The Chateau d'Argol (2 page)

He had hardly taken a step across the grass when one of the servants of the castle came forward silently to meet him. The face of this Breton, whose step on the close-cropped lawn unconsciously took on an air of majesty, seemed stamped with a feral immobility. He bowed respectfully and preceded Albert into the castle.

Albert now perceived that the abnormal disposition of the interior, which the appearance of the façade had suggested to his imagination, was not belied. The visitor first entered a lofty vaulted hall with Romanesque arches, and divided by three rows of pillars. The slanting rays of the sun coming through the low horizontal loopholes seen in the façade, and that the setting sun now lighted with long streaks of dancing golden dust, formed with the white pillars a luminous pattern separating the entire upper part of the vaulted ceiling, and their ever-changing and fantastic fluctuations prevented the eye from measuring its true height. No furniture was to be seen in this hall, but here and there piles of deep furred skins; and cushions, covered with Asiatic silken fabrics of an extravagant luxury, were piled against the naked walls and pillars with an air of negligent profusion, making one think of a night encampment of the Golden Horde in a white Byzantine cathedral. Out of this great entrance hall opened low and endlessly winding corridors interrupted by stairways and steep descents full of recesses and corners, which seemed to run like veins through the vast structure of the castle, presenting the appearance of a three-dimensional labyrinth.

Most of the rooms seemed destined for no definite purpose: tables of ebony, divans of sombre leathers, sumptuous draperies seemed to be distributed without the least idea of order. And what was most astonishing about all the furniture was its air of constant
readiness
. The long, low dining-room was lined with sheets of copper set with quadrilateral crystal mirrors; one massive piece of solid copper formed the table, and against its smooth and shining surface burst the dull red of great tufts of flowers. The yellow beams of the setting sun now shone full on this cuirass of incarnadined metal and called forth rich and potent harmonies: the dull red of the massed flowers appeared almost as blocks of darkness—emblems of a solemn and noble melancholy. But as clouds passed by, cruel flashes glided over the walls, pools of unctuous light, viscous and dubious, fell on the table and on the delicate bezels of the mirrors; and the hard brilliance of the metal, of these hostile walls, forced the soul to take refuge in its own centre and seemed to concentrate all thought in a point of flame, sharp and penetrating as a steel blade. Next, Albert passed into the main drawing-room of the castle and could scarcely suppress an exclamation of surprise. The drawing-room was considerably larger than any of the other rooms of the manor. But its height, in particular, was at least triple: the ceiling was apparently formed by the upper terrace of the castle and the apartment suggested the proportions of a vast covered well perforating the edifice from top to bottom. The furniture of the room, as though crushed by the enormous height, seemed to be squatting on the ground, and consisted of piles of white and grey furs forming low couches, tables of ebony and mother-of-pearl, gracefully carved pieces of Breton oak, deep and low tapestried armchairs loaded with cushions of a sulphuric yellow, so brilliant that a sort of phosphorescence seemed to emanate from it, and which can only be compared with a certain yellow to be seen in some of Gauguin's paintings. Rectangular tapestries of faded hues only partially concealed the white stone walls. But above all, the unique, the wonder-working effect of the room came from the disposition of the lighting. Through horizontal loopholes surged continuous sheets of light that divided the apartment in height by immaterial pulsating partitions almost entirely concealing the ceiling, which was made of a scaffolding of rough beams and gables through whose interstices the sun, coming through a skylight, fell in long streamers to the floor. The ogival windows, piercing the thick walls, separated the room, in their turn, into clean-cut vertical panels of raw light, leaving zones of rigid shadow between them where the eye came to rest on lustreless surfaces. In the lower portion of the hall, the tall pointed windows were hung with a light silk fabric intricately patterned in leaves and flowers; this filtered light, glaucous and softly yellow, seemed to be coming from some marine depth, and bathed the entire lower regions of the room in a uniformly warm glow like a luminous sediment, transparent and compact, while a few feet above, throughout the entire upper plane, the fierce rays of the sun ran riot. This stratification made each plane immediately apparent to the eye, and the contrast between the extravagant luxury displayed in the soft light of the ground level and the rough ceiling where the magic of sunlight in all its power alone held sway overwhelmed the soul with a sort of delirious bliss, warming Albert's heart, as he started up the turret stairs of varnished wood that creaked with every step and were as sonorous as a ship's hull.

As he emerged from the stairway out onto the castle terrace like the bridge of a tall ship riding the waves, the full splendour of the sunlight, until now merely
interpreted
by the copper plates, the slender ogives, the thick and silken walls, burst upon him in all its unbridled freedom. The fresh and powerful breeze that swept the terrace and bowed down the ocean of trees two hundred feet below, fairly took his breath away. The dishevelled folds of the silk pennons, that could be heard clacking now close at hand, like a ship's sails, sent dancing shadows flowing everywhere, and the eye was dazzled by the billowing light on the white stones. Meanwhile this feast of sunlight seemed to spread over utterly solitary wastes. Toward the north where the rocky spur ended in abrupt precipices, the high moors, yellow and smooth, were cut by the capricious wanderings of a deep valley filled with trees that appeared to stop abruptly, as though the rude breath of the ocean had sheared off every branch and twig rising above the level surface of the plateau. At a distance that to the eye seemed infinite, the valley, as it spread out, cut the line of cliffs marking the horizon, and through this triangular notch a small bay could be seen edged with foam and bordered by white, deserted beaches. This little inlet, where not a sail was to be seen, startled the eye by its perfect immobility: it looked like a smear of deep blue paint. Beyond this notch, the low chain that Albert had noticed from the road hid the cliffs from view, and here undulating country began, a stark bold landscape without a tree to be seen anywhere. Great greyish marshes extended along the foot of the last slopes as far as the eastern horizon.

To the south stretched the highlands of Storrvan. From the foot of the castle walls the forest spread out in a semicircle as far as the eye could see: a wild and gloomy forest, a sleeping forest whose absolute stillness seemed to clutch the soul. It encircled the castle like the coils of a heavily inert serpent whose mottled skin was almost imitated by the dark patches of cloud-shadow as they ran over its rugose surface. These clouds in the heavens, flat and white, seemed to be floating at an enormous height over the green abyss. And the sight of this green ocean filled one with an obscure disquietude, giving Albert the curious feeling that this forest
must
be alive, and that, like a forest in a fairy tale or in a dream,
it had not yet said its first word.
Toward the west, high rocky barriers covered all over with trees, ran parallel; a brimming river flowed through these deep valleys, its surface roughened by a gust of wind, like skin by the cold, and suddenly thousands of bright facets reflected the blinding sunlight with a radiance that was curiously immobile. But the trees remained mute and menacing up to the blue heights of the horizon.

Albert opened a low door leading into the round tower that overlooked the terrace. He found it furnished as a study with shelves of precious woods and with four oval windows from which the eye could view all the divers landscapes of the countryside around the castle. In the bed chambers situated in the upper portion of the edifice, that sumptuous prodigality of furs, so noticeable the moment one entered the castle, became a sort of haunting leitmotif, reiterated everywhere. They were scattered in profusion on the floor, while the walls were hidden by fur panels made into a chequered design of richly worked skins of the snow leopard and the polar bear, alternating regularly. A lavish
negligence
seemed to hold sway everywhere; even the beds appeared to consist simply of a heap of furs. The long low anomalous openings, which Albert had noticed in the façade, were here made use of to procure a particular effect: each room was lighted by these long horizontal apertures only three feet high and not more than one foot from the floor, extending the whole length of the wall against which the bed was placed, so that on waking the sleeper was forced to plunge his eyes into the abyss of trees below, and might fancy himself wafted on a magic ship over the deep billows of the forest. In the corner of the room opposite the bed, a basin of light-coloured marble was sunk in the floor, and toilet accessories, shining with the clean brightness of surgical instruments, offered a pleasing contrast to the long silky whiteness of the furs.

The library occupied the top of the square tower. Wooden panels carved with scenes from
Works and Days
ran all around the walls, but without extending to the ceiling they left a large frieze of dull white stone visible above them, and this refuge of thought was lighted by panes of thick green glass, symbols of the all-powerful and living hope of knowledge, and was furnished with lecterns of carved oak. Albert lingered there, fingering the pages of many of the curious ancient volumes with iron clasps, but a noise as of leaden grains pelting against the window-panes made him look up; the rain was beating on them violently, and anxious to witness the alteration of the landscape the elements now offered, he hastened to make his way to the terrace again.

The storm was raging over Storrvan. Heavy clouds with jagged edges rushed out of the west, almost brushing against the tower, and at moments enveloping it in streamers of vertiginous white mist. But the wind, above all the
wind
filled space with its unbridled and appalling power. Night had almost fallen. The tempest, passing as though through a head of fragile hair, opened quick fugitive furrows through the masses of grey trees, parting them like blades of grass, and for the space of a second one could see the bare soil, black rocks, the narrow fissures of the ravines. Madly the storm twisted this grey mane! Out of it came an immense rustling; the trunks of the trees, before hidden by the frothing leaves, were bared now by the wind's furious blasts; one could see their frail grey limbs as taut as a ship's rigging. And they yielded, they yielded—a dry crackling was the prelude to the fall, then suddenly a thousand cracklings could be heard, a cascade of resounding noises drowned by the howling of the storm, and the giants were engulfed. Now the shower let loose the icy chill of its deluge like the brutal volley of handfuls of pebbles, and the forest answered with the metallic reverberation of its myriad leaves. Bare rocks glinted like ominous cuirasses, the liquid yellowish splendour of the wet fog crowned for an instant the crest of each forest tree, for an instant a yellow and luminous and marvellously translucid band shone along the horizon against which every branch of every tree stood silhouetted, and made the drenched stones of the parapet, Albert's blond hair soaked by the rain, the cold wet fog rolling around the tops of the trees, shine with a golden gleam, icy and almost inhuman—then went out and night fell like the blow of an axe. The horrible violence of this savage nature, in an instant so different from what it had appeared at first, filled Albert's soul with sombre forebodings. Drenched with rain, he retraced his steps through the deserted rooms. The ruddy glow of a stained glass window, the far-off sound of a clock lost in some distant and lonely corridor made him shudder for a moment like a child. He shrugged his shoulders at these commonplace snares of terror but was, nonetheless, unable to shake off the weight of a persistent anxiety. Perhaps really
something had happened!
Turning the corner of a corridor his foot struck a sleeping form: it was the servant who had come to meet him, and who was now lying asleep, stretched out on the flagstones in the pose of an animal overwhelmed by a sickening fatigue—and involuntarily Albert shuddered. At last he reached the heart of that anxiety with which all afternoon he had been investing the landscape, and deservedly no doubt in many respects. In the middle of the great drawing-room a square of paper lay on a copper tray. He broke the seal of the message and read: "I shall arrive at Argol Friday. Heide will come with me."

THE GRAVEYARD

T
HE
DAYS
THAT
FOLLOWED
were for Albert, like
vacation
days, capricious and profound. He was as pleased as a child with his mysterious dwelling and gave himself up to the charm of virgin nature. Brittany was lavish with her meagre seductions, her humble flowers: gorse, broom and heather covered the moors over which Albert took interminable rides on horseback every day.

Sometimes a heavy shower surprised him in the midst of this countryside; he sought refuge in poor granite huts, under
dolmens
thickly overgrown with moss. Only into the forest of Storrvan he dared not venture, and the terror that the storm on the evening of his arrival had awakened in him still persisted in his heart.

He nevertheless worked ardently deciphering the difficult pages of that
Logic
from which the whole Hegelian system seems to rise on august and angelic wings. For the myths that have cradled humanity throughout its long history, Albert had always evinced abounding curiosity, searched passionately for their secret significance; and one morning he was surprised to find that Hegel, in spite of his professed aversion to examples, had seen fit to give an explanation of the myth of the Fall of man: