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There was a slight incline towards the sanatorium, and she grasped my arm as we slowly climbed the gravel path that led away from the lake. Our father walked on the grass beside us, his head lowered in contemplation, but when we reached the door of the building he went ahead of us. He told me afterwards that he had wished to speak to one of Elizabeth ’s doctors, away from her presence; and so I escorted her back to her room.
“Papa is very sad,” she said. “I rely upon you to comfort him.”
“How should I do that?”
“I am not sure.”
“I ca
“I know that. This is no place for you. You have always been fired by ambition.”
“I ca
“I expect no such thing. It is laudable. I have always been proud of you, Victor. I have watched you with admiration ever since you were a small boy. Do you remember how you showed me the chicken’s life in the hen’s egg? You had observed it. You made yourself the master of anything you wished to know.” Elizabeth became more animated as she spoke, as if she were reliving the days before her illness. “You pestered people with questions for which they had no answers. Why did clouds change their shape? Why did the cut worm divide into two lives? Why did the leaves change colour in the autumn?” She broke off. “Excel in your studies, Victor. Become a great personage.”
Papa came into the room with a young man who greeted Elizabeth in the most informal ma
“I am glad to hear it,” Papa replied. “And she is eating well?”
“She keeps up her strength. We have nothing but the highest hopes.”
This seemed to me to be a little piece of theatre contrived for Elizabeth ’s sake, but her expression of weariness convinced me that she had not been impressed by it. “I think we should leave you now,” I said. “You are tired.”
“Yes,” Papa said. “She must rest. Rest is the cure.”
“May I admit to being tired?” She glanced at the doctor, who had been observing her keenly.
“Of course. Don’t forget there is a recital on the pianoforte before supper. We will be listening to Mozart.”
“I do not like to listen to music any more.”
My father embraced her before we left, once more urging her to eat well and to sleep. I doubted that she would obey his instructions. She was too far out of the world to care for such things. As soon as we had left her, his eyes filled with tears. I had never seen him cry before. “She ca
“Surely there is some hope?”
“None whatever. The doctors have said that there can be no remission. The consumption has taken over her lungs.”
“But doctors can be mistaken.”
“Did you hear her breathing? The doctor told me that last night her mouth was filled with arterial blood.”
“What shall we do?”
“We shall wait. What else is there to do?”
“The sun will no longer warm her.”
“What was that?” I had spoken too softly for him to hear me.
“This is a hard time, Papa.”
“It will become harder. We must cherish your sister.”
ELIZABETH ’S DEATH OCCURRED two days later. She was found in the morning, sitting in a chair by her bed. It was said that she had suffered no pain, but how that was determined I do not know. My father insisted that she be buried in the little graveyard at Chamonix, the village where the family house was situated. So Elizabeth was placed in a lead coffin, and together with her we travelled on the winding road out of Geneva towards the mountains. I do not need to state that this was a melancholy journey. All I recall of it now was the scent of sweet logs burning that accompanied us for part of the way.
When we reached our old home, I longed to see once more the pure whiteness of the snow, which no one on earth had touched. From the window of my room I could see Mont Blanc, and the summit known to us as l’Aguille du Midi; the snow upon the upper reaches was brilliantly illuminated by the sun, while the rest of the mountain was still caught in shadow with the grey snow and the slopes of the trees cascading into the valley. There was nothing there to limit the range of the gaze. I could see pockets of stone which no light had ever reached, the paths of rivers that would never flow, the rocks hewn into strange shapes by forces I could not fathom, all draped in eternal quiet. It was the quiet that Elizabeth had now entered. But then loud birdsong called me back to earth.
In the evening before the funeral the storm came. Thick clouds covered the mountains, and obscured their summits with lowering grey mist. Small patches of sunlight touched the ground and, when the wind stirred, the leaves of the trees quivered like violins. When the lightning hit the mountainside, it was like a rod beating the ground. The fire came from various regions of the sky; the thunder changed direction, too, and seemed to be travelling beneath the mountains. Then no mountains were visible. The air was heavy with expectation, with the perfume of the lightning upon it. But I saw, on the grass commons, a young girl playing with two small dogs. I wished Elizabeth back again then, to see this with me. If I could bring her alive again, I would! My unspoken thought chimed with the lightning flash in a moment of identity.
WHEN THE BELLS OF THE LITTLE CHURCH at Chamonix rang, as she was laid within the soil, they seemed to reverberate among the rocks and snow. I was once more filled with a sensation of childhood-that, somehow, the bells were inside the mountain pealing through its depths.
After the funeral, which was attended by most of the villagers of Chamonix, I could not rest. I could not stay still. And so I returned to the mountains. I began climbing upwards through the forests of fir trees that flanked the lower reaches, struggling to keep my foothold among the rocks and roots that continually impeded my ascent; there were small streams here, too, falling precipitately from the glaciers on the upper reaches, but eventually I found the winding track used by the peasants of the region. I wanted to climb higher and still higher, to stand upon l’Aiguille du Midi. I could hear the cry of a marmotte somewhere close by, and in its piercing call I realised the loneliness of my position. If I fell here, and died, my body would soon be covered in ice and snow; it might endure for many generations as a relic of my time, as the modern experiments in freezing suggest that it would not decompose.
The air was thi
AFTER THE DEATH OF ELIZABETH my father seemed to weary of his own life; he grew old very rapidly, and took no more interest in the export business he had created over many years. He refused to go back to Geneva, and locked himself away in his study at Chamonix where he sat from dawn to twilight looking out of the window at the mountains. He joined me at di