Those who had just taken leave of them, bringing flowers and gifts with a wish for a pleasant journey, would remain for a few minutes to talk quietly without the least melancholy, afterwards to disperse among the ever less frequented roads of the Bad. They went to see about their final affairs, for within a day or two they, too, would be far-away. Many were getting ready for the principal trains leaving that day or on the morrow—the two daily expresses whose departure from St. Moritz Dorf took place amidst the terrible hurrying of the crowd, which at last left for all the countries of the world. Away, away, they went from the Upper Engadine without a glance or a nod of farewell—for the train pierced two tunnels in succession and was immediately at and beyond Samaden—already distrait and forgetful, already anxious and longing for another life elsewhere, where their fantasies, nerves, and feelings should have other visions, other impressions, and other sensations.
Carriages and omnibuses arrived at a sharp trot from St. Moritz Bad and St. Moritz Dorf, full of people who were turning their backs with such hurry and furor. The pretty, clean little station was groaning with people, was heaped with piles of enormous luggage, and amidst ladies, men and children waved baskets and bunches of flowers, baskets of fresh fruit tied with ribbons and bows, large bonbonnières of Swiss chocolate—all gifts and souvenirs for those who were leaving from those who, impatient, were secretly waiting the brief flight of the hours to go in their turn. Ah, these accompaniments of flowers and gifts, what a last essay of worldly rivalry! What a steeplechase between Madame and Miss, each hoping to have more than the other, more than their dearest friend and dearest enemy, hoping to be surrounded by the most followers at the station—by a really big group, while the others should have only five, or six, or eight, but no more. It was a profitable business in these last few days for the florists, confectioners, and vendors of souvenirs. There were retinues of bouquets, of baskets and bunches of flowers amongst the crowd at the little station, flowers wrapped in wrappings of tissue paper were held in the hands of ladies, children, and maids, an occasional bunch pressed to the bosom, the most precious of the bundle of flowers! Ah, how the ladies who were leaving counted them! How they paled with envy the day on which the Marquise de Vieuxcastel left, as they counted, astonished and irritated, the flowers in a hundred shapes that followed her in a floral crown, accompanied by friends, relations, and servants—the Marquise who was Grace personified, to whom all the ladies gave forty-five or fifty years and all the men thirty; nevertheless, she was full of beauty and youth from the depths of her beautiful young soul. And what deep anger on the part of little Madame d'Allart, when at the station she perceived that at least four of the bouquets she expected were missing, while, as a matter of fact, the pale, blond, reserved and thoughtful Comtesse de la Ferté Guyon had more than she—the tower of ivory! the tower of ivory to whom no one dare pay court! And what grotesque anger on the part of Madame Mentzel, who arrived at the station with but five followers and seven bouquets of flowers, one of which she had bought herself, at the sight of floral garlands that were clasped on all sides by the crowd, by all these ladies of the "Palace," even by the Comtesse Pierre de Gérard, la grande Comtesse, the noble lady of the self-conscious and almost statuesque posings, with a face that seemed almost that of a Sphinx, pure, ardent, and silent. Although she was considered the proudest and most distant of that assembly, even she was surrounded by friends, and Madame Mentzel went about exclaiming, from one end to the other of the little station, that unfortunately all her friends had left before her.
Even in their departure these ladies of the "Palace" were created to exasperate and annoy those from other hotels—all the poor profane! They left—these Olympians—with an even more Olympic air than usual, with a contempt that was totally distrait, with a serene pride, so much so that it seemed as if a cloud, mythologically speaking, should bear them away and not a trivial train. Each had thirty or forty packages to which the railway and railway people servilely gave preference. They had reserved carriages and saloons for themselves alone. Madame Azquierda was followed by eight or ten servants, who carried a hundred things into her reserved carriage—pillows, her bridge table, her table to prepare lunch, a bird-cage of thirty rare birds: Madame de Aguilar travelled with two English detectives to watch over her jewels and took with her four guests whom she was transporting to the shores of the North Sea, even to Heligoland, where her yacht of two thousand tons, La Gitana, would take them, together with other guests, for a cruise in the North Sea. In fact, these Olympian ladies of the "Palace," as if to damn the profane, were leaving for, shall we say, the most unexpected countries; none of them, just to be different, were making for the usual, banal places. One was going to Munich to hear a cycle of Mozart's works; another was going to England and the Scotch lakes, another to Bruges la Morte; another was going to Umbria, to Perugia; another in automobile to Bohemia—each to a strange place, for strange reasons, through artistic, literary, or æsthetic snobbishness, or perhaps—perhaps—through real taste, but certainly they were making a different journey, looking for a different atmosphere, sighing after different impressions. In fact, Madame Lawrence, whom many had dubbed a Jewess, who never went to church, to do something odd, was going on a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Lourdes. Biting her lips, Donna Mercédès de Fuentes, after inquiring from everyone, learnt that no one from the "Palace" was coming with her to Lucerne for la grande semaine. It was enough to drive one mad, and only Don Giorgio Galanti could console her a little on the day of departure, for he had left over a little bunch of four splendid roses—how one knows not—that had found no billet; he offered them to her, so she arranged a meeting with him for October in Paris at the Elysée Palace.
But in spite of the Olympian disdain of the ladies at the station the hour of departure, with the crowd that thronged more densely, grew vertiginous. Waves of movement in every sense passed over the crowd: a noise first dull, then higher and higher, became a deafening din, amidst the crashing of carts, the rumbling of baggage, the thousand voices and calls, the arrival of fresh carriages and unloading of fresh luggage, and over all was the invincible anxiety to clamber into the train, to close the eyes, to be transported far, far-away from the Engadine, not even putting the head out to see how everything was disappearing to right and left, as if now the Engadine were a dream that was over, as if it had never been either reality or dream.
The sky was of a sapphire blue—of the deep sapphire of the east—over the Engadine, liquid gold was the sun, like limpid rock crystal the atmosphere, like ambrosia the air, the dawn pink with a thousand rosy tints, the noontide trembling with light and heat, the twilight of a thousand shades of purple, and the nights palpitated indescribably with stars, as never before. Amidst such splendour and softness its roads were thinned of passersby, and no longer clouds of dust arose; the paths and little white tracks amongst the immense meadows were no longer crossed except by few people, and for hours and hours by no one. The little donkeys with their red plush saddles, which had taken ladies and children for outings and excursions, had disappeared from the square before the public gardens; slowly donkeys and drivers had taken the Bernina road to return to Vallettina. Before the Kursaal of the Maloja the Comese boats of the lake of Sils had been beached; the electric launch on the lake of St. Moritz had ceased its trips, and was drawn up to its winter garage; the gondoliers had gone with their gondolas to Italy. One day the music played no more in the little wooden gallery by the Hôtel Kurhaus, another day there was no music in the great gallery at the "Serpentquelle," and gradually the musicians began to gather together, to pack their luggage, and set off for the Italian lakes and Milan. Some of the shops of the Bad closed towards the end of August; the kiosks for jewellery, lace, and flowers lowered their iron shutters and all Tiraboschi's coachmen hurried to leave with their horses by easy stages towards Italy, Lombardy, Piedmont, and the French frontier, to arrive after a couple of months at Nice and Monte Carlo, where they would do service for the greater winter season. Gradually waiters and chambermaids, major-domos and grooms left, and there remained but the staff, which, within a week or ten days, would also have disappeared. At certain hours of the day there was a deep silence; no longer at night did the "Kulm," the Grand Hotel, the "Palace," the "Schweizerhof," flame with their lights reflected in the lake, but only a feeble, flickering light threw some slender spark thereon. A great peace, not melancholy, now spread over the Upper Engadine; a solemn calm stretched to its farthest borders. Above mountains, fields, lakes, in almost deserted country roads, solitude and silence was enhancing the beauty of the Upper Engadine—its incomparable, intangible beauty.
During the last week the little affairs of love and passion, of big and little flirts, had strangely changed in aspect and substance. Nearly all had become more intense, as if the imminent separation had caused their modest flames to flash forth, rendering more serious and sad the gay caprice of a month. Every morning in the pine woods, full of the freshest perfumes, in the little paths one met nothing but amorous couples, some silent and slow, with lowered eyes, some rapid and agitated in their conversation, and on the seats in the little woods, and by the lake only flirting couples were to be seen, some melancholy, and contemplating with distracted eyes the even more solitary landscape, others exchanging long, significant glances. In front of the windows of Faist's library, amongst the Sorrento woods and tortoiseshell of Pasquale Gallone, at florists', at kiosks where the picture post cards were on sale, these couples of every age and nation and condition stopped to look for a book, buy a little present, exchange bouquets of flowers and post cards, pressing their hands suggestively, after a sentimental exchange. But these meetings and exchanges of little pledges happened at all hours till late at night, even in the vestibules, halls, and salons of the large hotels. There was not a corner unoccupied, not a divan that did not accommodate two persons, not a table at which two heads were not bent, while a gold pencil or silver pen raced rapidly over the page of an open volume, on the white pages of a volume of souvenirs. Heads were raised, a long, melancholy, and passionate glance between the twain expounded the motto, the name, and the date. There was now less dancing in the ballrooms, and only a few courageous couples gyrated to the last tunes of the orchestra; but the love-making increased even more, couples sat side by side, always conversing in a low voice, heeding not the calls of the "Boston" and "two-step." Couples were in the embrasures of windows and verandah, or promenading in the farthest corridors or before the buffet, drinking together a drink of the same colour, each eating a pastry of the same shape; couples withdrew to the salon, the billiard and reading-rooms, pretending to interest themselves in things they saw not; only to get far-away. Wherever one could take a cup of tea, in hotels, cafés, restaurants, above at the Unteralpina, below at the Meieri, everywhere pairs of flirts were seated at the tables; and the tea smoked invitingly and in vain in the cups which the absent and absorbed couples forgot to sip. Everywhere mothers and fathers, relations and tutors, as with final complacency they thought that to-morrow, perhaps, all would be over, and not wishing to sadden the last days, pretended more than ever to see and know nothing, not to be aware of anything or understand. They were the last concessions of maternal indulgence, which preferred not to exalt or exasperate the last meetings, the last glances and hand-claspings.
In glances and words, in scribbled mottoes and hand-squeezes, in some fleeting kiss exchanged at the back of a deserted room, behind the pages of a large illustrated paper or the hedge of the tennis-court, there was always a promise and an oath of eternal love and fidelity. Who did not promise? Who did not swear? The Comtesse di Durckeim, the eccentric Hungarian, smiling bitterly on the last day, told her women friends that she was bound by an everlasting oath to five of her suitors, and that she had given them tryst in five different countries, while she herself would go to a sixth country in search of an unknown lover—l'inconnu, ma chère amie, l'inconnue, celui que j'aime toujours plus que les autres. Lia Norescu had given at least ten promises and received ten solemn oaths—the astonishing girl with a soul full of ashes and poison—but as a matter of fact she left with only one flirt, an elderly, wealthy gentleman, who, perhaps, would have married her, but she was subtle and elusive, and would not let herself be taken; another flirt, a youth whom she liked very much, was waiting for her at Ostend, a handsome youth, who pretended to be rich, but que faire? Don Giorgio Galanti, the fascinating, astute Italian, had sworn eternal fidelity to numerous flirts at the Bad, the Dorf, and Pontresina; but he went to join an enchanting woman whom he loved at the Semmering, near Vienna, and who loved him, but who could only meet him two or three times a year for a single day at a time, in far-away and different districts, a real romance, which he concealed beneath his cynical aspect of viveur. The Marquise d'Allart, small, exquisite, gracefully corrupt, believing neither what was told her nor what she said, gathered promises and took oaths in a half-pretty and sentimental tone, with a veil of melancholy in her voice; and later, when alone in her room, full of little gifts and flowers, when she was to sleep her last night in the Engadine, she laughed cruelly at herself and others, showing her fierce little teeth to her mirror.
Madame Lawrence, indifferent, unfeeling, listened to promises and oaths, and gathered them with an expressive smile, but she made none in exchange as now and then she uttered some banal word, perhaps purposely insipid. Once again her suitors and flirts were indignant at her want of feeling, and some of them took their leave, deciding not to run after her or to see her no more; others, though angry, believed that time and other encounters and opportunities would pierce the heart of this woman who was too beautiful, and disguised their feelings. The other professional beauty, the divine Miss Miriam Jenkyns, was even more terrible in her indifference, since she tranquilly rejected promises and oaths, declared against the inutility of the lies, and the vacuity of these sentimental forms, and beautiful, imperturbable, Olympian, but perhaps hugging to her heart a secret that was torturing and killing her, she discouraged, repressed, and settled all her suitors and flirts, carrying her mystery behind her pale, pure brow.
Who did not promise? Who did not swear? Amidst sylvan perfumes, along the shores of the lakes, amidst the fields where the last flowers of summer still bloomed, in flower-clad gardens, in ballrooms, in reading-rooms, in solitary terraces, on white verandahs where the moon was contemplated, more especially on the last evening and morning, at the last moment, before a carriage whose horses were pawing the ground impatient to start, before the closing doors of the train, lovers, flirts, and suitors, a little pale, a little moved, promised in a low voice, made oath subduedly even if convinced they were lying; even if cynical they were moved. Here and there one was deeply moved, taken and conquered, by pure sentiments and a sincere love.
On a clear morning the handsome youth, the tall, blond, elegant Pole, Ladislaus Woroniecki, with the dreamy eyes, left for his own country; he was in love with the beautiful, fragile invalid, Else von Landau, who was remaining in the Upper Engadine, having decided to live and grow well, and who would remain there for a year or two. She had accompanied him to say good-bye at the station, and the two held each other's hands without caring for the public. Their loving eyes spoke a true promise, and a true oath, which they would maintain.