The Secret of Sarek quotes

“What! Is that why you hesitate to take me with you, for, after all, that’s what we’re concerned with?”

“Don’t laugh. People don’t laugh when they see the flames of hell before them.”

Honorine crossed herself, closing her eyes as she spoke. Then she continued:

“But they have left it.”

“It’s still the island all around the island. It’s there that the coffins lurk and lie in wait.”

“But the sea is not rough.”

“But the sea is not rough.”

“There’s more than the sea. It’s not the sea that’s the enemy.”

“I don’t know. … I don’t know. …”

Véronique was left alone on Coffin Island.

Until the sun sank among the clouds that seemed, on the horizon, to rest upon the sea, she did not move, but sat huddled against the window, with her head buried in her two arms resting on the sill.

A couple of yards in front of her, sitting upon its haunches, was a queer animal, covered with long mud-coloured hair and holding its forepaws folded like a pair of arms.

It was a dog; and she at once remembered François’ dog, of which Honorine had spoken as a dear, devoted, comical creature.

She even remembered his name, All’s Well.

A few words remained, however, the very words which Véronique had read on the drawing which she found beside Maguennoc’s corpse:

“Four women crucified.⁠ ⁠… Thirty coffins.⁠ ⁠… The God-Stone which gives life or death.”

Véronique moved away, staggering. The mystery was once more before her, as everywhere in the island, and she was determined to escape from it until the moment when she could leave Sarek altogether.

And, on the three bare trunks, with their arms strained backward, with their legs bound, under the tatters of their skirts, and with ropes drawn tight beneath their livid faces, half-hidden by the black bows of their caps, hung the three sisters Archignat.

They were crucified.

Then he stretched out the arm in which he carried the mistletoe and, preceded by the sacred plant as by a talisman which altered the laws of nature in his favour, he took a step forward above the yawning gulf.

And he walked thus in space, all white in the moonlight.

What happened Véronique did not know, nor was she quite sure what had been happening, if she had not been the sport of an hallucination, nor at what stage of the strange ceremony this hallucination had originated in her enfeebled brain.

All’s Well came trotting along. The sight of his master did not appear to surprise him.

Nothing unduly surprised All’s Well.

Events, to his mind, always followed one another in a natural order which did not disturb either his habits or his occupations. Tears alone seemed to him worthy of special attention. And Véronique and François were not crying.

Vorski! Vorski! The unspeakable creature, the thought of whom filled her with shame and horror, the monstrous Vorski, was not dead!

The murder of the spy by one of his colleagues, his burial in the cemetery at Fontainebleau; all this was a fable, a delusion! The only real fact was that Vorski was alive!

The stone is at the bottom of every mystery, at the heart of every symbol.

It is darkness and light in one, the great riddle and the great explanation.

”

I’m speaking of myself. Yes, I ought to have guessed that! Why, All’s Well was sleeping under the boat, peacefully, like a good dog sleeping beside his master! Why, when we sent All’s Well on François’ trail, he led Stéphane straight to the boat.

It’s true enough, there are times when the cleverest of us behave like simpletons!

But you, Vorski, did you know that there was a way down there and a boat?”

“Goodbye, my dear chap. … Oh, just one more word!

Every well-regulated adventure contains a love-story.

Ours appears to be without one, for I should never dare to allude to the feelings that urged you towards the sainted woman who bore your name. And yet I must tell you of a very pure and noble affection.

“I worked the thing well.

It’s not much over twenty-four hours since we landed at Sarek. And the riddle had lasted twenty-four centuries. One century an hour. My congratulations, Lupin.

”

“

Oh, I am neither modest nor silent; and that’s why I admire All’s Well.

Here, All’s Well, come along with me and, for goodness’ sake, stop sitting up! You might have to do it all night, for they will be shedding tears together for hours, the mother and son. …”