27
Angela sat at the wheel, her quick skilful fingers spinning the yellow thread. The girl, with her unerring instinct of the unseen, felt the air weighing heavily. The atmosphere of the house was charged with sadness; unhappy spirits had passed through, leaving something of their sorrow, their passions. The anguish of Floyd still lingering in her little room kept her awake at night. The dead man was always before her—his uneven gait, the passionate face, the glittering eyes. A great longing went out from her to that rebellious soul, beating so long against bars, a prisoner in his own body....
The pastor had gone over to the hotel for Martin’s one valise and the little deerskin box. He spoke to the woman of the house; she remembered her father telling of a Staehli who went “across seas” and never came back. The crooked gardener, shuffling about, chimed in.
“Yes, I knew Martin Staehli. He had a quarrel with a guide about a woman, and shot him dead. He was hot blooded.”
“The man lost on the mountain was his grandson,” said the pastor.
“Strange things happen in a lifetime,” mumbled the gardener. “Now who would believe, to look at me, that I was once the champion wrestler of the village!”...
The next morning at sunrise the pastor knocked at Angela’s door.
“Angela, we are going ‘up there’ today.”
During the summer, when they were pasturing the cattle, she and the pastor spent many a happy time with the peasant boys and girls who had gone up in June, clinging gradually from one plateau to another until they reached the top, where they would stay until the weather drove them down.
Angela sprang joyfully out of bed and went to fetch her basket; on the way up she would look for herbs. It was wonderful how she spied the rare plants hid away under the rocks and at the bottom of brooks. They went slowly, at first, Angela timing her steps to the pastor’s, who grasped his stick, gaining strength as he climbed. Not far behind, a guide followed, carrying the belongings of the unfortunate man. In Switzerland every waterfall, river, flower, bush, and tree has its legendary Spirit. Miracle stories come down by word of mouth. The old grandmother sitting outside the châlet at night, a pipe between her toothless gums, her needle running a race with her tongue, tells the children of the wonders of the mountains:
“In the old days, when a mountaineer had been lost on the heights, the peasants would go from peak to peak calling his name. Where the echo repeated they stopped, and would throw down articles of clothing and a large cheese from the milk of the missing man’s herd, to keep his spirit from cold and starvation. They tell of a peasant who was lost. They let down his dog on a rope. The faithful animal, whining in low dog tones, eagerly scented the way. When they drew up the rope it was bitten through. The dog had found the body of his master and would not leave him. Whenever there is a thick mist the peasant is seen, his dog beside him, on the edge of the chasm, pointing with a warning finger to the precipice.”...
The merry band of dairy workers welcomed the pastor with shrill cries and clarion notes from Alpine horns. It was a modest community; each one owned his little herd. There were many huts, where the milk is set in earthen bowls, yielding cream, butter, cheese, their only wealth. The pastor drew a herdsman aside and spoke to him in low tones. A stillness fell on the merry band. The man led them across the field to a deep pool fed by mountain torrents; at a narrow end was a rough rustic bridge, which they crossed in single file, and came into a thick pine grove. Farther on, the clearing was carpeted with roses, anemones, violets. They walked carefully, not to crush them; then they climbed up a steep rock to a cow-hut on the top.
Angela gave a low cry. A man lay on a bed of hay, his arm in a rough splinter, his face the wax of death. She dropped down beside him, listened to his heart, tried to raise his closed lids.
“He is dead.”
“I think not,” answered the peasant. “I have seen many such cases of suspended animation, from the shock of a heavy fall.”
Then he told them how Martin had been saved from going to the bottom of the precipice by being caught in a crevice of the rocks. He was found tightly wedged in, covered by the stones that had rolled down. The dog had scented the place where he lay. It would be a miracle if he lived.
The pastor patted the head of the animal, who would now and again put his paw very gently on the man’s chest, as if seeking for heart-beats. Then he’d lick the white face, wag his tail, and stretch himself out again.
“I won’t give up hope,” said the pastor, “until the dog howls and slinks away.”
Angela was moving about. She made a wood fire on the rock outside, filled a large iron pot with water, and stirred in her herbs with which she would bathe his bruised body. They emitted a pungent, agreeable perfume. The pastor watched her as she stood, a bright figure against the dark pine background: “a blessed child.”
Angela passed the night in a hut with the dairy maids. She was intensely awake, concentrating her entire spiritual power. She ceased to be a human thing; she became a Thought, a disembodied Will. She arose from the bed where the peasant girls were sleeping, three together, their arms entwined, their hair sweeping the ground, their white arms and bosoms like ivory in the night light—a great picture of future mothers, bearing in their bodies the next generation. She stepped out into the air, listened to the walking of the waters, the talking of the trees; she heard panting. Something warm pressed against her. The dog jumped on her, whining. What was the message? Was it death? She followed the excited animal over the stones, over the pool, into the hut. The man was lying as she had left him, but there was something in his face that made her heart leap. She took the limp form in her arms. The breath of her young body, the life that was in the sap of the trees, the minerals of the springs, the healing balsam of the air, all the natural force in her, and more, the dynamic power of the spirit, went out to him. Her hands, tingling with electricity, moved tensely over his chest, his limbs; the dog watched, helping with his mute soul. Suddenly the curtains over the heavy eyes quivered, opened, then dropped again; her fingers on his pulse felt slow intermittent throbs. She had dragged him from the depths—he hovered for weeks between Life and the Beyond, coming back slowly, but the mind remained inert. The summer was unusually mild; they put him outside on a soft bed of boughs, where he lay day and night in silence with the dog beside him, his eyes following Angela as she moved about. She taught him to walk again, guiding his steps carefully.
The pastor came weekly to see him, spoke to him, but he didn’t answer. Angela grew anxious.
“Does he think?”
“I believe not,” said the pastor. “It is a kind of aphasia, which time will cure.”
Angela wondered if he could distinguish sounds—the chirping of the birds, the bark of the dog, the music of the herd. The peasants would tell in lowered voices of a shadow of a man standing under the pines, so still, the chamois would come closer, closer, looking at him with their soft, beseeching eyes; then they’d scamper away....
August!—It was bleak. The man sat on the trunk of a tree; he was without the thrill of life.
The pastor spoke to him.
“Do you want anything?”
“No.”
“Do you know me?”
A flash passed over the face.
“Yes.”
The pastor’s voice grew stern.
“You will go down tomorrow with the herdsmen. You are the peasant Staehli: they are your people; you are one of them. You have been all your life in exile; now you are on your natural soil. The voice of race will awaken in you—you will find yourself.”
The man listened, agonized with the intensity of concentration; the words cut like sharp stones into him.
“You understand, you are the peasant Staehli.”
The answer came back mechanically:
“I am the peasant Staehli.”
The next day, Staehli the peasant went down with the herds from plateau to plateau, lingering while the weather favored. Late in the summer they reached the valley.