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.
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