TO THE MEMORY OF

A DEAR LOST FRIEND

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

Bettina von Hutten

Thun, Switzerland, _September 5, 1907_




PROLOGUE


A straight stretch of dusty Norman road dappled with grotesque shadows
of the ancient apple-trees that, bent as if in patient endurance of the
weight of their thick-set scarlet fruit, edged it on both sides.

Under one of the trees, his back against its gnarled trunk, sat an old
man playing a cracked fiddle.

He played horribly, wrenching discords from the poor instrument,
grinning with a kind of vacant malice as it shrieked aloud in agony, and
rolling in their scarred sockets his long-blind eyes.

Beside him, his tongue hanging out, his head bent, sat a yellow dog with
a lead to his collar. Far and wide there was to be seen no other living