PAGE 5
The Story of The St. Gotthard
by
On the stroke of seven, on the 28th of January, he fell forward on his jumper, which pierced the wall right through. Loud cheering from the other side roused him, and he understood; he realised that they had met, that his troubles were over, and that he was the winner of ten thousand lire.
After a sigh of thanksgiving to the All-Merciful God, he pressed his lips to the bore-hole and whispered the name, of Gertrude; and then he called for three times three cheers for the Germans.
At eleven o’clock at night, there were shouts of “attention!” on the Italian side, and with a thunderous crash, a noise like the booming of cannon at a siege, the wall fell down. Germans and Italians embraced one another and wept, and all fell on their knees and sang the “Te Deum laudamus.”
It was a great moment; it was in 1880, the year in which Stanley’s work in Africa was done, and Nordenskoeld had accomplished his task.
When they had sung the “Te Deum” a German workman stepped forward and handed to the Italians a beautifully got-up parchment. It was a record and an appreciation of the services of the engineer-in-chief, Louis Favre.
He was to be the first man to pass through the tunnel, and Andrea was appointed to carry the memorial and his name by the little workmen’s train to Airolo.
And Andrea accomplished his mission faithfully, sitting before the locomotive on a barrow.
Yes, it was a great day, and the night was no less great.
They drank wine in Airolo, Italian wine, and let off fireworks. They made speeches on Louis Favre, Stanley, and Nordenskoeld; they made a speech on the St. Gotthard, which, for thousands of years had been a barrier between Germany and Italy, between the North and the South. A barrier it had been, and at the same time a uniter, honestly dividing its waters between the German Rhine, the French Rhone, the North Sea and the Mediterranean . …
“And the Adriatic,” interrupted a man from Tessin. “Don’t forget the Ticino, which is a tributary to the largest river of Italy, the mighty Po . …”
“Bravo! That’s better still! Three cheers for the St. Gotthard, the great Germany, the free Italy, and the new France!”
It was a great night, following a great day.
***
On the following morning Andrea called at the Engineering Offices. He wore his Italian shooting-dress; an eagle’s feather ornamented his hat, and a gun and a knapsack were slung across his shoulder. His face and his hands were white.
“So you have done with the tunnel,” said the cashier, or the “moneyman,” as they called him. “Well, nobody can blame you for it, for what remains to be done is mason’s work. To your account, then!”
The moneyman opened a book, wrote something on a piece of paper, and handed Andrea ten thousand lire in gold.
Andrea signed his name, put the gold into his knapsack and went.
He jumped into a workman’s train, and in ten minutes he had arrived at the fallen barrier. There were fires burning in the mountain, the workmen cheered when they saw him and waved their caps. It was splendid!
Ten more minutes and he was at the Swiss side. When he saw the daylight shining through the entrance to the tunnel, the train stopped and he got out.
He walked towards the green light, and came to the village and the green world, bathed in sunlight; the village had been rebuilt and looked prettier than before. And when the workmen saw him they saluted their first man.
He went straight up to a little house, and there, under a walnut tree, by the side of the bee-hives, stood Gertrude, calm, and a hundred times more beautiful and gentle. It looked as if she had stood there for eight years, waiting for him.
“Now I have come,” he said, “as I intended to come! Will you follow me to my country?”
“I will follow you wherever you go!”
“I gave you a ring long ago; have you still got it?”
“I have it still!”
“Then let us go at once! No, don’t turn back! Don’t take anything with you!”
And they went away, hand in hand, but not through the tunnel.
“On to the mountain!” said Andrea, turning in the direction of the old pass; “through darkness I came to you, but in light I will live with you and for you!”