Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton - Part 1 , livre ebook

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. "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.

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Publié par	Pub One Info
Date de parution	27 septembre 2010
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9782819924661
Langue	English

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THE EARLY SHORT FICTION OF EDITH WHARTON
By Edith Wharton
A Ten-Volume Collection
Volume One
KERFOL
As first published in Scribner's Magazine,March 1916
I
“You ought to buy it, ” said my host; “it's just theplace for a solitary-minded devil like you. And it would be ratherworth while to own the most romantic house in Brittany. The presentpeople are dead broke, and it's going for a song— you ought to buyit. ”
It was not with the least idea of living up to thecharacter my friend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact,under my unsociable exterior I have always had secret yearnings fordomesticity) that I took his hint one autumn afternoon and went toKerfol. My friend was motoring over to Quimper on business: hedropped me on the way, at a cross-road on a heath, and said: “Firstturn to the right and second to the left. Then straight ahead tillyou see an avenue. If you meet any peasants, don't ask your way.They don't understand French, and they would pretend they did andmix you up. I'll be back for you here by sunset— and don't forgetthe tombs in the chapel. ”
I followed Lanrivain's directions with thehesitation occasioned by the usual difficulty of rememberingwhether he had said the first turn to the right and second to theleft, or the contrary. If I had met a peasant I should certainlyhave asked, and probably been sent astray; but I had the desertlandscape to myself, and so stumbled on the right turn and walkedon across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was so unlike anyother avenue I have ever seen that I instantly knew it must be THEavenue. The grey-trunked trees sprang up straight to a great heightand then interwove their pale-grey branches in a long tunnelthrough which the autumn light fell faintly. I know most trees byname, but I haven't to this day been able to decide what thosetrees were. They had the tall curve of elms, the tenuity ofpoplars, the ashen colour of olives under a rainy sky; and theystretched ahead of me for half a mile or more without a break intheir arch. If ever I saw an avenue that unmistakably led tosomething, it was the avenue at Kerfol. My heart beat a little as Ibegan to walk down it.
Presently the trees ended and I came to a fortifiedgate in a long wall. Between me and the wall was an open space ofgrass, with other grey avenues radiating from it. Behind the wallwere tall slate roofs mossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the topof a keep. A moat filled with wild shrubs and brambles surroundedthe place; the drawbridge had been replaced by a stone arch, andthe portcullis by an iron gate. I stood for a long time on thehither side of the moat, gazing about me, and letting the influenceof the place sink in. I said to myself: “If I wait long enough, theguardian will turn up and show me the tombs— ” and I rather hopedhe wouldn't turn up too soon.
I sat down on a stone and lit a cigarette. As soonas I had done it, it struck me as a puerile and portentous thing todo, with that great blind house looking down at me, and all theempty avenues converging on me. It may have been the depth of thesilence that made me so conscious of my gesture. The squeak of mymatch sounded as loud as the scraping of a brake, and I almostfancied I heard it fall when I tossed it onto the grass. But therewas more than that: a sense of irrelevance, of littleness, ofchildish bravado, in sitting there puffing my cigarette-smoke intothe face of such a past.
I knew nothing of the history of Kerfol— I was newto Brittany, and Lanrivain had never mentioned the name to me tillthe day before— but one couldn't as much as glance at that pilewithout feeling in it a long accumulation of history. What kind ofhistory I was not prepared to guess: perhaps only the sheer weightof many associated lives and deaths which gives a kind of majestyto all old houses. But the aspect of Kerfol suggested somethingmore— 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 andfinally broken with the present. As it stood there, lifting itsproud roofs and gables to the sky, it might have been its ownfuneral monument. “Tombs in the chapel? The whole place is a tomb!” I reflected. I hoped more and more that the guardian would notcome. The details of the place, however striking, would seemtrivial compared with its collective impressiveness; and I wantedonly to sit there and be penetrated by the weight of itssilence.
“It's the very place for you! ” Lanrivain had said;and I was overcome by the almost blasphemous frivolity ofsuggesting to any living being that Kerfol was the place for him.“Is it possible that any one could NOT see— ? ” I wondered. I didnot finish the thought: what I meant was undefinable. I stood upand 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 ofseeing— but to feel more: feel all the place had to communicate.“But to get in one will have to rout out the keeper, ” I thoughtreluctantly, and hesitated. Finally I crossed the bridge and triedthe iron gate. It yielded, and I walked under the tunnel formed bythe thickness of the chemin de ronde. At the farther end, a woodenbarricade had been laid across the entrance, and beyond it I saw acourt enclosed in noble architecture. The main building faced me;and I now discovered that one half was a mere ruined front, withgaping windows through which the wild growths of the moat and thetrees of the park were visible. The rest of the house was still inits robust beauty. One end abutted on the round tower, the other onthe small traceried chapel, and in an angle of the building stood agraceful well-head adorned with mossy urns. A few roses grewagainst the walls, and on an upper window-sill I remember noticinga pot of fuchsias.
My sense of the pressure of the invisible began toyield to my architectural interest. The building was so fine that Ifelt a desire to explore it for its own sake. I looked about thecourt, wondering in which corner the guardian lodged. Then I pushedopen the barrier and went in. As I did so, a little dog barred myway. He was such a remarkably beautiful little dog that for amoment he made me forget the splendid place he was defending. I wasnot sure of his breed at the time, but have since learned that itwas Chinese, and that he was of a rare variety called the“Sleeve-dog. ” He was very small and golden brown, with large browneyes and a ruffled throat: he looked rather like a large tawnychrysanthemum. I said to myself: “These little beasts always snapand scream, and somebody will be out in a minute. ”
The little animal stood before me, forbidding,almost menacing: there was anger in his large brown eyes. But hemade no sound, he came no nearer. Instead, as I advanced, hegradually fell back, and I noticed that another dog, a vague roughbrindled thing, had limped up. “There'll be a hubbub now, ” Ithought; for at the same moment a third dog, a long-haired whitemongrel, slipped out of a doorway and joined the others. All threestood looking at me with grave eyes; but not a sound came fromthem. As I advanced they continued to fall back on muffled paws,still watching me. “At a given point, they'll all charge at myankles: it's one of the dodges that dogs who live together put upon one, ” I thought. I was not much alarmed, for they were neitherlarge nor formidable. But they let me wander about the court as Ipleased, following me at a little distance— always the samedistance— and always keeping their eyes on me. Presently I lookedacross at the ruined facade, and saw that in one of itswindow-frames another dog stood: a large white pointer with onebrown ear. He was an old grave dog, much more experienced than theothers; and he seemed to be observing me with a deeperintentness.
“I'll hear from HIM, ” I said to myself; but hestood in the empty window-frame, against the trees of the park, andcontinued to watch me without moving. I looked back at him for atime, to see if the sense that he was being watched would not rousehim. Half the width of the court lay between us, and we stared ateach other silently across it. But he did not stir, and at last Iturned away. Behind me I found the rest of the pack, with anewcomer added: a small black greyhound with pale agate-colouredeyes. He was shivering a little, and his expression was more timidthan that of the others. I noticed that he kept a little behindthem. And still there was not a sound.
I stood there for fully five minutes, the circleabout me— waiting, as they seemed to be waiting. At last I went upto 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, ortake his eyes from me— he simply slipped back about a yard, andthen paused and continued to look at me. “Oh, hang it! ” Iexclaimed aloud, and walked across the court toward the well.
As I advanced, the dogs separated and slid away intodifferent corners of the court. I examined the urns on the well,tried a locked door or two, and up and down the dumb facade; then Ifaced about toward the chapel. When I turned I perceived that allthe dogs had disappeared except the old pointer, who still watchedme from the empty window-frame. It was rather a relief to be rid ofthat cloud of witnesses; and I began to look about me for a way tothe back of the house. “Perhaps there'll be somebody in the garden,” I thought. I found a way across the moat, scrambled over a wallsmothered in brambles, and got into the garden. A few leanhydrangeas and geraniums pined in the flower-beds, and the ancienthouse looked down on them indifferently. Its garden side wasplainer and severer than the other: the long granite front, withits few windows and steep roof, looked like a fortress-prison. Iwalked around the farther wing, went up some disjointed steps, andentered the deep twilight of a narrow and incredibly old box-walk.The walk was just wide enough for o