The Early Short Fiction Part One(早斯短篇小说(第一部))

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The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

The Early Short Fiction

of A Ten-Volume Collection

Volume One

Edith Wharton

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

KERFOL as first published in

Scribner's Magazine, March 1916

"You ought to buy it," said my host; "it's just the place for a solitary-

minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while to own the most

romantic house in Brittany. The present people are dead broke, and it's

going for a song--you ought to buy it."

It was not with the least idea of living up to the character my friend

Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under my unsociable exterior

I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity) that I took his hint one

autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friend was motoring over to

Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at a cross-road on a

heath, and said: "First turn to the right and second to the left. Then straight

ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, don't ask your way.

They don't understand French, and they would pretend they did and mix

you up. I'll be back for you here by sunset--and don't forget the tombs in

the chapel."

I followed Lanrivain's directions with the hesitation occasioned by the

usual difficulty of remembering whether he had said the first turn to the

right and second to the left, or the contrary. If I had met a peasant I should

certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray; but I had the desert

landscape to myself, and so stumbled on the right turn and walked on

across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was so unlike any other avenue

I have ever seen that I instantly knew it must be THE avenue. The grey-

trunked trees sprang up straight to a great height and then interwove their

pale-grey branches in a long tunnel through which the autumn light fell

faintly. I know most trees by name, but I haven't to this day been able to

decide what those trees were. They had the tall curve of elms, the tenuity

of poplars, the ashen colour of olives under a rainy sky; and they stretched

ahead of me for half a mile or more without a break in their arch. If ever I

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

saw an avenue that unmistakeably led to something, it was the avenue at

Kerfol. My heart beat a little as I began to walk down it.

Presently the trees ended and I came to a fortified gate in a long wall.

Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with other grey

avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofs mossed

with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filled with wild

shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge had been

replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a

long time on the hither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the

influence of the place sink in. I said to myself: "If I wait long enough, the

guardian will turn up and show me the tombs--" and I rather hoped he

wouldn't turn up too soon.

I sat down on a stone and lit a cigarette. As soon as I had done it, it

struck me as a puerile and portentous thing to do, with that great blind

house looking down at me, and all the empty avenues converging on me.

It may have been the depth of the silence that made me so conscious of my

gesture. The squeak of my match sounded as loud as the scraping of a

brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the grass.

But there was more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of littleness, of

childish bravado, in sitting there puffing my cigarette-smoke into the face

of such a past.

I knew nothing of the history of Kerfol--I was new to Brittany, and

Lanrivain had never mentioned the name to me till the day before--but one

couldn't as much as glance at that pile without feeling in it a long

accumulation of history. What kind of history I was not prepared to guess:

perhaps only the sheer weight of many associated lives and deaths which

gives a kind of majesty to all old houses. But the aspect of Kerfol

suggested something more--a perspective of stern and cruel memories

stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur of darkness.

Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken with

the present. As it stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables to the sky,

it might have been its own funeral monument. "Tombs in the chapel? The

whole place is a tomb!" I reflected. I hoped more and more that the

guardian would not come. The details of the place, however striking,

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

would seem trivial compared with its collective impressiveness; and I

wanted only to sit there and be penetrated by the weight of its silence.

"It's the very place for you!" Lanrivain had said; and I was overcome

by the almost blasphemous frivolity of suggesting to any living being that

Kerfol was the place for him. "Is it possible that any one could NOT see-

-?" I wondered. I did not finish the thought: what I meant was undefinable.

I stood up and wandered toward the gate. I was beginning to want to know

more; not to SEE more--I was by now so sure it was not a question of

seeing-- but to feel more: feel all the place had to communicate. "But to

get in one will have to rout out the keeper," I thought reluctantly, and

hesitated. Finally I crossed the bridge and tried the iron gate. It yielded,

and I walked under the tunnel formed by the thickness of the chemin de

ronde. At the farther end, a wooden barricade had been laid across the

entrance, and beyond it I saw a court enclosed in noble architecture. The

main building faced me; and I now discovered that one half was a mere

ruined front, with gaping windows through which the wild growths of the

moat and the trees of the park were visible. The rest of the house was still

in its robust beauty. One end abutted on the round tower, the other on the

small traceried chapel, and in an angle of the building stood a graceful

well-head adorned with mossy urns. A few roses grew against the walls,

and on an upper window-sill I remember noticing a pot of fuchsias.

My sense of the pressure of the invisible began to yield to my

architectural interest. The building was so fine that I felt a desire to

explore it for its own sake. I looked about the court, wondering in which

corner the guardian lodged. Then I pushed open the barrier and went in. As

I did so, a little dog barred my way. He was such a remarkably beautiful

little dog that for a moment he made me forget the splendid place he was

defending. I was not sure of his breed at the time, but have since learned

that it was Chinese, and that he was of a rare variety called the "Sleeve-

dog." He was very small and golden brown, with large brown eyes and a

ruffled throat: he looked rather like a large tawny chrysanthemum. I said

to myself: "These little beasts always snap and scream, and somebody will

be out in a minute."

The little animal stood before me, forbidding, almost menacing: there

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

was anger in his large brown eyes. But he made no sound, he came no

nearer. Instead, as I advanced, he gradually fell back, and I noticed that

another dog, a vague rough brindled thing, had limped up. "There'll be a

hubbub now," I thought; for at the same moment a third dog, a long-haired

white mongrel, slipped out of a doorway and joined the others. All three

stood looking at me with grave eyes; but not a sound came from them. As

I advanced they continued to fall back on muffled paws, still watching me.

"At a given point, they'll all charge at my ankles: it's one of the dodges

that dogs who live together put up on one," I thought. I was not much

alarmed, for they were neither large nor formidable. But they let me

wander about the court as I pleased, following me at a little distance--

always the same distance--and always keeping their eyes on me. Presently

I looked across at the ruined facade, and saw that in one of its window-

frames another dog stood: a large white pointer with one brown ear. He

was an old grave dog, much more experienced than the others; and he

seemed to be observing me with a deeper intentness.

"I'll hear from HIM," I said to myself; but he stood in the empty

window-frame, against the trees of the park, and continued to watch me

without moving. I looked back at him for a time, to see if the sense that he

was being watched would not rouse him. Half the width of the court lay

between us, and we stared at each other silently across it. But he did not

stir, and at last I turned away. Behind me I found the rest of the pack, with

a newcomer added: a small black greyhound with pale agate-coloured eyes.

He was shivering a little, and his expression was more timid than that of

the others. I noticed that he kept a little behind them. And still there was

not a sound.

I stood there for fully five minutes, the circle about me-- waiting, as

they seemed to be waiting. At last I went up to the little golden-brown dog

and stooped to pat him. As I did so, I heard myself laugh. The little dog

did not start, or growl, or take his eyes from me--he simply slipped back

about a yard, and then paused and continued to look at me. "Oh, hang it!" I

exclaimed aloud, and walked across the court toward the well.

As I advanced, the dogs separated and slid away into different corners

of the court. I examined the urns on the well, tried a locked door or two,

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

and up and down the dumb facade; then I faced about toward the chapel.

When I turned I perceived that all the dogs had disappeared except the old

pointer, who still watched me from the empty window-frame. It was rather

a relief to be rid of that cloud of witnesses; and I began to look about me

for a way to the back of the house. "Perhaps there'll be somebody in the

garden," I thought. I found a way across the moat, scrambled over a wall

smothered in brambles, and got into the garden. A few lean hydrangeas

and geraniums pined in the flower-beds, and the ancient house looked

down on them indifferently. Its garden side was plainer and severer than

the other: the long granite front, with its few windows and steep roof,

looked like a fortress-prison. I walked around the farther wing, went up

some disjointed steps, and entered the deep twilight of a narrow and

incredibly old box-walk. The walk was just wide enough for one person to

slip through, and its branches met overhead. It was like the ghost of a box-

walk, its lustrous green all turning to the shadowy greyness of the avenues.

I walked on and on, the branches hitting me in the face and springing back

with a dry rattle; and at length I came out on the grassy top of the chemin

de ronde. I walked along it to the gate-tower, looking down into the court,

which was just below me. Not a human being was in sight; and neither

were the dogs. I found a flight of steps in the thickness of the wall and

went down them; and when I emerged again into the court, there stood the

circle of dogs, the golden- brown one a little ahead of the others, the black

greyhound shivering in the rear.

"Oh, hang it--you uncomfortable beasts, you!" I exclaimed, my voice

startling me with a sudden echo. The dogs stood motionless, watching me.

I knew by this time that they would not try to prevent my approaching the

house, and the knowledge left me free to examine them. I had a feeling

that they must be horribly cowed to be so silent and inert. Yet they did not

look hungry or ill-treated. Their coats were smooth and they were not thin,

except the shivering greyhound. It was more as if they had lived a long

time with people who never spoke to them or looked at them: as though

the silence of the place had gradually benumbed their busy inquisitive

natures. And this strange passivity, this almost human lassitude, seemed to

me sadder than the misery of starved and beaten animals. I should have

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

liked to rouse them for a minute, to coax them into a game or a scamper;

but the longer I looked into their fixed and weary eyes the more

preposterous the idea became. With the windows of that house looking

down on us, how could I have imagined such a thing? The dogs knew

better: THEY knew what the house would tolerate and what it would not. I

even fancied that they knew what was passing through my mind, and

pitied me for my frivolity. But even that feeling probably reached them

through a thick fog of listlessness. I had an idea that their distance from

me was as nothing to my remoteness from them. In the last analysis, the

impression they produced was that of having in common one memory so

deep and dark that nothing that had happened since was worth either a

growl or a wag.

"I say," I broke out abruptly, addressing myself to the dumb circle, "do

you know what you look like, the whole lot of you? You look as if you'd

seen a ghost--that's how you look! I wonder if there IS a ghost here, and

nobody but you left for it to appear to?" The dogs continued to gaze at me

without moving. . .

It was dark when I saw Lanrivain's motor lamps at the cross- roads--

and I wasn't exactly sorry to see them. I had the sense of having escaped

from the loneliest place in the whole world, and of not liking loneliness--

to that degree--as much as I had imagined I should. My friend had brought

his solicitor back from Quimper for the night, and seated beside a fat and

affable stranger I felt no inclination to talk of Kerfol. . .

But that evening, when Lanrivain and the solicitor were closeted in the

study, Madame de Lanrivain began to question me in the drawing-room.

"Well--are you going to buy Kerfol?" she asked, tilting up her gay chin

from her embroidery.

"I haven't decided yet. The fact is, I couldn't get into the house," I said,

as if I had simply postponed my decision, and meant to go back for

another look.

"You couldn't get in? Why, what happened? The family are mad to sell

the place, and the old guardian has orders--"

"Very likely. But the old guardian wasn't there."

"What a pity! He must have gone to market. But his daughter--?"

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

"There was nobody about. At least I saw no one."

"How extraordinary! Literally nobody?"

"Nobody but a lot of dogs--a whole pack of them--who seemed to have

the place to themselves."

Madame de Lanrivain let the embroidery slip to her knee and folded

her hands on it. For several minutes she looked at me thoughtfully.

"A pack of dogs--you SAW them?"

"Saw them? I saw nothing else!"

"How many?" She dropped her voice a little. "I've always wondered--"

I looked at her with surprise: I had supposed the place to be familiar to

her. "Have you never been to Kerfol?" I asked.

"Oh, yes: often. But never on that day."

"What day?"

"I'd quite forgotten--and so had Herve, I'm sure. If we'd remembered,

we never should have sent you today--but then, after all, one doesn't half

believe that sort of thing, does one?"

"What sort of thing?" I asked, involuntarily sinking my voice to the

level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: "I KNEW there was something. . ."

Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuring

smile. "Didn't Herve tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of his was

mixed up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; and

some of them are rather unpleasant."

"Yes--but those dogs?" I insisted.

"Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasants say

there's one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; and that day

the keeper and his daughter go off to Morlaix and get drunk. The women

in Brittany drink dreadfully." She stooped to match a silk; then she lifted

her charming inquisitive Parisian face: "Did you REALLY see a lot of

dogs? There isn't one at Kerfol," she said.

Lanrivain, the next day, hunted out a shabby calf volume from the

back of an upper shelf of his library.

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

"Yes--here it is. What does it call itself? A History of the Assizes of the

Duchy of Brittany. Quimper, 1702. The book was written about a hundred

years later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe the account is transcribed

pretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it's queer reading. And

there's a Herve de Lanrivain mixed up in it--not exactly MY style, as you'll

see. But then he's only a collateral. Here, take the book up to bed with you.

I don't exactly remember the details; but after you've read it I'll bet

anything you'll leave your light burning all night!"

I left my light burning all night, as he had predicted; but it was chiefly

because, till near dawn, I was absorbed in my reading. The account of the

trial of Anne de Cornault, wife of the lord of Kerfol, was long and closely

printed. It was, as my friend had said, probably an almost literal

transcription of what took place in the court-room; and the trial lasted

nearly a month. Besides, the type of the book was detestable. . .

At first I thought of translating the old record literally. But it is full of

wearisome repetitions, and the main lines of the story are forever straying

off into side issues. So I have tried to disentangle it, and give it here in a

simpler form. At times, however, I have reverted to the text because no

other words could have conveyed so exactly the sense of what I felt at

Kerfol; and nowhere have I added anything of my own.

III

It was in the year 16-- that Yves de Cornault, lord of the domain of

Kerfol, went to the pardon of Locronan to perform his religious duties. He

was a rich and powerful noble, then in his sixty-second year, but hale and

sturdy, a great horseman and hunter and a pious man. So all his neighbours

attested. In appearance he seems to have been short and broad, with a

swarthy face, legs slightly bowed from the saddle, a hanging nose and

broad hands with black hairs on them. He had married young and lost his

wife and son soon after, and since then had lived alone at Kerfol. Twice a

year he went to Morlaix, where he had a handsome house by the river, and

spent a week or ten days there; and occasionally he rode to Rennes on

business. Witnesses were found to declare that during these absences he

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One

led a life different from the one he was known to lead at Kerfol, where he

busied himself with his estate, attended mass daily, and found his only

amusement in hunting the wild boar and water-fowl. But these rumours

are not particularly relevant, and it is certain that among people of his own

class in the neighbourhood he passed for a stern and even austere man,

observant of his religious obligations, and keeping strictly to himself.

There was no talk of any familiarity with the women on his estate, though

at that time the nobility were very free with their peasants. Some people

said he had never looked at a woman since his wife's death; but such

things are hard to prove, and the evidence on this point was not worth

much.

Well, in his sixty-second year, Yves de Cornault went to the pardon at

Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had ridden

over pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name was

Anne de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much less

great and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father had

squandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a peasant in his little

granite manor on the moors. . . I have said I would add nothing of my own

to this bald statement of a strange case; but I must interrupt myself here to

describe the young lady who rode up to the lych-gate of Locronan at the

very moment when the Baron de Cornault was also dismounting there. I

take my description from a rather rare thing: a faded drawing in red crayon,

sober and truthful enough to be by a late pupil of the Clouets, which hangs

in Lanrivain's study, and is said to be a portrait of Anne de Barrigan. It is

unsigned and has no mark of identity but the initials A. B., and the date

16--, the year after her marriage. It represents a young woman with a small

oval face, almost pointed, yet wide enough for a full mouth with a tender

depression at the corners. The nose is small, and the eyebrows are set

rather high, far apart, and as lightly pencilled as the eyebrows in a Chinese

painting. The forehead is high and serious, and the hair, which one feels to

be fine and thick and fair, drawn off it and lying close like a cap. The eyes

are neither large nor small, hazel probably, with a look at once shy and

steady. A pair of beautiful long hands are crossed below the lady's

breast. . .

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TheEarlyShortFictionofATen-VolumeCollectionVolumeOne1TheEarlyShortFictionofATen-VolumeCollectionVolumeOneEdithWhartonTheEarlyShortFictionofATen-VolumeCollectionVolumeOne2KERFOLasfirstpublishedinScribner'sMagazine,March1916I"Yououghttobuyit,"saidmyhost;"it'sjusttheplaceforasolitary-mindeddevillikeyou...

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