as 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 t