"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.
