"ADREA'S DIARY"
"A land that is lonelier than a ruin."
A cold twilight followed close upon the day. The sky was strewn with
dark clouds, and a wild wind blew in my face. I was on an unknown
road, and in all my life I had seen nothing so dreary.
On one side, about a hundred yards away, was the sea; on the other
was a broken stretch of bare moorland covered with only the scantiest
herbage and piles of barren grey rocks. Some were lying together in
quaint, grotesque shapes; others stood out alone against the sky,
and broken fragments of all sizes covered the ground, choking and
destroying all vegetation. There was no background of woods or trees;
there was nothing between that barren, stony surface and the leaden
sky. What turf there had been had lost its colour, and never a
fragment of moss had grown upon one of those weather-beaten boulders.
The sea air had stained them, and the grey evening mists had rotted
them, until their surface was honeycombed with indentations, but
neither had softened or toned down their fierce ugliness. Even in the
bright sunlight such a country as this must still have been a country
of desolation, and a light heart must sometimes have lost its gaiety
and felt oppressed. To me, as I hurried along, with the cold evening
settling down around me, that walk was horrible. Strange shadows
seemed to dog my path and stalk solemnly along by my side. Footsteps
seemed to follow behind me, and every stone I dislodged made me start.
Sometimes I fancied that I heard strange whisperings in my ears, and
I started round, shivering and trembling, to find myself alone. Once I
stopped short. Was that a dead man in the way? How my heart beat! No!
it was only a long boulder of rock! Listen! was not that the scream
of a dying man? My own voice, raised in helpless terror, drowned the
sound, and while I stood there ready to sink to the ground, a great
sea-gull came circling round my head, and the blood flowed warm in my
veins once more. How sad and mournful was that solitary cry and slow,
hopeless flapping of the wings! Who was it said that the evil spirits
of dead men dwell imprisoned in those sad-crying birds? It was
very, very human, that cry. Bah! was I getting superstitious and
faint-hearted before my task was begun? I set my teeth and stepped
boldly onwards. For a while I had no more fancies.
Throughout that hideous walk my whole imagination seemed coloured
with a reflection of the purpose towards which I was tending. I do
not write this in any morbid fit. Few women have passed through what
I have passed through; fewer still have stopped to record their
sensations. It is strange that it should afford me any satisfaction to
record them here, but it is so. I have begun, and I must go on. This
part of my life is drawing rapidly to a close, and with its close I
shall seal this little book up and put it away for ever.
The night grew darker, and the road was fast becoming little more than
a rude cattle-track. A little distance ahead of me, from some building
as yet unseen, a strong, clear light was steadily burning. Save for
it, I might have feared that I had lost my way, for as yet I had
passed no sign of human habitation. But that light was sufficient.
Gomez had told me of it. It was the light which burned always, from
dusk to morning, from the tower of the monastery of St. Bernard.
* * * * *
Two things seemed strange to me, or rather seem strange to me now,
when I look back upon that walk. The first was my utter indifference
to all physical pain. There was a hole in my boot, and I found
afterwards that my foot must have been bleeding most of the time. I
never felt it. I was conscious of neither pain nor fatigue. The second
thing which surprises me is that, as I drew near to my journey's end,
I grew calmer. I had no desire to draw back. I had no fear. The thing
which was before me never assumed any definite shape! It was there--in
the background--a dim, floating purpose, never once oppressing
me, never forcing its way forward in my mind for more definite
consideration, and only showing itself at all in a vague, lurid
glow which seemed to change even the shapes of all the gruesome
surroundings of my dismal walk. Towards the end of my expedition this
became even more marked. My thoughts had recoiled from the present to
the past. Vague pictures of the days that had gone by seemed floating
before my eyes. I saw myself in the convent garden, with all my little
world enclosed in those four walls, and I heard the shrill laughter
of the girls with whom I was walking, and I even fancied that I could
catch the perfume of the lilac trees which drooped over the smoothly
kept lawn. And then the picture faded away, and from the vessel's side
I saw Cruta, a purple-topped island rising like some precious jewel
from the sea! I shuddered at the memory of that face, which soon
became a living dread to me, and I heard again the passionate voice
of a dark-robed man reading poetry, and crushing with white, nervous
fingers the hyacinths whose odour was making the air faint. I saw his
white, sad face, in which the struggle of the man against himself was
already born--born, alas! in those long mornings by the sea, at my
unconscious bidding! And soon Cruta, too, faded away, and you, Paul,
my love, my dear, dear love, your face came to me. Almost my eyes
closed, almost I stayed here to dream. Ah! how the magic of this love,
this wonderful love, lightens my little world! My heart is stirred to
music, my blood is dancing. I am chilled no longer. Ah! Paul, it is
for you that I strike this blow, for you that I tread this stony way.
It is sweet to think of it. I go on as blithely as ever a village
maiden stepped forward to her wedding. The way is as sweet to me as
a garden of roses. Your face, too, is dying out of my thoughts, Paul.
Farewell! Farewell!
* * * * *
The valley of the shadow of death! Did any one speak those words? What
an evil fancy! Yet the air seemed full of whisperings. The valley
of the shadow of death! Yes! it might be that, and these cold, grey
boulders the spirits of the evil ones risen up out of Hades. Is there
a hell, I wonder? How chill and dark the air seems! There is death
about!
* * * * *
The sound of a single bell broke in upon my thoughts. I raised
my eyes. My journey was accomplished. Before me was a grim, stern
building, and attached to it a chapel. It was the monastery of St.
Bernard.