The Project Gutenberg EBook of Kerfol, by Edith Wharton

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Title: Kerfol
1916

Author: Edith Wharton

Release Date: January 17, 2008 [EBook #24350]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK KERFOL ***

Produced by David Widger

KERFOL

By Edith Wharton

Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner's Sons

I

"You ought to buy it," said my host; "its 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 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 t