Kerfol
I"You ought to buy it," said my host; "it's just the place for asolitary-minded devil like you. And it would be rather worth while toown the most romantic house in Brittany. The present people are deadbroke, 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 myfriend Lanrivain ascribed to me (as a matter of fact, under myunsociable exterior I have always had secret yearnings for domesticity)that I took his hint one autumn afternoon and went to Kerfol. My friendwas motoring over to Quimper on business: he dropped me on the way, at across-road on a heath, and said: "First turn to the right and second tothe left. Then straight ahead till you see an avenue. If you meet anypeasants, don't ask your way. They don't understand French, and theywould pretend they did and mix you up. I'll be back for you here bysunset -- and don't forget the tombs in the chapel."I followed Lanrivain's directions with the hesitation occasioned bythe usual difficulty of remembering whether he had said the first turnto the right and second to the left, or the contrary. If I had met apeasant I should certainly have asked, and probably been sent astray;but I had the desert landscape to myself, and so stumbled on the rightturn and walked on across the heath till I came to an avenue. It was sounlike any other avenue I have ever seen that I instantly knew it mustbe THE avenue. The grey-trunked trees sprang up straight to a greatheight and then interwove their pale-grey branches in a long tunnelthrough 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 ashencolour of olives under a rainy sky; and they stretched ahead of me forhalf a mile or more without a break in their arch. If ever I saw anavenue 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 longwall. Between me and the wall was an open space of grass, with othergrey avenues radiating from it. Behind the wall were tall slate roofsmossed with silver, a chapel belfry, the top of a keep. A moat filledwith wild shrubs and brambles surrounded the place; the drawbridge hadbeen replaced by a stone arch, and the portcullis by an iron gate. Istood 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 Iwait 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 doneit, it struck me as a puerile and portentous thing to do, with thatgreat blind house looking down at me, and all the empty avenuesconverging on me. It may have been the depth of the silence that made meso conscious of my gesture. The squeak of my match sounded as loud asthe scraping of a brake, and I almost fancied I heard it fall when Itossed it onto the grass. But there was more than that: a sense ofirrelevance, of littleness, of childish bravado, in sitting therepuffing 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 along accumulation of history. What kind of history I was not prepared toguess: perhaps only the sheer weight of many associated lives and deathswhich gives a kind of majesty to all old houses. But the aspect ofKerfol suggested something more -- a perspective of stern and cruelmemories stretching away, like its own grey avenues, into a blur ofdarkness.Certainly no house had ever more completely and finally broken withthe present. As it stood there, lifting its proud roofs and gables tothe sky, it might have been its own funeral monument. "Tombs in thechapel? The whole place is a tomb!" I reflected. I hoped more and morethat the guardian would not come. The details of the place, howeverstriking, would seem trivial compared with its collectiveimpressiveness; and I wanted only to sit there and be penetrated by theweight of its silence."It's the very place for you!" Lanrivain had said; and I wasovercome by the almost blasphemous frivolity of suggesting to any livingbeing that Kerfol was the place for him. "Is it possible that any onecould NOT see -- ?" I wondered. I did not finish the thought: what Imeant was undefinable. I stood up and wandered toward the gate. I wasbeginning to want to know more; not to SEE more -- I was by now so sureit was not a question of seeing -- but to feel more: feel all the placehad to communicate. "But to get in one will have to rout out thekeeper," I thought reluctantly, and hesitated. Finally I crossed thebridge and tried the iron gate. It yielded, and I walked under thetunnel formed by the thickness of the chemin de ronde. At the fartherend, a wooden barricade had been laid across the entrance, and beyond itI saw a court enclosed in noble architecture. The main building facedme; and I now discovered that one half was a mere ruined front, withgaping windows through which the wild growths of the moat and the treesof the park were visible. The rest of the house was still in its robustbeauty. One end abutted on the round tower, the other on the smalltraceried chapel, and in an angle of the building stood a gracefulwell-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 myarchitectural interest. The building was so fine that I felt a desire toexplore it for its own sake. I looked about the court, wondering inwhich corner the guardian lodged. Then I pushed open the barrier andwent in. As I did so, a little dog barred my way. He was such aremarkably beautiful little dog that for a moment he made me forget thesplendid place he was defending. I was not sure of his breed at thetime, but have since learned that it was Chinese, and that he was of arare variety called the "Sleeve-dog." He was very small and goldenbrown, with large brown eyes and a ruffled throat: he looked rather likea large tawny chrysanthemum. I said to myself: "These little beastsalways snap and 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 he made no sound, he cameno nearer. Instead, as I advanced, he gradually fell back, and I noticedthat another dog, a vague rough brindled thing, had limped up. "There'llbe a hubbub now," I thought; for at the same moment a third dog, along-haired white mongrel, slipped out of a doorway and joined theothers. All three stood looking at me with grave eyes; but not a soundcame from them. As I advanced they continued to fall back on muffledpaws, 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 up onone," I thought. I was not much alarmed, for they were neither large norformidable. But they let me wander about the court as I pleased,following me at a little distance -- always the same distance -- andalways keeping their eyes on me. Presently I looked across at the ruinedfacade, and saw that in one of its window-frames another dog stood: alarge white pointer with one brown ear. He was an old grave dog, muchmore experienced than the others; and he seemed to be observing me witha deeper intentness."I'll hear from HIM," I said to myself; but he stood in the emptywindow-frame, against the trees of the park, and continued to watch mewithout moving. I looked back at him for a time, to see if the sensethat he was being watched would not rouse him. Half the width of thecourt 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 therest of the pack, with a newcomer added: a small black greyhound withpale agate-coloured eyes. He was shivering a little, and his expressionwas more timid than that of the others. I noticed that he kept a littlebehind 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 littlegolden-brown dog and stooped to pat him. As I did so, I heard myselflaugh. 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 tolook at me. "Oh, hang it!" I exclaimed aloud, and walked across thecourt toward the well.As I advanced, the dogs separated and slid away into differentcorners of the court. I examined the urns on the well, tried a lockeddoor or two, and up and down the dumb facade; then I faced about towardthe chapel. When I turned I perceived that all the dogs had disappearedexcept the old pointer, who still watched me from the emptywindow-frame. It was rather a relief to be rid of that cloud ofwitnesses; and I began to look about me for a way to the back of thehouse. "Perhaps there'll be somebody in the garden," I thought. I founda way across the moat, scrambled over a wall smothered in brambles, andgot into the garden. A few lean hydrangeas and geraniums pined in theflower-beds, and the ancient house looked down on them indifferently.Its garden side was plainer and severer than the other: the long granitefront, with its few windows and steep roof, looked like afortress-prison. I walked around the farther wing, went up somedisjointed steps, and entered the deep twilight of a narrow andincredibly old box-walk. The walk was just wide enough for one person toslip through, and its branches met overhead. It was like the ghost of abox-walk, its lustrous green all turning to the shadowy greyness of theavenues. I walked on and on, the branches hitting me in the face andspringing back with a dry rattle; and at length I came out on the grassytop of the chemin de ronde. I walked along it to the gate-tower, lookingdown into the court, which was just below me. Not a human being was insight; and neither were the dogs. I found a flight of steps in thethickness of the wall and went down them; and when I emerged again intothe court, there stood the circle of dogs, the golden- brown one alittle ahead of the others, the black greyhound shivering in the rear."Oh, hang it -- you uncomfortable beasts, you!" I exclaimed, myvoice startling me with a sudden echo. The dogs stood motionless,watching me. I knew by this time that they would not try to prevent myapproaching the house, and the knowledge left me free to examine them. Ihad a feeling that they must be horribly cowed to be so silent andinert. Yet they did not look hungry or ill-treated. Their coats weresmooth and they were not thin, except the shivering greyhound. It wasmore as if they had lived a long time with people who never spoke tothem or looked at them: as though the silence of the place had graduallybenumbed their busy inquisitive natures. And this strange passivity,this almost human lassitude, seemed to me sadder than the misery ofstarved and beaten animals. I should have liked to rouse them for aminute, to coax them into a game or a scamper; but the longer I lookedinto their fixed and weary eyes the more preposterous the idea became.With the windows of that house looking down on us, how could I haveimagined such a thing? The dogs knew better: THEY knew what the housewould tolerate and what it would not. I even fancied that they knew whatwas passing through my mind, and pitied me for my frivolity. But eventhat feeling probably reached them through a thick fog of listlessness.I had an idea that their distance from me was as nothing to myremoteness from them. In the last analysis, the impression they producedwas that of having in common one memory so deep and dark that nothingthat had happened since was worth either a growl or a wag."I say," I broke out abruptly, addressing myself to the dumbcircle, "do you know what you look like, the whole lot of you? You lookas if you'd seen a ghost -- that's how you look! I wonder if there IS aghost here, and nobody but you left for it to appear to?" The dogscontinued 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 havingescaped from the loneliest place in the whole world, and of not likingloneliness -- to that degree -- as much as I had imagined I should. Myfriend had brought his solicitor back from Quimper for the night, andseated beside a fat and affable stranger I felt no inclination to talkof Kerfol. . .But that evening, when Lanrivain and the solicitor were closeted inthe study, Madame de Lanrivain began to question me in the drawing-room."Well -- are you going to buy Kerfol?" she asked, tilting up hergay chin from her embroidery."I haven't decided yet. The fact is, I couldn't get into thehouse," I said, as if I had simply postponed my decision, and meant togo back for another look."You couldn't get in? Why, what happened? The family are mad tosell 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 -- ?""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 tohave the place to themselves."Madame de Lanrivain let the embroidery slip to her knee and foldedher 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 befamiliar 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'dremembered, 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 tothe level of hers. Inwardly I was thinking: "I KNEW there was something.. ."Madame de Lanrivain cleared her throat and produced a reassuringsmile. "Didn't Herve tell you the story of Kerfol? An ancestor of hiswas mixed up in it. You know every Breton house has its ghost-story; andsome of them are rather unpleasant.""Yes -- but those dogs?" I insisted."Well, those dogs are the ghosts of Kerfol. At least, the peasantssay there's one day in the year when a lot of dogs appear there; andthat 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 REALLYsee a lot of dogs? There isn't one at Kerfol," she said.
IILanrivain, the next day, hunted out a shabby calf volume from the backof an upper shelf of his library."Yes -- here it is. What does it call itself? A History of theAssizes of the Duchy of Brittany. Quimper, 1702. The book was writtenabout a hundred years later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe theaccount is transcribed pretty literally from the judicial records.Anyhow, it's queer reading. And there's a Herve de Lanrivain mixed up init -- not exactly MY style, as you'll see. But then he's only acollateral. Here, take the book up to bed with you. I don't exactlyremember the details; but after you've read it I'll bet anything you'llleave your light burning all night!"I left my light burning all night, as he had predicted; but it waschiefly because, till near dawn, I was absorbed in my reading. Theaccount 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 analmost literal transcription of what took place in the court-room; andthe trial lasted nearly a month. Besides, the type of the book wasdetestable. . .At first I thought of translating the old record literally. But itis full of wearisome repetitions, and the main lines of the story areforever straying off into side issues. So I have tried to disentangleit, and give it here in a simpler form. At times, however, I havereverted to the text because no other words could have conveyed soexactly the sense of what I felt at Kerfol; and nowhere have I addedanything of my own.
IIIIt was in the year 16 -- that Yves de Cornault, lord of the domain ofKerfol, went to the pardon of Locronan to perform his religious duties.He was a rich and powerful noble, then in his sixty-second year, buthale and sturdy, a great horseman and hunter and a pious man. So all hisneighbours attested. In appearance he seems to have been short andbroad, with a swarthy face, legs slightly bowed from the saddle, ahanging nose and broad hands with black hairs on them. He had marriedyoung and lost his wife and son soon after, and since then had livedalone at Kerfol. Twice a year he went to Morlaix, where he had ahandsome house by the river, and spent a week or ten days there; andoccasionally he rode to Rennes on business. Witnesses were found todeclare that during these absences he led a life different from the onehe was known to lead at Kerfol, where he busied himself with his estate,attended mass daily, and found his only amusement in hunting the wildboar and water-fowl. But these rumours are not particularly relevant,and it is certain that among people of his own class in theneighbourhood he passed for a stern and even austere man, observant ofhis religious obligations, and keeping strictly to himself. There was notalk of any familiarity with the women on his estate, though at thattime the nobility were very free with their peasants. Some people saidhe had never looked at a woman since his wife's death; but such thingsare 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 pardonat Locronan, and saw there a young lady of Douarnenez, who had riddenover pillion behind her father to do her duty to the saint. Her name wasAnne de Barrigan, and she came of good old Breton stock, but much lessgreat and powerful than that of Yves de Cornault; and her father hadsquandered his fortune at cards, and lived almost like a peasant in hislittle granite manor on the moors. . . I have said I would add nothingof my own to this bald statement of a strange case; but I must interruptmyself here to describe the young lady who rode up to the lych-gate ofLocronan at the very moment when the Baron de Cornault was alsodismounting there. I take my description from a rather rare thing: afaded drawing in red crayon, sober and truthful enough to be by a latepupil of the Clouets, which hangs in Lanrivain's study, and is said tobe a portrait of Anne de Barrigan. It is unsigned and has no mark ofidentity but the initials A. B., and the date 16 -- , the year after hermarriage. It represents a young woman with a small oval face, almostpointed, yet wide enough for a full mouth with a tender depression atthe corners. The nose is small, and the eyebrows are set rather high,far apart, and as lightly pencilled as the eyebrows in a Chinesepainting. The forehead is high and serious, and the hair, which onefeels to be fine and thick and fair, drawn off it and lying close like acap. The eyes are neither large nor small, hazel probably, with a lookat once shy and steady. A pair of beautiful long hands are crossed belowthe lady's breast. . .The chaplain of Kerfol, and other witnesses, averred that when theBaron came back from Locronan he jumped from his horse, ordered anotherto be instantly saddled, called to a young page come with him, and rodeaway that same evening to the south. His steward followed the nextmorning with coffers laden on a pair of pack mules. The following weekYves de Cornault rode back to Kerfol, sent for his vassals and tenants,and told them he was to be married at All Saints to Anne de Barrigan ofDouarnenez. And on All Saints' Day the marriage took place.As to the next few years, the evidence on both sides seems to showthat they passed happily for the couple. No one was found to say thatYves de Cornault had been unkind to his wife, and it was plain to allthat he was content with his bargain. Indeed, it was admitted by thechaplain and other witnesses for the prosecution that the young lady hada softening influence on her husband, and that he became less exactingwith his tenants, less harsh to peasants and dependents, and lesssubject to the fits of gloomy silence which had darkened his widow-hood.As to his wife, the only grievance her champions could call up in herbehalf was that Kerfol was a lonely place, and that when her husband wasaway on business at Rennes or Morlaix -- whither she was never taken --she was not allowed so much as to walk in the park unaccompanied. But noone asserted that she was unhappy, though one servant-woman said she hadsurprised her crying, and had heard her say that she was a womanaccursed to have no child, and nothing in life to call her own. But thatwas a natural enough feeling in a wife attached to her husband; andcertainly it must have been a great grief to Yves de Cornault that shegave him no son. Yet he never made her feel her childlessness as areproach -- she herself admits this in her evidence -- but seemed to tryto make her forget it by showering gifts and favours on her. Rich thoughhe was, he had never been open-handed; but nothing was too fine for hiswife, in the way of silks or gems or linen, or whatever else shefancied. Every wandering merchant was welcome at Kerfol, and when themaster was called away he never came back without bringing his wife ahandsome present -- something curious and particular -- from Morlaix orRennes or Quimper. One of the waiting-women gave, in cross-examination,an interesting list of one year's gifts, which I copy. From Morlaix, acarved ivory junk, with Chinamen at the oars, that a strange sailor hadbrought back as a votive offering for Notre Dame de la Clarte, abovePloumanac'h; from Quimper, an embroidered gown, worked by the nuns ofthe Assumption; from Rennes, a silver rose that opened and showed anamber Virgin with a crown of garnets; from Morlaix, again, a length ofDamascus velvet shot with gold, bought of a Jew from Syria; and forMichaelmas that same year, from Rennes, a necklet or bracelet of roundstones -- emeralds and pearls and rubies -- strung like beads on a goldwire. This was the present that pleased the lady best, the woman said.Later on, as it happened, it was produced at the trial, and appears tohave struck the Judges and the public as a curious and valuable jewel.The very same winter, the Baron absented himself again, this timeas far as Bordeaux, and on his return he brought his wife something evenodder and prettier than the bracelet. It was a winter evening when herode up to Kerfol and, walking into the hall, found her sittinglistlessly by the fire, her chin on her hand, looking into the fire. Hecarried a velvet box in his hand and, setting it down on the hearth,lifted the lid and let out a little golden-brown dog.Anne de Cornault exclaimed with pleasure as the little creaturebounded toward her. "Oh, it looks like a bird or a butterfly!" she criedas she picked it up; and the dog put its paws on her shoulders andlooked at her with eyes "like a Christian's." After that she would neverhave it out of her sight, and petted and talked to it as if it had beena child -- as indeed it was the nearest thing to a child she was toknow. Yves de Cornault was much pleased with his purchase. The dog hadbeen brought to him by a sailor from an East India merchantman, and thesailor had bought it of a pilgrim in a bazaar at Jaffa, who had stolenit from a nobleman's wife in China: a perfectly permissible thing to do,since the pilgrim was a Christian and the nobleman a heathen doomed tohellfire. Yves de Cornault had paid a long price for the dog, for theywere beginning to be in demand at the French court, and the sailor knewhe had got hold of a good thing; but Anne's pleasure was so great that,to see her laugh and play with the little animal, her husband woulddoubtless have given twice the sum.So far, all the evidence is at one, and the narrative plainsailing; but now the steering becomes difficult. I will try to keep asnearly as possible to Anne's own statements; though toward the end, poorthing . . .Well, to go back. The very year after the little brown dog wasbrought to Kerfol, Yves de Cornault, one winter night, was found dead atthe head of a narrow flight of stairs leading down from his wife's roomsto a door opening on the court. It was his wife who found him and gavethe alarm, so distracted, poor wretch, with fear and horror -- for hisblood was all over her -- that at first the roused household could notmake out what she was saying, and thought she had gone suddenly mad. Butthere, sure enough, at the top of the stairs lay her husband, stonedead, and head foremost, the blood from his wounds dripping down to thesteps below him. He had been dreadfully scratched and gashed about theface and throat, as if with a dull weapon; and one of his legs had adeep tear in it which had cut an artery, and probably caused his death.But how did he come there, and who had murdered him?His wife declared that she had been asleep in her bed, and hearinghis cry had rushed out to find him lying on the stairs; but this wasimmediately questioned. In the first place, it was proved that from herroom she could not have heard the struggle on the stairs, owing to thethickness of the walls and the length of the intervening passage; thenit was evident that she had not been in bed and asleep, since she wasdressed when she roused the house, and her bed had not been slept in.Moreover, the door at the bottom of the stairs was ajar, and the key inthe lock; and it was noticed by the chaplain (an observant man) that thedress she wore was stained with blood about the knees, and that therewere traces of small blood-stained hands low down on the staircasewalls, so that it was conjectured that she had really been at thepostern-door when her husband fell and, feeling her way up to him in thedarkness on her hands and knees, had been stained by his blood drippingdown on her. Of course it was argued on the other side that theblood-marks on her dress might have been caused by her kneeling down byher husband when she rushed out of her room; but there was the open doorbelow, and the fact that the fingermarks in the staircase all pointedupward.The accused held to her statement for the first two days, in spiteof its improbability; but on the third day word was brought to her thatHerve de Lanrivain, a young nobleman of the neighbourhood, had beenarrested for complicity in the crime. Two or three witnesses thereuponcame forward to say that it was known throughout the country thatLanrivain had formerly been on good terms with the lady of Cornault; butthat he had been absent from Brittany for over a year, and people hadceased to associate their names. The witnesses who made this statementwere not of a very reputable sort. One was an old herb-gatherersuspected of witch-craft, another a drunken clerk from a neighbouringparish, the third a half-witted shepherd who could be made to sayanything; and it was clear that the prosecution was not satisfied withits case, and would have liked to find more definite proof ofLanrivain's complicity than the statement of the herb- gatherer, whoswore to having seen him climbing the wall of the park on the night ofthe murder. One way of patching out incomplete proofs in those days wasto put some sort of pressure, moral or physical, on the accused person.It is not clear what pressure was put on Anne de Cornault; but on thethird day, when she was brought into court, she "appeared weak andwandering," and after being encouraged to collect herself and speak thetruth, on her honour and the wounds of her Blessed Redeemer, sheconfessed that she had in fact gone down the stairs to speak with Hervede Lanrivain (who denied everything), and had been surprised there bythe sound of her husband's fall. That was better; and the prosecutionrubbed its hands with satisfaction. The satisfaction increased whenvarious dependents living at Kerfol were induced to say -- with apparentsincerity -- that during the year or two preceding his death theirmaster had once more grown uncertain and irascible, and subject to thefits of brooding silence which his household had learned to dread beforehis second marriage. This seemed to show that things had not been goingwell at Kerfol; though no one could be found to say that there had beenany signs of open disagreement between husband and wife.Anne de Cornault, when questioned as to her reason for going downat night to open the door to Herve de Lanrivain, made an answer whichmust have sent a smile around the court. She said it was because she waslonely and wanted to talk with the young man. Was this the only reason?she was asked; and replied: "Yes, by the Cross over your Lordships'heads." "But why at midnight?" the court asked. "Because I could see himin no other way." I can see the exchange of glances across the erminecollars under the Crucifix.Anne de Cornault, further questioned, said that her married lifehad been extremely lonely: "desolate" was the word she used. It was truethat her husband seldom spoke harshly to her; but there were days whenhe did not speak at all. It was true that he had never struck orthreatened her; but he kept her like a prisoner at Kerfol, and when herode away to Morlaix or Quimper or Rennes he set so close a watch on herthat she could not pick a flower in the garden without having awaiting-woman at her heels. "I am no Queen, to need such honours," sheonce said to him; and he had answered that a man who has a treasure doesnot leave the key in the lock when he goes out. "Then take me with you,"she urged; but to this he said that towns were pernicious places, andyoung wives better off at their own firesides."But what did you want to say to Herve de Lanrivain?" the courtasked; and she answered: "To ask him to take me away.""Ah -- you confess that you went down to him with adulterousthoughts?""No.""Then why did you want him to take you away?""Because I was afraid for my life.""Of whom were you afraid?""Of my husband.""Why were you afraid of your husband?""Because he had strangled my little dog."Another smile must have passed around the court-room: in days whenany nobleman had a right to hang his peasants -- and most of themexercised it -- pinching a pet animal's wind-pipe was nothing to make afuss about.At this point one of the Judges, who appears to have had a certainsympathy for the accused, suggested that she should be allowed toexplain herself in her own way; and she thereupon made the followingstatement.The first years of her marriage had been lonely; but her husbandhad not been unkind to her. If she had had a child she would not havebeen unhappy; but the days were long, and it rained too much.It was true that her husband, whenever he went away and left her,brought her a handsome present on his return; but this did not make upfor the loneliness. At least nothing had, till he brought her the littlebrown dog from the East: after that she was much less unhappy. Herhusband seemed pleased that she was so fond of the dog; he gave herleave to put her jewelled bracelet around its neck, and to keep italways with her.One day she had fallen asleep in her room, with the dog at herfeet, as his habit was. Her feet were bare and resting on his back.Suddenly she was waked by her husband: he stood beside her, smiling notunkindly."You look like my great-grandmother, Juliane de Cornault, lying inthe chapel with her feet on a little dog," he said.The analogy sent a chill through her, but she laughed and answered:"Well, when I am dead you must put me beside her, carved in marble, withmy dog at my feet.""Oho -- we'll wait and see," he said, laughing also, but with hisblack brows close together. "The dog is the emblem of fidelity.""And do you doubt my right to lie with mine at my feet?""When I'm in doubt I find out," he answered. "I am an old man," headded, "and people say I make you lead a lonely life. But I swear youshall have your monument if you earn it.""And I swear to be faithful," she returned, "if only for the sakeof having my little dog at my feet."Not long afterward he went on business to the Quimper Assizes; andwhile he was away his aunt, the widow of a great nobleman of the duchy,came to spend a night at Kerfol on her way to the pardon of Ste. Barbe.She was a woman of great piety and consequence, and much respected byYves de Cornault, and when she proposed to Anne to go with her to Ste.Barbe no one could object, and even the chaplain declared himself infavour of the pilgrimage. So Anne set out for Ste. Barbe, and there forthe first time she talked with Herve de Lanrivain. He had come once ortwice to Kerfol with his father, but she had never before exchanged adozen words with him. They did not talk for more than five minutes now:it was under the chestnuts, as the procession was coming out of thechapel. He said: "I pity you," and she was surprised, for she had notsupposed that any one thought her an object of pity. He added: "Call forme when you need me," and she smiled a little, but was glad afterward,and thought often of the meeting.She confessed to having seen him three times afterward: not more.How or where she would not say -- one had the impression that she fearedto implicate some one. Their meetings had been rare and brief; and atthe last he had told her that he was starting the next day for a foreigncountry, on a mission which was not without peril and might keep him formany months absent. He asked her for a remembrance, and she had none togive him but the collar about the little dog's neck. She was sorryafterward that she had given it, but he was so unhappy at going that shehad not had the courage to refuse.Her husband was away at the time. When he returned a few days laterhe picked up the little dog to pet it, and noticed that its collar wasmissing. His wife told him that the dog had lost it in the undergrowthof the park, and that she and her maids had hunted a whole day for it.It was true, she explained to the court, that she had made the maidssearch for the necklet -- they all believed the dog had lost it in thepark. . .Her husband made no comment, and that evening at supper he was inhis usual mood, between good and bad: you could never tell which. Hetalked a good deal, describing what he had seen and done at Rennes; butnow and then he stopped and looked hard at her; and when she went to bedshe found her little dog strangled on her pillow. The little thing wasdead, but still warm; she stooped to lift it, and her distress turned tohorror when she discovered that it had been strangled by twisting twiceround its throat the necklet she had given to Lanrivain.The next morning at dawn she buried the dog in the garden, and hidthe necklet in her breast. She said nothing to her husband, then orlater, and he said nothing to her; but that day he had a peasant hangedfor stealing a faggot in the park, and the next day he nearly beat todeath a young horse he was breaking.Winter set in, and the short days passed, and the long nights, oneby one; and she heard nothing of Herve de Lanrivain. It might be thather husband had killed him; or merely that he had been robbed of thenecklet. Day after day by the hearth among the spinning maids, nightafter night alone on her bed, she wondered and trembled. Sometimes attable her husband looked across at her and smiled; and then she feltsure that Lanrivain was dead. She dared not try to get news of him, forshe was sure her husband would find out if she did: she had an idea thathe could find out anything. Even when a witch-woman who was a notedseer, and could show you the whole world in her crystal, came to thecastle for a night's shelter, and the maids flocked to her, Anne heldback. The winter was long and black and rainy. One day, in Yves deCornault's absence, some gypsies came to Kerfol with a troop ofperforming dogs. Anne bought the smallest and cleverest, a white dogwith a feathery coat and one blue and one brown eye. It seemed to havebeen ill-treated by the gypsies, and clung to her plaintively when shetook it from them. That evening her husband came back, and when she wentto bed she found the dog strangled on her pillow.After that she said to herself that she would never have anotherdog; but one bitter cold evening a poor lean greyhound was found whiningat the castle-gate, and she took him in and forbade the maids to speakof him to her husband. She hid him in a room that no one went to,smuggled food to him from her own plate, made him a warm bed to lie onand petted him like a child.Yves de Cornault came home, and the next day she found thegreyhound strangled on her pillow. She wept in secret, but said nothing,and resolved that even if she met a dog dying of hunger she would neverbring him into the castle; but one day she found a young sheep-dog, abrindled puppy with good blue eyes, lying with a broken leg in the snowof the park. Yves de Cornault was at Rennes, and she brought the dog in,warmed and fed it, tied up its leg and hid it in the castle till herhusband's return. The day before, she gave it to a peasant woman wholived a long way off, and paid her handsomely to care for it and saynothing; but that night she heard a whining and scratching at her door,and when she opened it the lame puppy, drenched and shivering, jumped upon her with little sobbing barks. She hid him in her bed, and the nextmorning was about to have him taken back to the peasant woman when sheheard her husband ride into the court. She shut the dog in a chest andwent down to receive him. An hour or two later, when she returned to herroom, the puppy lay strangled on her pillow. . .After that she dared not make a pet of any other dog; and herloneliness became almost unendurable. Sometimes, when she crossed thecourt of the castle, and thought no one was looking, she stopped to patthe old pointer at the gate. But one day as she was caressing him herhusband came out of the chapel; and the next day the old dog was gone. . .This curious narrative was not told in one sitting of the court, orreceived without impatience and incredulous comment. It was plain thatthe Judges were surprised by its puerility, and that it did not help theaccused in the eyes of the public. It was an odd tale, certainly; butwhat did it prove? That Yves de Cornault disliked dogs, and that hiswife, to gratify her own fancy, persistently ignored this dislike. Asfor pleading this trivial disagreement as an excuse for her relations --whatever their nature -- with her supposed accomplice, the argument wasso absurd that her own lawyer manifestly regretted having let her makeuse of it, and tried several times to cut short her story. But she wenton to the end, with a kind of hypnotized insistence, as though thescenes she evoked were so real to her that she had forgotten where shewas and imagined herself to be re-living them.At length the Judge who had previously shown a certain kindness toher said (leaning forward a little, one may suppose, from his row ofdozing colleagues): "Then you would have us believe that you murderedyour husband because he would not let you keep a pet dog?""I did not murder my husband.""Who did, then? Herve de Lanrivain?""No.""Who then? Can you tell us?""Yes, I can tell you. The dogs --" At that point she was carriedout of the court in a swoon.It was evident that her lawyer tried to get her to abandon this line ofdefense. Possibly her explanation, whatever it was, had seemedconvincing when she poured it out to him in the heat of their firstprivate colloquy; but now that it was exposed to the cold daylight ofjudicial scrutiny, and the banter of the town, he was thoroughly ashamedof it, and would have sacrificed her without a scruple to save hisprofessional reputation. But the obstinate Judge -- who perhaps, afterall, was more inquisitive than kindly -- evidently wanted to hear thestory out, and she was ordered, the next day, to continue her deposition.She said that after the disappearance of the old watch-dog nothingparticular happened for a month or two. Her husband was much as usual:she did not remember any special incident. But one evening a pedlarwoman came to the castle and was selling trinkets to the maids. She hadno heart for trinkets, but she stood looking on while the women madetheir choice. And then, she did not know how, but the pedlar coaxed herinto buying for herself an odd pear-shaped pomander with a strong scentin it -- she had once seen something of the kind on a gypsy woman. Shehad no desire for the pomander, and did not know why she had bought it.The pedlar said that whoever wore it had the power to read the future;but she did not really believe that, or care much either. However, shebought the thing and took it up to her room, where she sat turning itabout in her hand. Then the strange scent attracted her and she began towonder what kind of spice was in the box. She opened it and found a greybean rolled in a strip of paper; and on the paper she saw a sign sheknew, and a message from Herve de Lanrivain, saying that he was at homeagain and would be at the door in the court that night after the moonhad set. . .She burned the paper and then sat down to think. It was nightfall,and her husband was at home. . . She had no way of warning Lanrivain,and there was nothing to do but to wait. . .At this point I fancy the drowsy courtroom beginning to wake up.Even to the oldest hand on the bench there must have been a certainaesthetic relish in picturing the feelings of a woman on receiving sucha message at night-fall from a man living twenty miles away, to whom shehad no means of sending a warning. . .She was not a clever woman, I imagine; and as the first result ofher cogitation she appears to have made the mistake of being, thatevening, too kind to her husband. She could not ply him with wine,according to the traditional expedient, for though he drank heavily attimes he had a strong head; and when he drank beyond its strength it wasbecause he chose to, and not because a woman coaxed him. Not his wife,at any rate -- she was an old story by now. As I read the case, I fancythere was no feeling for her left in him but the hatred occasioned byhis supposed dishonour.At any rate, she tried to call up her old graces; but early in theevening he complained of pains and fever, and left the hall to go up tohis room. His servant carried him a cup of hot wine, and brought backword that he was sleeping and not to be disturbed; and an hour later,when Anne lifted the tapestry and listened at his door, she heard hisloud regular breathing. She thought it might be a feint, and stayed along time barefooted in the cold passage, her ear to the crack; but thebreathing went on too steadily and naturally to be other than that of aman in a sound sleep. She crept back to her room reassured, and stood inthe window watching the moon set through the trees of the park. The skywas misty and starless, and after the moon went down the night was pitchblack. She knew the time had come, and stole along the passage, past herhusband's door -- where she stopped again to listen to his breathing --to the top of the stairs. There she paused a moment, and assured herselfthat no one was following her; then she began to go down the stairs inthe darkness. They were so steep and winding that she had to go veryslowly, for fear of stumbling. Her one thought was to get the doorunbolted, tell Lanrivain to make his escape, and hasten back to herroom. She had tried the bolt earlier in the evening, and managed to puta little grease on it; but nevertheless, when she drew it, it gave asqueak . . . not loud, but it made her heart stop; and the next minute,overhead, she heard a noise. . ."What noise?" the prosecution interposed."My husband's voice calling out my name and cursing me.""What did you hear after that?""A terrible scream and a fall.""Where was Herve de Lanrivain at this time?""He was standing outside in the court. I just made him out in thedarkness. I told him for God's sake to go, and then I pushed the doorshut.""What did you do next?""I stood at the foot of the stairs and listened.""What did you hear?""I heard dogs snarling and panting." (Visible discouragement of thebench, boredom of the public, and exasperation of the lawyer for thedefense. Dogs again -- ! But the inquisitive Judge insisted.)"What dogs?"She bent her head and spoke so low that she had to be told torepeat her answer: "I don't know.""How do you mean -- you don't know?""I don't know what dogs. . ."The Judge again intervened: "Try to tell us exactly what happened.How long did you remain at the foot of the stairs?""Only a few minutes.""And what was going on meanwhile overhead?""The dogs kept on snarling and panting. Once or twice he cried out.I think he moaned once. Then he was quiet.""Then what happened?""Then I heard a sound like the noise of a pack when the wolf isthrown to them -- gulping and lapping."(There was a groan of disgust and repulsion through the court, andanother attempted intervention by the distracted lawyer. But theinquisitive Judge was still inquisitive.)"And all the while you did not go up?""Yes -- I went up then -- to drive them off.""The dogs?""Yes.""Well -- ?""When I got there it was quite dark. I found my husband's flint andsteel and struck a spark. I saw him lying there. He was dead.""And the dogs?""The dogs were gone.""Gone -- where to?""I don't know. There was no way out -- and there were no dogs atKerfol."She straightened herself to her full height, threw her arms aboveher head, and fell down on the stone floor with a long scream. There wasa moment of confusion in the court-room. Some one on the bench was heardto say: "This is clearly a case for the ecclesiastical authorities" --and the prisoner's lawyer doubtless jumped at the suggestion.After this, the trial loses itself in a maze of cross-questioningand squabbling. Every witness who was called corroborated Anne deCornault's statement that there were no dogs at Kerfol: had been nonefor several months. The master of the house had taken a dislike to dogs,there was no denying it. But, on the other hand, at the inquest, therehad been long and bitter discussion as to the nature of the dead man'swounds. One of the surgeons called in had spoken of marks that lookedlike bites. The suggestion of witchcraft was revived, and the opposinglawyers hurled tomes of necromancy at each other.At last Anne de Cornault was brought back into court -- at theinstance of the same Judge -- and asked if she knew where the dogs shespoke of could have come from. On the body of her Redeemer she sworethat she did not. Then the Judge put his final question: "If the dogsyou think you heard had been known to you, do you think you would haverecognized them by their barking?""Yes.""Did you recognize them?""Yes.""What dogs do you take them to have been?""My dead dogs," she said in a whisper. . . She was taken out ofcourt, not to reappear there again. There was some kind ofecclesiastical investigation, and the end of the business was that theJudges disagreed with each other, and with the ecclesiastical committee,and that Anne de Cornault was finally handed over to the keeping of herhusband's family, who shut her up in the keep of Kerfol, where she issaid to have died many years later, a harmless madwoman.So ends her story. As for that of Herve de Lanrivain, I had only toapply to his collateral descendant for its subsequent details. Theevidence against the young man being insufficient, and his familyinfluence in the duchy considerable, he was set free, and left soonafterward for Paris. He was probably in no mood for a worldly life, andhe appears to have come almost immediately under the influence of thefamous M. Arnauld d'Andilly and the gentlemen of Port Royal. A year ortwo later he was received into their Order, and without achieving anyparticular distinction he followed its good and evil fortunes till hisdeath some twenty years later. Lanrivain showed me a portrait of him bya pupil of Philippe de Champaigne: sad eyes, an impulsive mouth and anarrow brow. Poor Herve de Lanrivain: it was a grey ending. Yet as Ilooked at his stiff and sallow effigy, in the dark dress of theJansenists, I almost found myself envying his fate. After all, in thecourse of his life two great things had happened to him: he had lovedromantically, and he must have talked with Pascal. . .
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