Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/31

Once, just after he had attained his fifteenth year, he was almost drowned, in an excursion on the water, a school-fellow with him having upset the boat. For several weeks he lay between life and death. Then, by a strange caprice of nature, it fell out that the very accident which had almost carried him off, brought about a salutary crisis, and produced that reaction so long desired by his grandmother, who looked upon him as her last hope and stay on earth. In agreement with the young Count's guardians, she had selected this distant school, because it Was at once a model college and a fine health residence, in the most salubrious part of Switzerland. Before being converted into a cosmopolitan academy—it was intended for young patricians of both hemispheres— Bodemberg-Schloss had been a fashionable bathing establishment, the resort of the most elegant invalids of Switzerland and Germany. Henry's grandmother had therefore naturally counted upon the healthy climate of the Aar valley, and the hygienic advantages of this educational establishment, more closely to bind to life and possibly to effect the complete regeneration of this the sole descendant of an illustrious race. For