“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....