“Would that I had not awakened!” was his mournful exclamation, as his eyes opened once more to the dreary prospect from the bald eminence of that desolate mountain-tower. “Would that I might close mine eyes and sleep, my brother, sleep ever, or awake to consciousness only in a better world.”
“This world is ours, my brother,” responded the younger, impetuously; “and, if we are men, if we had no misgivings—if we could feel only as we might—that the weariness of this day would find a wing to-morrow; we should conquer it, and be worthy of better worlds hereafter. But he who gives himself up to weariness, will neither find nor deserve a wing. Thou hast eaten—thou hast drunken,—thou shouldst be refreshed. I have neither eaten nor drunken, since we set off at dawn this morning for our progress across the valley.”
“Reproach me not, Alphonse,” replied the other; “thou hast a strength and a courage both denied to me.”
“Believe it not; be resolute in thy courage, and thy strength will follow. It is the heart, verily, that is the first to fail.”
“Mine is dead within me!”
“Yet another effort, mon frére,—yet one more effort! The valley below us looks soft and inviting. There shall we find shelter from the bleak winds that sweep these bald summits.”
“It is cold! and my limbs stiffen beneath me,” answered the other, as he rose slowly to resume a march which was more painful to his thoughts than any which he had of death. But for his deference to the superior will of the younger brother, he had surely never risen from the spot. But he rose, and wearily followed after the bold Alphonse, who was already picking his way down the steep sides of the mountain.
We need not follow the brothers through the painful details of a progress which had few varieties to break its monotony, and nothing to relieve its gloom. Two days have made a wonderful difference in the appearance of both. Wild, stern and wretched enough before in aspect, there was now a grim, gaunt, wolf-like expression in the features of Alphonse D’Erlach, which showed that privation and labor were working fearfully upon the mind as well as the body. He was emaciated—his eyes sunken and glossy, staring intensely yet without expression—his hair matted upon his brows, and his movements rather convulsive than energetic. His soul was as strong as ever—his will as inflexible; but the tension of the mind had been too great, and nature was beginning to fail in the support of this rigor. He now strove but little in the work of soothing and cheering his less courageous brother. He had no longer a voice of encouragement, and he evidently began to think that the death for which the other had so much yearned would perhaps be no unwelcome visitor. Still, as if the maxims which we have heard him utter were a portion of his real nature, his cry was forever “On,” and still his hand was outstretched towards blue summits that seemed to hide another world in the gulfs beyond them.
“I can go no farther, Alphonse. I will go no farther. The struggle is worse than any death. I feel that I must sleep. I feel that sleep would be sweeter than anything you can promise.”