Kerfol

Kerfol

Kerfol Audio Version

1916

Scribner's Magazine 59 (Mar. 1916)

The Supernatural

Brittany, France

The I-narrator, Herve de Lanrivain (present), Madame de Lanrivain, Yves de Cornault, Anne de Barrigan, Herve de Lanrivain (past), the dogs

Francois Clouet, M. Arnauld d'Andilly, Philippe de Champagne, Blaise Pascal

Notre Dame de la Clarté

Paris, Quimper, Morlaix, Locronan, Rennes, Douarnenez, Bordeaux, Syria, Damascus, Jaffa, China, Kerfol (not real)

Fuchsias, Chrysanthemum, Hydrangeas, Geraniums, Assizes, All Saints, Chinamen, Virgin, Michaelmas, Jansenists, Chemin de ronde

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The story of Kerfol is told by an I-narrator of unknown gender, who was suggested to buy an old mansion, named Kerfol, in Brittany . His friend drops him off there and the narrator is starts to explore the mysterious estate. The mansion seems to be abandoned, since all he sees there is the architecture and five dogs . Being back at Lanrivain's place, Madame de Lanrivain explains to the narrator that there are no dogs living at Kerfol, and that what he saw are ghosts that only appear on that special day. The narrator then starts to read a book, which he is handed by Lanrivain .

It is a book about the trials that took place in the Duchy of Brittany during the 17 ^th century. The narrator finds out that during that time, the lord of Kerfol was the noble Yves de Cornault , who lived there with his wife Anne de Barrigan . In the book, the trial of Anne de Barrigan is described, who was accused being the murderer of her husband. Reading said trial, the narrator finds out that Anne felt pretty lonely in Kerfol, she wasn't able to conceive children and her husband often left the estate while she wasn't allowed to leave it.

One day Yves brought her a little dog and a jeweled dog collar. She loved the dog tremendously, but still felt lonely, so she eventually started to see another man, Herve de Lanrivain . She gave him the dog collar as a memento, but her husband noticed that it was missing. One day Anne found her dog strangled with said collar on her bed. She was shocked. Eventually, she got herself other dogs , but all of them shared the same fate. She began to suspect her husband of killing her pets. One day Yves was found dead and in the trial Anne was accused of being the murderer.

She asserted her innocence, but wasn't able to convince the judges. After some days, she confessed that she knew who killed her husband. It was the dogs that killed him. Her dead dogs that had been strangled by Yves de Cornault . She said she had heard and recognized their barking as the murder/ death of her husband was taking place in the house, even though she herself was elsewhere in the house at the time.

Even though, there was evidence that Yves ' body had bite marks on it, Anne was found to be insane and was shut up in the keep of Kerfol, where she died many years later as a harmless mad woman.

• Benstock, Shari. No gifts from change. A biography of Edith Wharton Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.

• Adams, Maureen. Shaggy Muses: Ballantine, 2007

• Singley, Carol J. Edith Wharton. Matters of mind and spirit. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Thomas Gainsborough: Portrait of Elizabeth Jackson stroking a young Greyhound, C 1760. Public Domain.