We shouted for joy, and rushed through the water to the boat, in order to carry the invalid ashore. The poor boatman was making signs of distress, and calling for help; he was pointing to the bottom of the boat, at something we could not see. On reaching the spot where he stood, we found that the stranger had fainted, and was lying at the bottom of the boat. Her body and arms were completely immersed in water, and her head rested like that of a corpse against the little wooden chest at the stern, in which the boatmen put their tackle and provisions. Her hair streamed in disorder about her neck and shoulders, like the dark wings of a lifeless bird floating on the surface of the waters. Her face, from which all color had not fled, was calm and peaceful as in slumber and shone with that preternatural beauty death leaves on the countenance of those who die young; like the last and fairest ray of retiring life, lingering on the brow from which it is about to depart, or the first beam of dawning immortality on the features which are henceforward to be hallowed in the memory of those who survive. I had never before, and have never since, seen her so divinely transfigured. Was Death the most perfect form of her celestial beauty, or did Providence intend this first and solemn impression, as a foreshadowing of that unchangeable image of beauty, which I was destined to entomb in my memory, and eternally evoke!
We jumped into the boat, to take up the apparently dying woman, and carry her beyond the rocks. I placed my hand upon her heart, and approached my ear to her lips, as I would to those of a sleeping infant. The heart beat irregularly, but with strong pulsations; the breath was warm, and I saw that she had only fainted from terror and from cold. One of the boatmen took up her feet, I supported the shoulders and the head, which rested on my breast. She gave no sign of life while we carried her thus to a fisherman's house, below the rocks of Haute-Combe, which serves as an inn for the boatmen, when they conduct strangers to the ruins. This poor dwelling consisted merely in one long, dark, smoky room, furnished with a table upon which were wine, bread, and cheese. A wooden ladder led to an upper room, which was lighted by a single round window without glass, looking towards the lake. Almost the whole space of this room was occupied by three beds, which could be closed up by wooden doors, like large presses. The whole family slept there. We confided the stranger, who was still insensible, to the care of the two girls of the house and their mother, and we stood outside the door, while they extended a mattress near the chimney, and having lighted a fire of furze, undressed her, dried her clothes, chafed her limbs, and wrung her streaming hair; they then carried her upstairs, and placed her in one of the beds, on which they had spread clean sheets, which had been warmed with one of the heated hearth-stones, according to the custom of the peasants of that country. They tried in vain to make her swallow a few drops of wine and vinegar to bring her to life; but finding all their efforts unavailing, gave way to tears and lamentations, which soon recalled us into the house. "The lady is dead! the lady is dead! We can only weep, and send for a priest." The boatmen mingled their cries with those of the women, and increased their confusion. I rushed up the ladder and entered the room. The dim twilight still showed the bed over which I bent. I touched her forehead; it was burning hot; I could distinguish the low and regular breathing which made the coarse brown sheet alternately rise and fall on the chest. I bid the women be quiet, and giving some money to one of the boatmen, ordered him to fetch a doctor, who, I was told, lived two leagues off, in a little village on the Mont du Chat. The boatman set off at full speed; the others, comforted by the assurance that the lady was not dead, sat down to eat. The women went and came from the parlor to the cellar, and from the cellar to the poultry-yard, to make preparations for supper. I remained seated on one of the bags of Indian corn at the foot of the bed, my hands clasped on my knees, and my eyes fixed on the inanimate face and closed eyelids of the sufferer. Night had closed in. One of the young girls had fastened the shutter, and suspended a small copper lamp against the wall; its rays fell on the sheets and on the sleeping countenance like the light of holy tapers on a death-bed. Since then, I have thus watched, alas, by other bedsides, but the sleepers never woke!