【英文原著类】The Early Short Fiction Part One(早斯短篇小说(第一部)).pdf

The Early Short Fiction of A Ten-Volume Collection Volume One
The Early Short Fiction
of A Ten-Volume Collection
Volume One
Edith Wharton
1
The Early Short Fiction of 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 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