenity, he had seen the miracle
renewed, however brief and fleeting. The sick felt themselves better
without taking drugs, and felt themselves first tranquillised and then
excited to joy, yes, almost to joy! He knew these miracles of these
strange diseases; pious miracles that make of the consumptive a being
apart, capable of smiling, of hoping, even to the last breath of his
destroyed lungs. He knew these miracles because with his will-power
for good and the fascination of his eyes and words, he understood how
to dominate, conquer, and exalt the changeful, light minds of the
poor sufferers from phthisis. But the effort put forth by him on that
morning and afternoon, more than any other day, had exhausted him. An
immense weariness oppressed his physiognomy and his limbs in the large
arm-chair of black leather, upon the arms of which his rather thin
hands were abandoning themselves, as if they, too, had been struck by
a profound weariness. When after a short time he raised his head, Else
von Landau was before him.
She had not been announced. Like the Grand Duchess of Gotha, she came
every day, when she felt bad, to the Villa Ehbehard; sometimes, when
she felt better, she came there two or three times a week, like the
brothers Freytag. She knew where to find the doctor and how to enter
discreetly, so as not to disturb him if he were reading, studying, or
if he were thinking and resting. She had entered cautiously without
warning him of her presence, and had sat down at some distance from
him, opening her mantle of otter-skin with sweet, silvery revers of
chinchilla, beneath which she was dressed in brown cloth. She had
untied the large veil which surrounded face and neck, and all the hat
and head. Her delicate, white face, with the clearest complexion,
appeared even whiter beneath the shining, soft chestnut hair. On the
white temples, beneath the grey eyes, a network of little blue veins
was delineated. With hands that clasped a large bunch of Alpine flowers
abandoned on her lap, now and then biting her lips to make them redder,
and coughing very slightly so as not to be heard, she waited patiently
till Karl Ehbehard was aware of her. Seeing her the doctor started; but
he restrained a movement of impatient weariness.
"How are you, then, Fräulein Landau?" he asked her monotonously in
German, speaking as if in a dream.
"I am rather bad, Doctor," she replied, with a fleeting smile on her
lips.
Her voice was soft but hoarse; the veil, however, increased its
penetrating softness.
"Why? Tell me everything."
She settled herself better in her chair, crossed her exquisitely booted
little feet, which peeped out from the skirt, put down her chinchilla
muff, smelt her Alpine flowers, and said:
"The pain up here has tormented me all the evening and night. This
morning, too, when coughing there were some streaks of blood."
"Have you kept them, Fräulein Landau?" he asked, perfectly returned to
himself, and again become the doctor.
"No," she replied, with a shrug of the shoulders. "I thought it was
useless."
"It was not useless."
"Another time I will not fail," she murmured, in a slightly ironical
tone; "I seem to have had fever again for two or three days."
"Did you use the thermometer?"
"No," she replied, "I did not use it. I have thrown away my
thermometer; it tortured me too much. It is an odious instrument. When
I have fever I recognise it from the palms of my hands."
"Still, it should have been necessary to know the degree."
"What does it matter, Doctor?" she said, a little more lively. "To
sadden my mother? She has too much sorrow, the poor dear!"
"But did you follow out my instructions?" the doctor asked her
patiently.
"I take all your medicines, Doctor, because my mother makes me take
them: I eat what you tell me because she makes me eat it," she
declared, again smiling a little sarcastically.
"What about the rest?"
"The rest?"
"Do you go to bed early?"
"No, Doctor, I go to bed very late every night."
"And what do you do?"
"I dance nearly every evening, or chat with my friends, or play bridge."
"Do you dance in a _décolleté_ dress?"
"Certainly; every evening I am in a _décolleté_ dress, even if there is
no dancing."
"And you have supper sometimes? Do you drink champagne?"
"Yes, Doctor; I adore champagne."
"And what do you do in the morning and afternoon?"
"I go out on foot or in a carriage. We make excursions. I walk a great
deal when I can. I went on foot to the Roseg glacier."
"Always in company?"
"Always: I have various flirts, Doctor. One of them especially is
more than a flirt. He loves me. I am fond of him and torment him with
jealousy of my other flirts."
The conversation developed, calmly and coldly on the Doctor's side,
brightly and mockingly, with a touch of impertinent bitterness, on
Else's side. He said to her:
"Why are you doing all this? To kill yourself?"
"To die the sooner," she declared suddenly, becoming serious.
"Don't you care to live?"
"I don't care about living, sick, half alive, dying," she declared,
still very serious.
"You are making your poor mother despair."
"That is true; but it is better for her to get used to despair for the
time when she will lose me."
"She will die of grief."
"After me: I shall not see it, it will be all over," concluded Else von
Landau gloomily. Then suddenly she began to laugh.
"Dear Doctor, you have not told me, but I know that I am doomed.
Certainly I could drag on my life for years by busying myself only
with my drugs, my régime, the heat of my room; by watching myself
from morn till night, not speaking for fear of tiring my lungs, like
Maria Goertz, who has lived two years here with a closed mouth; by
fleeing from balls, festivities, theatres, engagements, only wearing
the thickest furs, unable to go in _décolleté_ or transparent dresses,
unable to have either flirt or lover, forced to live summer and winter
at St. Moritz Dorf or Davos, or failing that in a sanatorium. Oh, no,
Doctor! I don't wish to live thus! That is no life; I prefer to end
it--to end it at once."
Her large, grey, velvety eyes, with almost blue pupils, flashed with a
desire of life and death, her complexion was flushed, and the little
blue veins of the temples were almost swollen. A funereal beauty was in
her countenance.
"Doctor, Doctor," she resumed, in a higher but rougher voice, "I don't
want to exile myself, to cloister myself; I don't want to renounce
anything life should give me or place within my reach. I don't want
to renounce being beautiful, being loved, smiling, and becoming
exhilarated with air, and sun, and love. I wish to resign nothing and
prefer to live less, live a very short time, sooner than renounce
things. I am thirty and a widow. I have no sons and am rich. After my
death there is nothing but silence, Doctor. I don't want to renounce
things."
He looked at her, recognising in her the subtle delirium of
consumptives. He looked at her, so beautiful, so charming and fragile,
made to live, yet so desirous of life and death, and at last his heart,
after the long day of fatigue and suffering for others, so closed and
granite-like, opened and welled with an immense pity for her who was
invoking death, who was ready to meet it, and who was embracing it,
because she would renounce nothing.
Else von Landau resumed deliriously:
"Doctor, would you renounce them? Would you renounce every good and joy
and triumph, every excitement. Would you renounce them?"
He looked at her, with a glance laden with mystery and strength, and
answered her in a clear voice:
"I did so: I made the renunciation."
Else was profoundly surprised and trembled all over, questioning him
with her beautiful, supplicating eyes.
"Do you know how old I was when I was seized by the chest affection you
have?" he asked her, in a cutting voice.
"You? You?"
"At twenty-three I was seized and overthrown by your malady," he
continued. "I am from Basle, an old, grey, cold place; but I went to
study medicine in Germany, at Heidelberg, and lived there four years
in great ardour for study and science, in a dream that absorbed and
devoured me. My masters conceived for me the highest hopes. I myself
was impetuous, but restrained myself with waiting for some profound
scientific mystery that might be revealed to my desire and my tireless
discipline of work. One winter evening I was caught on the road by a
heavy shower. Next day I had inflammation of the lungs. I spat blood
for several days and was dying. With difficulty I was rescued from
death, and six months afterwards, at twenty-three, Fräulein von Landau,
I had tuberculosis of both lungs. Those who were tending me tried to
deceive me; but I was a doctor and knew I must die. Someone told me
to come here for six months or a year. Full of fever, still spitting
blood, no longer sleeping or taking nourishment, and despairing of
everything, I came here. I am forty-eight; for twenty-five years I have
been here and I have never left."
"Never at all? Never at all?" she cried, surprised, moved to the depths
of her soul.
"Never. Twenty-five years ago the Engadine was an almost deserted
region, wild and very sad in some places; fearful and tragic in others.
Some modest little inn in the height of summer gave hospitality to a
few simple lovers of the mountains, to some invalid or convalescent.
There were no conveniences or pleasures or luxury or elegance. Vast
solitary horizons, immense meadows whose flowers very few human feet
disturbed; mountains unharmed from people's contact, a country with
an austere, solitary, and powerful beauty. I lived, so poor was I, in
a little rustic cottage belonging to some Engadine peasants. I fed on
milk, vegetables, and herbs. I had no one with whom to exchange a
word, since even then the healthy and robust fled from those stricken
with my terrible disease. I wandered along difficult and rugged paths
that no one had tracked; I drank at the icy waters of the springs
beneath the glaciers; I gathered the mountain flowers which filled with
perfume my little room, and I read a little. In winter my confinement
became fearful amidst the snow and ice, shut up at first in my room;
then mad with weariness, boredom, and gloom I sallied forth, in the
cruel cold, every day on the snow and ice. After a year my malady was
conquered. The pure, cold air, the pure water, a life of simplicity
and purity, an isolation that pacifies and soothes, an interior life
profound and free, the treasures that the high mountains jealously
preserve, that are spread out only to humble and devout seekers after
health, silence and peace--those treasures were granted me and I was
saved. I never left the Engadine again: I made the renunciation."
She listened to him, silent and moved, her eyes clouded with tears.
"I renounced every joy and delight, every triumph. I might have
discovered an immense secret of science to reveal it to a stupid world.
I might have signed with my name a truth still unknown and benefited
with noble gifts the human race; I might have been illustrious and
celebrated--but I renounced everything. I might have been loved,
I might have loved and founded a family, had sons, and surrounded
myself with beings who might have been blood of my blood--I renounced
all that. I might have lived in a metropolis, run through the world,
visited unknown countries, known far-off peoples. I renounced them;
everything I renounced. What am I, forsooth? A doctor, a wretched
doctor, a doctor of rich consumptives in a summer and winter station.
I am paid handsomely, but I am nothing but a poor doctor who strives
to prolong a life here and there as well as he can--nothing more.
For twenty-five years I have not moved from here: I am alone, no one
loves me, I love no one; I have neither glory nor love, no sons, no
pleasures."
"And why all this, why?" cried Else von Landau, anxious and agitated.
"Because one must live as long as possible: because one must die as
late as possible; because one must, you understand, combat death," he
said solemnly.
"Did you not suffer from the renunciation? Did you not suffer from what
you missed? Do you not suffer from what you are missing?" she asked,
still discouraged, but already conquered.
"I suffered _then_," replied Karl Ehbehard. "I suffered greatly. These
woods and rocks, once so solitary, have seen my tears. Afterwards I
suffered no more. And now some sweetness comes into my life in this
exercise of my art: if I manage to snatch some infirm creature from
death--a rare sweetness. But nothing more. So even renunciation offers
at last its compensations. Renounce, dear lady,"--and his voice grew a
little tender--"these joys which are precipitating you towards death.
Seek other things up here for a year or two amidst natural and pure
beauties. Live here in peaceful contemplation of sky and clouds and
air, of proud mountains and terrible glaciers; of slender streams, deep
woods, and fragrant flowers. Live here with yourself, creating a more
intense interior life. Do you not see? This land has been invaded by
a horde of pleasure-seekers and vicious people, whereby the sick and
ailing and lovers of the mountains are being overturned and disappear.
The land has been far too much sown with villas, immense hotels and
little hotels, and has been defiled by railways, electric trams, and
funiculars; in every way the attempt has been made to destroy her
beauty and secret of life. But they will never destroy them! Her beauty
and purity are eternal and immortal. Ah, renounce the world, dear lady;
later let the pleasure-seekers depart, and remain alone in the presence
of all that is lofty, sincere, and vivifying. Seek no more the crowd
that takes you and consumes your strength; mix no more with them, fly
from their ardent, sterile pleasures, refuse their vain and dangerous
gifts--renounce them, renounce them! If you want to live and be cured,
renounce them. Here by yourself in solitude and silence, in contact
with lofty things, now gentle, now terrible, the great treasure of
health that the mountains guard and concede only to fervent worshippers
will be granted to you. Make the renunciation or die. I am the apostle
of life."
"I will obey you," she said, subdued.
He rose; and with a simple, friendly action took her hand.
"Your hard sacrifice will later have its reward," murmured Karl
Ehbehard, in a subdued voice.
She questioned him with her beautiful, velvety eyes.
"If he who loves you and whom you love knows how to wait, he will have
you," added Karl Ehbehard.
An intense smile of happiness appeared on Else von Landau's lips.
"So much was not granted to me," he ended by saying, sadly.