THE KISS OF THE ALPINE FAY.
The Nordheim villa was silent and deserted. The president's remains had
been transported to the capital and buried thence, and the entire
household had removed thither.
The engineer-in-chief also was in the capital, to consult with the
company which was part owner of the railway, and to arrange the affairs
of the deceased president,--a difficult task, which he had voluntarily
undertaken, being justified in the eyes of the world in so doing, since
the dissolution of his betrothal to Alice had not yet been made public.
The time given to mourning must pass before any such announcement could
be made, and then Alice would no longer need his aid. At present it was
above all desirable to avert the gossip and curiosity sure to ensue
upon the catastrophe which had caused the president's sudden death, and
which had greatly diminished his wealth. A strong arm was needed to
save what remained.
Ernst Waltenberg was still in Heilborn. Since the day when he had
bidden farewell to his betrothed he had held aloof from the Wolkenstein
district, but something appeared to retain him in its vicinity. The
late autumn had set in with unusual severity, and the popular
watering-place was, of course, quite empty but for the foreign
gentleman, with his secretary and servants, who did not as yet talk of
departure.
Veit Gronau was pacing to and fro the drawing-room of the comfortable
cottage which Waltenberg occupied, his face filled with anxiety,
and glancing from time to time towards the closed door of the next
room,--Ernst's study.
"If I could only tell what to make of it all!" he muttered. "He locks
himself in there day after day, and it is a week now since he set foot
in the open air; he who for years has passed two or three hours in the
saddle daily. If I could but get at Reinsfeld; but with his usual
conscientiousness he has gone to Neuenfeld, and will not leave it until
his first term of office has expired, when it is to be hoped a
successor will have been provided for the post. There will surely be
enough of the Nordheim millions left to insure him an easy existence
when he marries his betrothed, and he would have been far wiser to
remain near her now. Here you are at last, Said. What does Herr
Waltenberg say?"
"The master begs Herr Gronau to dine without him," the negro replied.
"This will never do!" exclaimed Veit; but as he walked towards the door
of the next room with some vague intention of forcing it, it opened,
and Waltenberg himself appeared.
"You here yet, Gronau?" he said, with a slight frown. "I begged you to
dine without me."
"I am like yourself, Herr Waltenberg. I have no appetite."
"Then, Said, have the table cleared. Go!"
Said obeyed, but Gronau, although he saw plainly that he too was
dismissed, obstinately maintained his post.
Ernst had gone to the window, whence there was an extended view of the
distant range of mountains. During the entire week that had elapsed
since the avalanche had occurred the weather had not cleared; it had
been dull and stormy, and the mountains, day after day, were veiled.
To-day, for the first time, they showed themselves clearly.
"It is clearing up--at last!" Ernst said, more to himself than to his
companion, who shook his head dubiously.
"It will not last long. Fine weather never does when the outlines of
the mountains are so distinct and the crests seem so near."
Ernst did not at once reply,--he stood gazing steadily at the blue
distance; but after two or three minutes he said, "I want to drive to
Oberstein to-morrow; order the carriage, if you please."
Gronau looked at him, surprised: "To Oberstein? Do you intend making an
excursion?"
"Yes; I wish to ascend the Wolkenstein."
"You mean to the cliffs."
"No, to the summit."
"Now? At this season? It is impossible, Herr Waltenberg. You know the
summit has always been inaccessible."
"That is the very reason why it attracts me. I have stayed on here to
make the ascent, but I could do nothing in the weather we have had. Get
me a couple of competent guides----"
"There are none such to be had for the ascent you speak of," Gronau
gravely interrupted him.
"Why not? Because of that old nurse's tale? Offer the men a large sum
of money; 'tis a sure cure for superstition."
"Possibly; but it might well fail here, for the old nurse's tale has a
background of indubitable reality, as we have seen. The avalanche and
the ruin it wrought are too fresh in the memory of the mountaineers."
"Yes, it wrought ruin indeed," Ernst said, dreamily, still gazing
towards the mountains.
"And therefore let the Wolkenstein alone for the present," Veit
entreated. "This clearing up of the skies is not going to last, I
assure you. We cannot undertake the feat now."
Ernst shrugged his shoulders: "I did not ask you to go with me. Stay at
home if you are afraid, Gronau."
Veit's brown face showed irritation, but he controlled himself: "We
have surely shared enough of adventure together, Herr Waltenberg, to
set your mind at rest with regard to my timidity. I will go with you to
the extent of what is possible; you, I fear, mean to go farther, and
your mood is not one to enable you to encounter danger coolly."
"You are mistaken; my mood is excellent, and I ara going to make this
ascent, with or without guides; if needs must I will go alone."
Gronau was familiar with this tone, and knew that there was nothing to
be done in opposition to it; nevertheless he made one last attempt. He
supposed that there would be an outbreak, but he determined to speak:
"Remember your promise. You promised Baroness Thurgau to avoid the
Wolkenstein."
Ernst started: his change of colour, the flash of menace in his eyes,
betrayed how he suffered by the touch upon his bleeding wound; but in a
moment he had shrouded himself in a frigid composure that forbade all
further discussion.
"The circumstances under which I made that promise no longer exist.
Moreover, I must entreat that all allusion to them in my presence be
avoided for the future."
He went to his room, turning upon the threshold to say, "At eight
o'clock to-morrow morning you will have the carriage ready for a drive
to Oberstein."
* * * * *
Upon a snow-field in face of the peak of the Wolkenstein a small group
of bold mountain-climbers were assembled, who had undertaken the
ascent, and had actually accomplished the greater part of it,--the two
guides, muscular, weather-beaten mountaineers, and Veit Gronau.
They were provided with ropes, axes, and every accessory of a
mountain-ascent, and were evidently taking a prolonged rest here.
They had left Oberstein on the previous day and had climbed to the
borders of the limitless waste of rocks, where was a hut, in which they
had taken shelter for the night, and then with the first dawn of
morning they had attacked the cliff hitherto pronounced inaccessible.
With persistent pains, with indescribable exertions, and with reckless
contempt of the danger that threatened them at every step, they had
scaled it. It had been ascended for the first time!
This consciousness, however, was the only reward of their success, for
the weather, which had hitherto been tolerably clear, had changed
within an hour or two. Thick mist filled the valleys, obscuring the
outlook, and the crests only of the surrounding mountains were visible.
The peak of the Wolkenstein, itself a mighty pyramid of ice rising
sheer above them, was gradually disappearing. Gronau's field-glass was
directed steadily to this pyramid, and the two guides exchanged a few
monosyllabic remarks, while their grave faces showed their anxiety.
"I can see nothing more," said Veit, at last, taking the glass from his
eyes. "The peak is veiled in mist; nothing can be distinguished any
longer."
"That mist is snow," said one of the guides, an elderly man with
grizzled hair. "I told the gentleman it was coming, but he would not
listen to me."
"Yes, it was madness to attempt the ascent under such circumstances,"
Gronau muttered. "I should have thought we had done enough in
surmounting this cliff. It was a terrific piece of climbing; few will
ever venture to follow us, and it never has been done before."
Meanwhile, the younger guide had kept a sharp lookout in all
directions; he now approached and said, "We can wait no longer, Herr;
we must return."
"Without Herr Waltenberg? Upon no account!" Gronau declared.
The man shrugged his shoulders: "Only as far as the snow-barrow, where
we can find shelter beneath the rocks, if it comes to the worst. Up
here we could never stand against the snow, and we must descend the
worst part of the cliff before it comes, or not one of us will get down
alive. We agreed to wait for the gentleman at the snow-barrow."
Such had, in fact, been the agreement when Waltenberg separated from
the party. The guides who had been prevailed upon to undertake the
expedition by the offer of three times their usual fee had brought the
two strangers successfully to the top of the cliff. Here they had
positively refused to go farther, not because their courage failed
them,--the summit lying directly before them was probably less
dangerous to climb than the steep, almost perpendicular cliff they had
already scaled,--but the experienced mountaineers well knew what those
grayish-white clouds foreboded which were beginning to assemble, at
first as light as hovering mist. They begged for an immediate return,
and Gronau seconded their entreaties, but in vain.
Ernst saw directly before him the summit he had so longed to attain,
and no warning, no entreaty, availed to alter his determination to
proceed. He insisted upon the completion of his daring attempt with all
the obstinacy of a nature that held cheaply his own life, as well as
the lives of others. The threatening skies did not move him, and the
refusal of the guides to accompany him only roused his antagonism. With
a sneer at their caution when the goal was all but attained he left
them.
Gronau had kept his word; he had gone with him to the extent of what
was possible, but when that was reached, when the risk was madness,--a
provoking of fate,--he had remained behind, and yet he was regretting
that he had done so. The climber had been visible for a while as he
toiled upward, until near the summit all trace of him through the
field-glass had been lost, because of the mists which gathered quickly
and heavily.
"We must go down," the elder guide said, resolutely. "If the gentleman
comes back he will find us beside the snow-barrow. We shall do him no
good by staying here, and we risk our lives by losing time."
Gronau saw the justice of the man's words, and shut up his glass with a
sigh.
* * * * *
The wavering masses of mist grew thicker and darker; they floated
upward from all the valleys, sailed forth from every cleft, and veiled
forests and peaks in their damp mantle. The precipices of the
Wolkenstein, the sheer gigantic stretch of its rocky walls, vanished in
the rolling fog,--the ice-pyramid of its peak alone stood forth clear
and distinct.
And aloft upon this summit stood the man who had persisted and had
accomplished what had been deemed impossible. His dress bore traces of
his fearful toil, his hands were bleeding from the jagged points of ice
by which he had held to swing himself up, but he stood where no human
foot save his own had ever trod. He had dared to ascend the cloudy
throne of the Alpine Fay, to lift her veil and to look the sovereign of
this icy realm in the face.
And her face was beautiful! But its beauty was wild and phantom-like:
there was in it no trace of earth, and it dazzled with a painful
splendour the eyes of the undaunted adventurer. Around him and below
him was naught save ice and snow,--rigid white glaciers riven and
billowy but gleaming with fairylike brilliancy. The crevasses gave back
here the greenish hue of spring and there the deep blue of ocean, and
the dazzling white of the jagged, snow-covered crests reflected a
thousand prismatic dyes, while above it all arched a sky of such clear
azure that it was as if it would fain pour forth all its fulness of
light upon the old legendary throne of the mountains, the crystal
palace of the Alpine Fay.
Ernst drew deep, long breaths: for the first time in many days the
weight that had so burdened his spirit vanished; the world, with its
loves and hates, its struggles and conflicts, lay far below him; it
disappeared in the misty sea that filled the valleys and buried beneath
it meadows and forest and the habitations of men. The mountain-peaks
alone emerged, like islands in a measureless ocean. Here appeared a
couple of dark crests of rock, there a peak of dazzling snow, and there
a distant range. But they all looked unreal, bodiless, floating and
sailing upon the flood which heaved and undulated as it slowly rose
higher and higher. Over it brooded the silence of death: life was
extinct in this realm of eternal ice.
And yet a warm, passionate human heart was throbbing in this waste,
fain to flee from the world and its woe, seeking forgetfulness here,
but bringing its woe with it. So long as danger strained every nerve,
so long as there was a goal to be attained, the haunting misery of his
soul had been stilled. The old magic draught which Ernst had so often
quaffed had not lost its charm; danger and enjoyment indissolubly
linked, the spell of magnificent nature, and the unfettered freedom
again his own, were all-powerful to stir him. Again he felt the
intoxicating force of the draught, and in the midst of this icy waste
he was seized with a burning longing for those lands of sunshine and
light where only he had been truly at home. There he could forget and
recover,--there he could again live and be happy.
The misty sea rose higher and higher; slowly, noiselessly, but
steadily, one peak after another vanished beneath the gray, mysterious
flood, which, like a deluge, swallowed up everything belonging to
earth. The ice-pyramid of the Wolkenstein alone still stood forth, but
its gleaming splendour had vanished with the vanished sunlight.
The solitary dreamer suddenly shuddered as if from the chill of an icy
breath. He looked up; the blue above him had faded: he saw only white
mist, which began to veil everything near at hand.
Ernst had been abundantly warned by the guides: he knew this sign; with
danger the tension of his nerves returned; it was high time to retrace
his steps. He began the descent, slowly, cautiously, testing every step
as he had done in climbing up, but the mist barred his way everywhere
and chilled him to the bone. Nevertheless, he pursued his downward path
steadily, the traces of his ascent in the snow guiding him; at last,
however, he was forced to search for them, and more than once he lost
them. The effects of his over-exertion began also to assert themselves.
His breath came short and in gasps, the moisture stood out upon his
forehead, and his sight grew uncertain. Conscious of this, he roused
himself to greater efforts. He had challenged the danger, he would not
succumb to it, the old nurse's tale should not come true, and his force
of will was again victorious. He traversed the terrible path for the
second time, and panting, gasping, half frozen, half dead from fatigue,
he finally reached the foot of the pyramid, and stood upon the glacier
summit of the cliff.
The hardest part of his task was over. True, there was still the sheer
descent of the cliff to achieve, but steps had been hewn in the ice by
the ascending party, and ropes had been left at the worst places to
help in the descent. Ernst knew that he should find these aids; in
spite of the fog, they would guide him to the snow-barrow, where his
companions awaited him.
Then forth from the mist it hovered white and glistening, like
fluttering veils softly touching cheek and brow in a gentle
caress,--the snow had begun to fall. And in a few minutes the caressing
touch was transformed to an oppressive, stifling embrace which it was
vain to try to escape. Ernst staggered forward, then turned back, but
the icy arms were everywhere: they robbed him of breath and froze the
blood in his veins. One short, desperate struggle, and they held him in
an indissoluble clasp,--he sank on the ground.
But with the struggle the distress too ceased. How delicious to fall
asleep thus, so mortally weary that dream and reality mingled and
melted into each other! Again he was standing on the summit in the
sunlight, beholding the palace of ice in all its enchanted splendour,
and gazing into the unveiled countenance of the Alpine Fay, whose
pallid beauty no mortal might look upon and live. Yet her face was not
that of a stranger. He knew those features, and the fathomless blue of
the eyes that beamed and smiled upon him as never before. The image of
the woman whom he had loved so wildly, so inexpressibly, did not leave
him even upon the threshold of death, but stole softly upon the last
gleams of his consciousness.
Then the sea of mist slowly rose higher and higher until all else was
overwhelmed; the beloved face alone still showed faint and dreamlike
through the gray veil, till finally it too faded, and the dreamer was
borne onward by this sea of mist stretching endless and shoreless out
into the immeasurable distance,--on into eternity.