In the embrasure of a window the tall figure of Otto von Raabe was silhouetted more darkly against the shadow of the night; he stooped a little to reply in a low voice to the subdued and quiet questions of Paul Léon, who was standing beside him. Both had their faces turned towards the room; every now and then they threw a glance to the back of it. Outside, over their shoulders, a portion of the sky shone with stars. "To gather flowers?" asked the French poet, after a long silence, his eyes apparently veiled by deep, inward thought.
"Yes, to gather flowers, merely to gather flowers," murmured the German.
"Flowers? What flowers?" insisted the Frenchman strangely.
"Some beautiful flowers he was told were up there; he went to look for them."
"And did he find them?"
"He found them—he always used to find them—they are still in his hands."
"They left them with him."
"Of course, look," said the German, pointing to the back of the room.
On a little white bed lay the corpse of Massimo Granata. The little body broken by the tremendous fall from the precipice, at the skirts of the Pizota, was piously laid out, and covered with a dark red, silk quilt, right to the breast; and the little body of the poor rickety, deformed man scarcely raised the covering. The head had been bandaged, and the pinched yellow countenance was framed by the whiteness of its lines, whose eyes, full of goodness and dreams, were closed for ever; and even the face seemed diminished and like that of a child, dead from some incurable disease endured since birth. The pallid hands, long and fleshless, with knotty fingers, were crossed on the breast, and they still clasped a little bunch of unknown Alpine flowers; they clasped them in a last act of love over the heart that beat no more. Some long strings of mountain flowers had been scattered loosely on the quilt, as if to surround in a garland of flowers the corpse of Massimo Granata. On the simple furniture of the simple room flowers had been placed here and there in big and little vases; some were already withered, which had been gathered two or three days before his death; others, fresher, had been gathered recently, before his last walk. On a night table before the humble little bed there were an ivory crucifix and two candlesticks with two lighted candles—all placed on a white cloth. The two electric lamps of the room had been veiled. Karl Ehbehard, the great consumption doctor, was seated on one side at the foot of the bed, motionless and silent, with bowed head.
"Karl Ehbehard was the first to be told," added Otto von Raabe, shaking his head, fixing the closed, granite-like face of the doctor with his indescribably blue eyes. "He has known him for more than twenty years; he loved him."
"Was his assistance of no avail?" Paul Léon asked very softly.
"Quite useless. Massimo had been dead for ten hours when they brought him here."
"And who brought him?"
"Some shepherds up above," continued Otto von Raabe, his voice breaking with mortal sadness. "Everyone knew him at the Alp Laret, at the Alp Nova, at the Fiori. Everyone used to greet him and speak to him. You know that."
"Everywhere it was so," added Paul Léon, with lowered eyes.
"They saw him pass early in the morning. They warned him that the ascent was rough and dangerous. When, after so many hours, they did not see him descending again, they climbed to look for him."
"Those shepherds are used to that."
"They are used to it, poor people. They searched a long time, and at last they discovered him at the foot of a precipice. It seems that the edge was hidden by those flowers. He leant over too much."
"He died like a child in a fairy tale, like a child," said the poet, his bright eyes now veiled.
Two other people entered without making a noise the room where Massimo Granata was sleeping the first night of his last sleep; the one was Giovanni Vergas, an Italian gentleman, seventy years old, with beautifully trimmed white beard and aristocratic and courteous appearance; the other was Monsieur Jean Morel, a Frenchman of seventy-five, thin, withered, without any skin on his face, furrowed by a thousand little wrinkles. Without speaking, they exchanged a nod with Karl Ehbehard and the two who were standing in the embrasure of the window, then they went and sat on a little sofa of black horsehair, which leant against a wall, and remained there silently. When the news of the tragedy arrived, at seven o'clock in the evening, both had been informed, and they had found Karl Ehbehard there, who, in great silence, was laying out the fractured body of the poor dead man. He washed and clothed it, then placed it quietly again on the bed, covering it with a quilt, then the good mistress of the house, Frau von Scheidegg, scattered two rows of flowers around the corpse, as she wept silently. Don Giovanni Vergas and Jean Morel had remained there a little, then they promised to return. Now they had returned to watch with the others the body of the lover of the mountains, of him who had given his life for his love. Paul Léon, being informed, had arrived later than the others from Sils Maria, and he was still asking questions to learn everything, with a trembling and sorrowful curiosity, from Otto von Raabe, of the beautiful, dreamy soul, of the heart sensitive and soft in spite of his rough, wild appearance.
Slowly, with cautious steps, they approached the other two and sat beside them, forming a little restricted circle, as they bent their heads to breathe forth the sorrowful words of their sad conversation. Isolated, and wrapped up in his silence, Karl von Ehbehard watched over his friend and companion, his brother in love of the mountains.
"How old could he be?" asked Jean Morel.
"Sixty, perhaps," replied Giovanni Vergas.
"He looked more," murmured Paul Léon.
"He never was young; he never has been healthy; he always suffered so much," explained Otto von Raabe.
"Only here he did not suffer," concluded the French poet.
Some minutes of silence passed, each appeared immersed in his own intimate thoughts.
"He has been here for many years," resumed Paul Léon. "I remember him for such a long time, and I have been coming for twenty years."
"And I now for ten," concluded Jean Morel. "I was one of the first here."
"He seems always to have lived in this furnished room. The lady of the house was very fond of him; she and her daughter are mourning below."
"He was poor, was he not?" asked Paul Léon.
"Yes, poor," replied the German, "a very humble professor;............