"Hoop-la!" cried Mabel Clarke joyously. And bending over the neck of
her yellow-dun horse she urged him to a trot; Vittorio Lante also
brought his horse, a powerful black, to a trot. The amazon and her
cavalier trotted side by side for some minutes in a cloud of dust.
Descending by the hill that separates the Dorf from the valley of
Samaden, going through the little shady, peaceful wood, grazing the
tall hedges, fragrant with aroma beneath the matutinal dew, Mabel
Clarke brought her horse to a walk and Vittorio Lante imitated her.
But when the American girl issued from the wood on to the high road,
where the broad valley of Samaden opens out, she perceived that the
two equipages, the large white brake and the victoria, containing
the rest of the party had made great progress and were hardly to
be distinguished, being ahead beyond Celerina and on the way to
Pontresina; she felt a sudden rush of infantile impatience, and
inciting her horse and the cavalier who accompanied her, she wanted to
catch up and pass the two carriages.
Dexterously firm in the saddle, in a dark blue habit which made her
seem taller and slimmer, and a most attractive dark blue doublet,
fastened by tiny buttons, with a white collar fastened by a big
gold pin, with a tea rose in her buttonhole, and a round straw hat,
surrounded by a blue veil that even restrained the thick, riotous,
chestnut hair, and floated behind in transparent blue waves, gloved in
yellow deer-skin, booted exquisitely, Mabel Clarke was more than ever
fascinating in her florid beauty, in her graceful vigour, and vibrant
youth. She did not look at the very bright, almost white, morning sky,
a sky of an ineffable softness. She took no heed of the fresh air, so
sweet to breathe; and she cared not for a sun that was very bland,
whose rays were bright without fierceness. She gave herself up, in
happy unconsciousness, to the joy of being young, healthy, beautiful,
of guiding and being guided by a strong horse, faithful and safe,
passing at a steady trot along the broad road, amidst the meadows
soft with dew, only turning every minute to see if her cavalier, Don
Vittorio Lante, were following closely. That perfect cavalier, who
was trotting with ease and youthful heedlessness, was quite close to
her, scarcely bending over his horse, smiling every time at the softly
blue-veiled face of Mabel Clarke, who smiled at him for a moment. In
the buttonhole of his riding-coat he had placed a tea rose; beneath the
brim of his soft grey felt hat a peaceful countenance revealed itself,
and an expression full of happiness that was reflected from his glance.
His surroundings, with their charm of air and light and perfume, did
not affect him; or perhaps they reached him through his dream. Twice
with a gesture of fastidiousness the amazon and her knight were forced
to rein in their horses, putting them to a walking pace, to pass the
little village of Cresta and the district of Celerina, in the narrow,
twisting, badly paved streets. But when once again they emerged on to
the high road and had passed the sounding wooden bridge over the Inn,
they yielded themselves to a strong trot, again inciting and urging
each other, always gaining more ground on the carriages.
"Go! go! go!" exclaimed Mabel Clarke gutturally, in English.
Already this gay chase was perceived from the carriages, and
many-coloured parasols and white handkerchiefs were to be seen waved
in greeting from the brake; the two ladies in the victoria turned
their heads, more tranquilly, as if to encourage the proud riders more
pacifically, who were advancing and suddenly reached and passed the
victoria, Mabel Clarke sending a kiss with the handle of her whip to
Mrs. Clarke and a nod to the other lady, Mrs. Gertrude Milner, Don
Vittorio Lante bowing and saluting with his whip. They overtook the
large brake, skirting it, the one on the right, the other on the left,
where, laughing and gesticulating, Ellen and Norah West, Susy Milner,
and Rachel Rodd jumped up to welcome them, as well as several young
men, who in French and English also welcomed them in pleasant, jolly
terms, while Mabel and Vittorio, on their part, laughing and calling
out a little, responded to all the enthusiasm.
For a long portion of the road there was a war of chaff between the
brake and the two riders as they came up or passed from time to time,
an exchange of greetings and apostrophes in French and English, the
girls pronouncing Mabel's name a hundred times, and she shaking her
beautiful brown head as she smiled and laughed, her veil swelling
behind her in blue waves, while Vittorio Lante played his part in
regulating his black to Mabel's yellow-dun; and even he was amused by
the playful briskness of their chaff.
Annie Clarke and Gertrude Milner in the victoria more quietly contented
themselves with a kindly wave of the hand or a nod of the head or an
indulgent little smile when Mabel and Vittorio passed them. Annie
Clarke was wearing a light grey dress of masculine cut and a round hat,
wrapped round with a light grey gauze veil; beneath her white collar on
the dark tie, knotted in man's fashion, a very simple pin was fixed,
an enormous shining black pearl, a unique jewel. Gertrude Milner was
austerely dressed in black, but on the white lace which formed the yoke
of her waistcoat she wore a single string of large pearls, which she
never took off. People said that Gertrude Milner even wore these pearls
at night when she slept.
As they sped towards Pontresina neither the amazon nor her cavalier,
nor the young girls in the brake, nor the ladies in the victoria seemed
aware of how they were leaving behind them the meadows of Celerina, the
distances of Samaden, and the heights of the Muottas and the Corvatsch;
the profile of Pizalbris to the left, and to the right the curve of the
Fuorcla, the deep woods that alternate with arid glebe and stones and
rocks, and the white Flatzbach, that milky, tumultuous torrent which
comes from the white Bernina. They seemed not to see how in grandiose
and solemn line the two mountains opened, to show the gigantic Roseg
glacier in a bluish whiteness beneath the bland sun. Perhaps the fresh,
caressing air, the vault of heaven brighter than ever, and the soft
morning light vibrated within them as intimate and secret elements of
serenity, content, and subtle intoxication. But none of them wanted
to, or knew how to, take account of these hidden influences. They
enjoyed everything without analysing, and the strong desire of arriving
quickly at their goal possessed them. The horses of the riders, of the
brake, of the victoria, urged on by spur and whip, sped on to arrive
together more quickly than anyone had ever made the journey, with the
headstrong anxiety of always being first, which is one of the forces of
the American race. The maids and youths in the brake were annoyed at
every other vehicle, and tried to pass them, urging on the driver, the
robust Joe Wealther, the fiancé of Ellen West. Mabel and Vittorio were
annoyed with whatever they met in the way, an obstacle to their race;
and with smiling and mischievous eyes they exchanged, the American and
the Italian, their impetuous desire of ever speeding ahead, as they
disturbed groups of pedestrians, and scattered clouds of dust over
the other carriages. In the victoria Annie Clarke and Gertrude Milner,
the two peaceful and dignified matrons, grew weary of all the other
road-farers; they drew the rug over their knees in a distracted and
distant manner, appearing to be not the least aware of other wayfarers
on foot or in carriage. They grew proudly weary, desiring quietly, as
the others desired ardently, to reach the Morteratsch glacier quickly,
whither all were directed, and where they must see everything in the
shortest time and return at once to St. Moritz Dorf for luncheon at the
Palace Hotel.
"The lunch is execrable here at the glacier restaurant," Annie Clarke
declared, with a knowing air.
Still, in spite of all their American hurry, on entering that strange
district of Pontresina, studded with little wooden houses, in two rows,
as if from a child's box of toys, carriage and riders were forced to
go at a foot-pace. The row of carriages became much longer--hotel
omnibuses, barouches coming and going in every direction to and from
the Roseg, towards Samaden and the Bernina. Even denser were the people
on foot, who came and went, and grouped themselves at the doors of the
hotels with their hundred rooms, before the cafés and the confectionery
shops--a bizarre crowd, so different from that of St. Moritz.
"_Très inélégante_, Pontresina," declared Gertrude Milner, in her turn,
with American gravity.
However, they were forced to halt in the square before the Post Office,
like all the other carriages, to let the horses have a moment's
breather. The girls in the brake clamoured for the famous chocolate
truffle of the Pasticceria, _A Ma Compagne_, so their two cavaliers
jumped from the brake to go and fetch some; two others went for a
whisky and soda. Vittorio Lante patiently allowed his horse to drink at
a fountain near by. Mabel approached her mother's carriage and bent
over her as fresh as a flower.
"Happy, Mabel?" asked the mother tranquilly, scarcely smiling.
"Most happy, mammy, very happy!" exclaimed the daughter.
Smiling, chatting, and exchanging chocolates and caramels, the girls
in the brake pretended that Joe Wealther should make the horses go
furiously on leaving Pontresina; but he imperturbably kept an even pace
in spite of their protests. Mabel and Vittorio again trotted briskly,
and even the peaceful victoria was transported at a trot. Beneath a
sky increasingly pale, as if a great pallor had been diffused beneath
the blue, with the light of the sun now veiled, the countryside was
profoundly changed. A broad, deserted valley, between two rows of
black, rocky mountains, opened out, and stretched monotonously and
sadly. Here and there a rare herb grew between the rocks with some big,
dusty, yellow flower. Stones were everywhere, from the little pebble
to the massive boulder, heaps of dry earth were crumbling, and little
mounds of black earth concealed the meagre course of a stream which now
and then reappeared, weak and tinged. So silent was the sadness of that
valley, and the death of everything lively and gracious, that behind
her blue veil Mabel's grey eyes grew disturbed and she felt the need of
breaking the sad silence that oppressed her, and of hearing the voice
of her cavalier.
"Do you love all this, Lante?"
They were alone, sufficiently far from the carriage; their horses close
together, head to head, relaxed their pace to the reins held slackly in
their hands.
"I love you, Miss Clarke," he replied promptly, with an unwonted
impulse, more passionate than sentimental.
"Do you even love me here, in this arid, gloomy place?" she asked, as
if another, a more intense amorous declaration were necessary for her,
to conquer, perhaps, the melancholy that weighed her down, or for some
other mysterious uncertainty of her soul.
"Here, and everywhere, and always," he said seriously, as if he were
proclaiming a shining truth and pronouncing a sublime oath.
"Ah!" she exclaimed simply, as if in a dream.
For an instant, almost in a dream, Mabel bowed her head, as if she
wished to drive away every molesting care. She pulled sharply at her
horse's rein, to resume a more rapid pace.
The carriages approached. Mabel and Vittorio distanced them again. The
man was silent and thoughtful, as if disturbed at what had bubbled
forth from his soul in a cry of sincerity. She was silent, watching him
now and then, as if to scrutinise his thoughts and feelings, because
the accent, which had been more earnest than she had previously heard,
had reached her. The horses trotted head to head.
"Is this the Bernina road, Lante?" she asked in a low voice.
"Yes, Miss Clarke," he murmured.
"Then it is the road to Italy?"
"Exactly, to Italy, Miss Clarke."
There was an instant of silence. He leant his head towards her and said
to her in a voice she had never heard before:
"Miss Clarke, shall we gallop to Italy? Together, alone, to Italy, Miss
Clarke?"
She looked him frankly in the eyes, wishing to penetrate his heart and
soul. And he withstood well the woman's glance, directed sharply at him
in its desire to know the truth. A light laugh issued from her young
mouth.
"Why do you laugh, Miss Clarke? It is not right to laugh so," he
exclaimed rather harshly.
The laugh changed into such an affectionate and sincere smile that
without her speaking he understood. He added anxiously, but with happy
anxiety:
"Would you come, Miss Clarke? Would you come?"
"Perhaps I would come, Lante," she replied, again become serious.
"Will you come?"
"Perhaps I will come," she added gravely.
Pale with joy, he stooped and suddenly clasped her hand and kissed it
in an act of devotion and dedication. Nothing more was said. The brake
full of girls and young men came up to them, who continued to chatter
and laugh, emitting guttural exclamations, to conquer the desolate
solemnity of the country through which they were passing, and up to
them came the victoria where Annie Clarke and Gertrude Milner had drawn
on their heavy fur capes, since the sky was now an immense pallor above
the great valley rough with boulders and rocks, and the sun, that had
become a spectral pallor over the naked, rude mountains, had made them
feel cold. Everyone in carriage and on horseback sighed with relief as,
making the last stretch of road, wooded like the avenue of an oasis
in such an austere landscape, they smiled at the foaming, sounding,
clamorous cascade that in a little gorge among the trees comes from
the Bernina and penetrates underground, and further off reappears a
torrent, and becomes lower down a river. After a few paces all had to
descend.
A wooden bridge was the extreme limit for carriages and horses. To
reach the glacier it was necessary to go on foot.
"Is it impossible _for all_ to drive?" asked Gertrude Milner, very
scandalised in her American dignity.
"Impossible, dearest Gertrude," replied Annie Clarke, shaking her head.
"If you are tired we can stop at the restaurant."
"The glacier is very badly managed," murmured Miss Milner, offended in
her habitual laziness and her American _amour-propre_.
"Very badly," agreed Mrs. Clarke, who never liked walking.
They began to walk slowly after the young people. The party walked
rapidly, in couples and groups, Mabel far in advance of all, lifting
over her arm the train of her riding habit, showing her slender little
feet and some of her leg. Vittorio was beside her, not leaving her for
a step. But in the frank sense of respect for another's liberty, which
is one of the noblest things in American social life, none of the party
bothered about them. Not even Mabel's mother seemed to be aware of the
very open love-making, even in its correct form. Ellen and Norah West's
mother had remained at Sils Maria, allowing her daughter, Ellen, to go
alone with her fiancé Joe Wealther. Mrs. Gertrude Milner worried not at
all about the flirtation of her daughter, Susy, with Pierre d'Alfort,
the witty and amiable young Frenchman, who fascinated the girl by the
originality of his _boutades_, and much less did she trouble herself
about the flirtations of her niece, Rachel Rodd, with the Vicomte de
Lynen, the Belgian, a troublesome and ever-deluded hunter after a big
dowry, who even here was making a false move, for Rachel Rodd was very
poor, with only a dowry of one hundred thousand dollars. At times the
couples met and formed large groups, whence issued jokes and laughter,
only to separate spontaneously and correctly. Only Mabel and Vittorio,
who had dismounted, started off at a brisk walk, as if they did not
wish to be overtaken; but no one followed hard on them, for they took
care to keep the distance, and no one called after them. Suddenly,
however, the party halted to look around.
The Morteratsch valley opened out on two sides, on which the mountain
larches climb to a certain height, slender and brown, with supple
branches; higher up the sides rose even more naked and less green,
until quite high up they were delineated against the sky, to right
and left, in massy profiles of dark rock. In the middle distance and
the background, in gigantic, white, rugged, naked cliffs, in colossal
undulations, that had been immovable for centuries and for centuries
covered with snow, as hard as the rocks it hid, the glacier opened
out, arose, advanced, and took up all the horizon; it advanced like
an immense white wall, and then like an immense black wall, forward,
forward, as if it were walking towards the onlooker, towards the rapt,
ecstatic crowd in front--an immense peaked wall that seemed of rock but
was really of ice. Three majestic peaks stood above it: on the left the
Piz Bellavista, on the other side towards the left the Piz Morteratsch,
and finally, very lofty, fearsome, and white without a scar or rent,
the queen of mountains, the virgin of mountains--the Bernina.
Here, round the little one-storeyed restaurant, with its tables spread
in the open air, some beneath an awning, round a kiosk, where post
cards and little souvenirs of the Morteratsch were on sale, a whole
squad of silent people were contemplating the glacier. Before it lay
a stretch of ground, covered with big and little rocks brought there
by the winter avalanches; amid the boulders ran a meandering torrent,
while to the right was a faintly traced little path among the rocks
which higher up, as it approached the great black wall of the glacier,
disappeared; and nothing but stones and water proceeded from the
glacier, where a gloomy grotto was hollowed out, which seemed like a
speck in the distance.
"Why is the glacier so black in front?" Gertrude asked Annie, in a low
voice.
"It is covered with rocks and earth," was the reply.
"_Dommage_," murmured Gertrude in French.
For some minutes the enchantment of the glacier remained over the crowd
that was admiring it, silent and astonished. Then figures began to
separate, attracted as by a magnet, and set out for the small path,
while other figures more in advance were already there, small and
diminishing, flitting from rock to rock--little black specks of beings
who were at the grotto or coming from it. The coming and going was
continuous; the men gave their hands to the ladies to make them walk
more safely, or preceded them to point out the best way, while the
lofty wall, all white in front, all black above, and finally at the
horizon white with reflections of metallic blue and gold, in altitudes
and precipices which seemed the monstrous waves of a sea petrified for
ages, caused the crowd of visitors to seem even more tiny and miserable.
"We will stay here," said Annie Clarke to the party.
"We will stay," approved Gertrude Milner.
"_Au revoir, mama_," cried Mabel to her mother from afar, as she
approached the glacier, accompanied by Vittorio.
"_Au revoir, au revoir_," exclaimed the young people of the party as
they left.
Quietly seated at a restaurant table, beneath the awning, Annie Clarke
and Gertrude Milner took a cup of tea to warm themselves, watching,
without troubling, the figures of their daughters ever growing smaller,
as they proceeded over the sharp rocks, along the torrent, towards the
glacier.
Around them at the tables some were taking tea, others were drinking
beer, and others writing on post cards. People arrived continuously
from the road behind the bridge where the carriages were halted, and
others arrived from the glacier. Everywhere nothing but German was to
be heard, and the very waitresses of the inn were fräulein who did not
understand a word of English or French.
"Even here all are Germans," murmured Gertrude with a sneer, as she
sipped her tea.
"And Jews! What a nuisance, dear," added the very Catholic Annie.
Mabel and Vittorio had almost reached the goal. As they approached
the way became more dangerous amid the great rocks which had to be
jumped, and from which it was easy to slip. Mabel's high heels made
her hesitate and vacillate every moment. Frowning and anxious about
making a stupid fall, she ended by placing her two hands in Vittorio's,
although at first she had refused any support; then in three leaps she
reached the opening of the ice grotto with him. He made her climb the
last boulder, lifting her like a child, as he deposited her on a mound
of earth, and so gracefully that she smiled at him adorably to thank
him. The immense wall stood over their heads; through two enormous
clefts they perceived its fearsome height and profundity. The enormous
walls were dripping icy water, and drops of icy water fell from the
arch of the cleft, whence was formed the strange grotto. Near at hand,
beneath a colossal and sinuous streak of ice, which was the tail of the
glacier, the torrent bubbled forth mysteriously and sped away. They
penetrated beneath the white arch that overwhelmed them, amid the ice
that surrounded them with a cold embrace; the gelid drops fell on their
cheeks and foreheads. Vittorio felt Mabel's hand trembling a little as
it sought his.
"Would you rather go out?" he asked, guessing her secret wish.
"I would rather," she replied at once.
They completed the short circuit of the grotto and left. She was pale
as if she breathed with difficulty under the immense wall; and she
breathed deeply, in fact, when once again she was on rocks in the open
air. She perceived a little road that climbed among the boulders to the
right.
"Come," she said, approaching Vittorio.
It was not an easy or short ascent for her cavalier to a promontory
which arose to the side; and they still met people who were descending,
chatting harshly in German, while further off the rest of the party
followed them. Turning suddenly, they perceived that they had climbed
higher than the wall of the glacier, and that it was spreading before
their eyes from top to bottom in an immeasurable breadth, bounded
on the right by two great moraines of black rocks, all white in
the middle, and at the back climbing, heaping, sinking, rugged and
profound, towards the two lofty peaks of Bellavista and Morteratsch,
towards the beautiful and virginal Bernina, the mistress of the
mountains. They sat down on a large rock, and both were seized and
conquered by the solemn, majestic, and terrible spectacle. They were
alone; before them was the potent immensity of things that had lasted
for ages and would last through the ages.
Suddenly Mabel Clarke turned to Vittorio Lante and asked him in a
clear, precise voice:
"You really are free, Lante?"
He looked into the quiet eyes that questioned him and replied sincerely:
"Yes, I am free, Miss Clarke."
Mabel still contemplated for a moment the whiteness of the far-away ice
and the purity of the neighbouring snow; her accent was again firm and
fierce as she asked:
"You are poor, are you not, Lante?"
There rose before the eyes of the Italian gentleman the more than ever
impressing spectacle that elevates souls and exalts them to supreme
truth. Beside him was a creature of truth and beauty. From his ardent
heart there burst forth a pure flame of truth. Courageously, without
shame and with simplicity, he declared:
"I am very poor, Miss Clarke."
Mabel smiled as never before, and her hand brushed Vittorio's in a
grateful, loyal, pure caress.