Edith Wharton

Kerfol Edith Wharton

Lanrivain, 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 the Assizes of theDuchy of Brittany. Quimper, 1702. The book was written about a hundredyears later than the Kerfol affair; but I believe the account is transcribedpretty literally from the judicial records. Anyhow, it's queer reading. Andthere's a Hervé de Lanrivain mixed up in it-not exactly my style, as you'llsee. But then he's only a collateral. Here, take the book up to bed with you. I don't exactly remember the details; but after you've read it I'll betanything you'll leave your light burning all night!"I left my light burning all night, as he had predicted; but it was chieflybecause, till near dawn, I was absorbed in my reading. The account of thetrial of Anne de Cornault, wife of the lord of Kerfol, was long and closelyprinted. It was, as my friend had said, probably an almost literaltranscription of what took place in the court-room; and the trial lastednearly a month. Besides, the type of the book was very bad.... At first I thought of translating the old record. But it is full of wearisomerepetitions, and the main lines of the story are forever straying off into sideissues. So I have tried to disentangle it, and give it here in a simpler form. At times, however, I have reverted to the text because no other wordscould have conveyed so exactly the sense of what I felt at Kerfol; andnowhere have I added anything of my own.