ALONE
She was awakened by the light of day. Kerguelen had cleared its face of
clouds and the new risen sun was on sea and mountains and land.
A whole family of rabbits were disporting themselves close to her in a
clear space between the bushes and as she sat up they darted off, a
glimpse of their cotton white tails shewing for a moment in the sun.
She was stiff from the damp, her clothes were wet despite the oilskin
coat which she had left open, and her throat was sore, every bone ached
as though she had been beaten. Her soul felt sick. It was as though the
crawling beast of the night before had crawled over it like a slug,
poisoning it. The knife lay beside her; she picked it up and looked at
it; there were red traces upon the hilt and the lines in the palm of her
right hand were red. She rubbed it clean with the damp leaves of the
bushes, then she stood up, shaking and weak, heedless of everything but
the friendly touch of the sun. Her fear was gone, but the effect of it
remained in a sense of bruising and injury.
Out on the beach there was nothing, nothing but the breaking sea and the
flying gulls and lines of long legged gulls stalking or standing on the
sands, the 'get-away--get-away' of the kittiwakes came across the water
and the barking of brent geese from beyond the rocks of the Lizard
Point. The boat lay there on its side, everything was the same.
She drew towards the caves. Nothing stirred there. Then she halted and,
changing her course, came right down to the water's edge. From here she
could see the three cave mouths dark cut in the cliff. She watched them
for a moment as though expecting something to appear, then she came up
towards them, walking more cautiously as she drew near, just as she had
walked on the plain where the death traps were.
The light shone into the cave where she had slept. She saw a naked foot
with toes dug into the sand and beyond the foot a form lying on its
side.
Then she drew back with a cry; something was moving there. A rabbit
dashed out of the cave and scuttered away along the cliff base. Then she
knew.
La Touche was dead, he would never crawl again. She had killed him. She
cast the knife on the sand and wiped the palm of her hand on her dress
half unconsciously, gazing at the foot.
The terror of him had burned away anything in her mind that might have
fed remorse. She had not killed him consciously. Searching her memory
she could vaguely recollect having struck out against something
appalling in the darkness. Now she knew and guessed all, and she could
have hated him only that death kills hatred.
She came to the mouth of the men's cave and sat down in the sun, the
soreness of her throat, the weariness of her very bones, the feel of her
horrible wet clothes, all these filled her with a craving for the sun
and its warmth and light, fierce as the craving for drink. She spread
out her hands to it, then, with shaking fingers she began to take off
her clothes. They clung to her like evil things. Had this been a day of
pouring rain she might just have lain down and died.
Without getting up, and leaning on her elbow, she spread out the skirt
and coat and other things on the sand beside her, then she stretched her
aching limbs to the warmth.
The wind had fallen to almost a dead calm, and as she lay she saw little
rabbits stealing out to play in the sunshine on the sands. She watched
them running in circles like things on wheels and moving by clockwork.
Then she closed her eyes, but still she saw them circling, circling,
circling.
Then she was in the toy department of the Magazin du Louvre and a
shop-woman was shewing her toy rabbits that ran in circles, five francs
each.
She awoke at noon; the sore throat was gone, her bones no longer ached
and the great beach lay under the heat of noon, humming like a
stretched string to the touch of the sea.
Her left arm and side and thigh were scorched by the sun, but that was
nothing; the sense of illness was gone, and her mind, quite clear and
renewed, had regained its balance.
She remembered everything. La Touche was lying there in the cave, dead.
The knife that had killed him she could see lying on the sand where she
had dropped it; she had killed him. All these monstrous facts seemed
old, settled and done with and of little more interest than the things
and events of a year ago.
What seemed new was the beach and its desolation--its emptiness. It was
as though a crowd of people had suddenly vanished from it; a crowd that
any moment might return. The place seemed waiting and watching.
She cast her eyes towards the rocks of the Lizard Point and then towards
the cave mouth; then hurriedly she began to put on her clothes, now dry
and warm, and having dressed she stood for a moment again looking about
her.
She could see the penguins in the distance going through their endless
evolutions, and the rhythmical sound of the sea came from near and far
mixed with the chanting and crying of the gulls. At any moment Bompard
might appear labouring over those rocks, at any moment La Touche might
step from the cave where he lay. That is what the beach told her, though
she knew that the forms of the two men would appear no more; that she
was here alone, utterly alone.
She took shelter from the sun in the men's cave. Bompard's tinder box
was lying on the sand and half a box of Swedish matches. The men's
blankets were tossed in a corner and the provisions and utensils were in
their proper place. On a plate by the bags of biscuits lay the remains
of the beef from last night's supper; she took it and ate it with a
biscuit, sitting on the floor of the cave and staring before her out at
the strip of beach where the boat lay on its side with the sea breaking
beyond.
On the day the men had gone off inland on their expedition she had
terrified herself with fancies of what it would be like were she to find
herself here alone. Her imagination had gone far from the reality.
The thing had happened; the men were gone, gone forever, yet she was not
alone. They filled the place by their absence far more than they had
filled it by their presence.
The louder cry of a gull outside seemed hailing Bompard, the rustle of a
rabbit on the sands seemed the coming of La Touche, the sound of the sea
spoke of them, the boat seemed only waiting for them to launch it. They,
whom a million years would not bring back.
She felt neither regret for the fate of La Touche nor sorrow for the
fate of Bompard, all that seemed unreal, just as the darkness and terror
of the night before seemed unreal. The real thing that touched her
through everything was Expectancy. Expectancy, ghostly and attenuated,
yet ubiquitous.
It brought her to the cave mouth before she had finished her meal. The
beach seemed to say to her: "Come out and look!" and she came out and
looked, and the line of foam and the wheeling or stalking gulls held her
for a moment as though saying--a moment, a moment more and you will see
something. They will come. Any moment now you may see Bompard crossing
the rocks. La Touche is not in that cave, he is here, everywhere.
She came back into the cave and sat down and finished her meal, the food
had renewed her strength and with renewed strength her indifference to
all that had happened began to pass.
She had killed La Touche. The reality of that fact was coming home to
her now; she did not reason in the least on the matter saying he
deserved to be killed, that had all been settled long ago in her mind,
but the fact that she had killed him was standing strongly out before
her, also the facts that he was dead and lying quite close to her and
that though she did not mind his dead body she was beginning to dread
something else.
Dead, he was beginning to frighten her just as he had frightened her
when living. Then she found that it was just the same with Bompard. He
was frightening her too.
Suppose one or the other were to peep in at her, and nod at her--she
pictured it and then crushed the picture in her mind and got up and came
out again and stood in the sun.
Then she came down to the boat and stood with her hand on the gunnel,
and, for a moment as she stood thus, the terror of utter loneliness came
to her in a hundred tongues and ways, and always with reference to the
men who had vanished.
It was impossible to stay here alone--alone--absolutely alone; like a
frightened child her mind appealed against this terror; it climbed the
vacant skies and passed over the desolate hills in search of comfort.
Was there a God? To whom could she run for comfort, for escape--?
As if in answer to her wild but unspoken question came a far-off roar
brought on the wind from the great seal beach.