When Karl Ehbehard was again alone on the terrace, that projected into the solitary and imposing landscape in the declining day, he did not resume his reading, nor did he contemplate thoughtfully the austere lines of the mountains and the great curtain of trees which hid the road, and the waters running and leaping amidst the thick grass of the meadows. As if tired, he let his head fall on his breast, and all that he had seen and heard on that day was weighing on his mind.
All the morning he had visited in his carriage sick people who could not leave their houses, from those isolated in far-off villas to those isolated in the dépendances of hotels, since in the summer-time, especially, no hotel-keeper wished to have consumptives in his own hotel, so as not to put to flight other travellers who came to the Engadine, travellers who came there through love of gaiety, of pleasure, of luxury, who came to the high mountains through a refinement of the senses, wishing to unite the spectacle of the beauty of things to an ardent, febrile, worldly life.
All the morning, to the trotting of his horses, he had gone to the Dorf, to the Bad, even to Campfer, awaited everywhere with anxiety. He had touched fleshless hands still feverish from the night; he had stooped to gather, with acute ear, at the naked breast of the sick, the hoarse, interior breathing; he had heard the dry attacks of coughing following each other precipitously, leaving the sick without breath; and he had listened to the long, lamenting conversation of those who felt that they were not growing better, who felt that they were growing worse and declining to a fatal solution. Indeed, the whole morning, with persuasive glance, with cold and calm words, with whatever there was in him of moral force and energy, he had striven to console all those who were tormented by the fear of death; he had striven to comfort them without lying to them, without promising them anything, lest on the morrow they should be bitterly deluded. He had striven to excite patience in them and tranquil courage, telling them that when one wishes to grow better and wishes it intensely, one does grow better, and that a secret of escaping death is to wish not to die with all the mysterious vigour of will-power. And once again, morning and afternoon, before the hundred sadnesses more incurable than phthisis itself, before the hundred woes of poor beings devoured by disease, he had seen the singular, amazing miracle performed; he had seen the sick grow calm and serene, resume vigour, and smile, yes, smile, with vague, indefinite, infinite hope. Through his presence and will-power for good, through his firm serenity, he had seen the miracle renewed, however brief and fleeting. The sick felt themselves better without taking drugs, and felt themselves first tranquillised and then excited to joy, yes, almost to joy! He knew these miracles of these strange diseases; pious miracles that make of the consumptive a being apart, capable of smiling, of hoping, even to the last breath of his destroyed lungs. He knew these miracles because with his will-power for good and the fascination of his eyes and words, he understood how to dominate, conquer, and exalt the changeful, light minds of the poor sufferers from phthisis. But the effort put forth by him on that morning and afternoon, more than any other day, had exhausted him. An immense weariness oppressed his physiognomy and his limbs in the large arm-chair of black leather, upon the arms of which his rather thin hands were abandoning themselves, as if they, too, had been struck by a profound weariness. When after a short time he raised his head, Else von Landau was before him.
She had not been announced. Like the Grand Duchess of Gotha, she came every day, when she felt bad, to the Villa Ehbehard; sometimes, when she felt better, she came there two or three times a week, like the brothers Freytag. She knew where to find the doctor and how to enter discreetly, so as not to disturb him if he were reading, studying, or if he were thinking and resting. She had entered cautiously without warning him of her presence, and had sat down at some distance from him, opening her mantle of otter-skin with sweet, silvery revers of chinchilla, beneath which she was dressed in brown cloth. She had untied the large veil which surrounded face and neck, and all the hat and head. Her delicate, white face, with the clearest complexion, appeared even whiter beneath the shining, soft chestnut hair. On the white temples, beneath the grey eyes, a network of little blue veins was delineated. With hands that clasped a large bunch of Alpine flowers abandoned on her lap, now and then biting her lips to make them redder, and coughing very slightly so as not to be heard, she waited patiently till Karl Ehbehard was aware of her. Seeing her the doctor started; but he restrained a movement of impatient weariness.
"How are you, then, Fräulein Landau?" he asked her monotonously in German, speaking as if in a dream.
"I am rather bad, Doctor," she replied, with a fleeting smile on her lips.
Her voice was soft but hoarse; the veil, however, increased its penetrating softness.
"Why? Tell me everything."
She settled herself better in her chair, crossed her exquisitely booted little feet, which peeped out from the skirt, put down her chinchilla muff, smelt her Alpine flowers, and said:
"The pain up here has tormented me all the evening and night. This morning, too, when coughing there were some streaks of blood."