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6.
HighStrategicStakes 36
HighExitBarriers 36
ThreatofEntry 37
EconomiesofScale 38
BrandIdentityandProductDifferentiation 38
CapitalRequirements 39
SwitchingCosts 39
AccesstoDistributionChannels 39
CostAdvantagesIndependentofSize 39
GovernmentPolicy 39
PressureFromSubstituteProducts 40
BargainingPowerofBuyers 40
BargainingPowerofSuppliers 41
LimitationsofPorter’sFiveForcesModel 42
Summary 43
KeyTerms 43
ReviewQuestionsandExercises 44
PracticeQuiz 44
TrueorFalse? 44
MultipleChoice 45
StudentStudySite 45
Notes 46
Strategy + Business Reading: Focus and Scale on the Internet 47
3. The External Environment: Political-Legal
and Economic Forces 53
AnalysisoftheExternalEnvironment 53
Political-LegalForces 54
GlobalConsiderations 60
EconomicForces 63
GrossDomesticProduct 64
InflationRates 66
InterestRates 66
ExchangeRates 66
EcologicalInfluences 67
Summary 69
KeyTerms 69
ReviewQuestionsandExercises 69
PracticeQuiz 69
TrueorFalse? 69
MultipleChoice 70
StudentStudySite 70
Notes 71
Strategy + Business Reading: Competing for the Global Middle Class 73
4. The External Environment: Social and Technological Forces 79
SocialForces 79
Case#1:EatingHabits 83
Description of Text_____________________________
Thechallenge to lead an organization has never been more demanding. The impact of the
global financial crisis of 2008 has lingered well into the 2010s. Ethical crises have plagued a
number of well-known companies during this time as well. As a result, the stature of business
organizations—particularly large, corporate entities—has declined with consumers demanding
greater trust and responsiveness. Firms are expected to both generate satisfactory profits and
pursue elusive social objectives in an environment marked by increasing government regula-
tion. Managing organizations is complex, challenging, and fraught with uncertainty.
Executives and managers at all levels must think strategically and leverage firms resources so
effectively. This text draws from all functional areas of business and presents a cohesive strategic
management model from a top-level strategic perspective. It is most useful for students with back-
grounds in related fields such as management, marketing, finance, accounting, and economics.
Unlike many other books on strategic management, the text is organized sequentially
around the strategic management process. Readers begin with an assessment of the external
environment, including industry, political-legal, economic, social, and technological influences
on the organization. Within this context, they shift to internal considerations and evaluate the
appropriateness of such factors as the mission, ethics, and social responsibility. Armed with a
solid understanding of external and internal factors, they consider the content of various strate-
gies at the corporate, business, and functional levels and proceed to formulate the strategy for
the organization. Formal and informal influences on strategy execution are evaluated. The text
closes with strategic control and a discussion on crisis management, a topic of keen interest in
today’s fast-paced business world. The chapters are outlined as follows:
•
• Foundation (Chapter 1)
•
• External Environment (Chapters 2–4)
•
• Internal Environment (Chapter 5)
•
• Fundamentals of Strategy (Chapters 6–8)
•
• Strategy Formulation (Chapter 9)
•
• Strategy Execution (Chapter 10–11)
•
• Strategic Control and Crisis Management (Chapter 12)
•
• Case Studies
Global issues are addressed in the various chapters, not as a separate concern. These
include the nature of global competition and strategic issues like outsourcing and offshor-
ing. The influence of emerging markets such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China)
nations is addressed throughout the book. Global icons in the margins alert the reader to these
discussions.
Preface
xv
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16.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
xvi
Numerous examples—manyfrom the Wall Street Journal—are integrated in the chapters as
well. This process orientation is augmented with a strong chapter on ethics and social responsi-
bility before strategy content is addressed.
Key Features_________________________________
This book is also distinguished from its peers in that the strategic analysis of a firm (i.e., a case
analysis) is viewed as inseparable from the concepts presented in the chapters. As such, the
25 key questions that should be answered as part of a strategic analysis are presented in Case
Analysis boxes throughout the text alongside the relevant theory.
Strategy at Work boxes provide examples of concepts introduced in the text. They focus on
one or several firms and provide sufficient details to promote class discussion as well.
Strategy + Business Readings are included at the end of each chapter. These provide
advanced and detailed discussions of select topics in the chapters.
End of chapter features such as Key Terms, Review Questions and Exercises, Practice Quiz,
and Student Study Site provide students with the opportunity to apply concepts they have read
about in the chapter. These sections are especially helpful as students prepare for lectures and
exams.
Real-Time Cases are brief narratives of well-known firms. They can be used as a start-
ing point for team case projects—as updated information is readily available on the Internet.
Alternatively, they can be used as the basis for class discussion, particularly as it relates to ana-
lyzing cases.
Traditional Cases are full-length cases that feature small, private, and international enter-
prises. Although additional research is optional, these cases are self-contained. They can be
used for term projects or daily discussions, giving instructors a broader range of assignment
options.
The text is also very readable. It provides a comprehensive presentation of current
strategic management thinking in a clear and succinct format. This approach enables the
professor to cover the entire book in a typical capstone business course while retaining
valuable course time for case projects, simulations, discussion of real-time strategic issues,
and other activities.
What’s New in This Edition______________________
The fourth edition uses the same strategic management model presented in the previous edi-
tion though minor enhancements have been made. The integration of new concepts and the
enhancement of existing ones can be seen throughout the chapters, including a large number of
global strategy references and a chapter devoted entirely to ethics and social responsibility.
Specifically, key changes to the fourth edition include the following:
•
• Coverage of ethics and social responsibility has been expanded and integrated with
other topics related to organizational direction in Chapter 5.
•
• Coverage of the external environment has been expanded into two chapters. Chapter 3
explores political, legal, and economic forces while Chapter 4 discusses social and tech-
nological forces.
17.
•
• A largenumber of recent examples have been added. Many of these address the effects
of social, technological, and other external forces on firm performance. Others highlight
the success and failure of specific firms.
•
• A new section on emerging trends in Chapter 12 integrates key topics in the text along
the themes of global competitiveness, the Internet, sustainability, strategic complexity,
and crisis management.
•
• This edition features 11 new Traditional Cases. Real-Time Cases have been updated as well.
•
• References have been completely updated, and a large number of new global references
have been added to this edition.
Ancillaries____________________________________
The password-protected Instructor Teaching Site at www.sagepub.com/parnell4e gives
instructors access to a full complement of resources to support and enhance their course. The
following assets are available on the site:
•
• Test bank: This Word test bank offers a diverse set of test questions and answers for each
chapter of the book. Multiple-choice, true or false, short-answer, and essay questions for
every chapter help instructors assess students’ progress and understanding.
•
• PowerPoint slides: Chapter-specific slide presentations offer assistance with lecture and
review preparation by highlighting essential content, features, and artwork from the book.
•
• Sample syllabi: Two sample syllabi—for a semester and a quarter-length class—are pro-
vided to help professors structure their courses.
•
• Discussion questions: Chapter-specific questions help launch discussion by prompting
students to engage with the material and by reinforcing important content.
•
• SAGE journal articles: Links to full-text SAGE journal articles provide opportunity for fur-
ther study in key subject areas.
•
• Web resources: These links to relevant websites direct both instructors and students to
additional resources for further research on important chapter topics.
The open-access Student Study Site—available at www.sagepub.com/parnell4e—is
designed to maximize student comprehension of the material and to promote critical thinking
and application. The following resources and study tools are available on the student portion of
the book’s website:
•
• Answers to end-of-chapter quizzes: Full answers to each chapter quiz are provided on
the Student Study Site.
•
• SAGE journal articles: Links to full-text SAGE journal articles provide opportunity for fur-
ther study in key subject areas.
•
• Web resources: These links to relevant websites direct both instructors and students to
additional resources for further research on important chapter topics.
•
• E-flashcards: These study tools reinforce students’ understanding of key terms and con-
cepts that have been outlined in the chapters.
•
• Web quizzes: Flexible self-quizzes allow students to independently assess their progress
in learning course material.
xvii
Preface
18.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
xviii
Acknowledgments_____________________________
SAGE andthe author gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following reviewers:
Kristin Backhaus, State University of New York at New Paltz; Thomas M. Box, Pittsburg State
University; Jacalyn M. Flom, The University of Toledo; John M. Guarino, Averett University;
Keith Harman, Oklahoma Baptist University; Maureen S. Heaphy, Ferris State University;
Mazhar Islam, Drexel University; Sonya B. Merrill, Towson University; David Olson, California
State University Bakersfield; Vasu Ramanujam, Case Western Reserve University; E. Kevin
Renshler, Florida Southern College; Peter Schneider, College of Saint Elizabeth; Jeffrey Slattery,
Regent University; David L. Sturges, The University of Texas-Pan American; James L. Whitney,
Champlain College; and Gregory F. Zerovnik, Touro University Worldwide.
19.
chapter 12 StrategicControl and Crisis Management xix
Dr. John A. Parnell currently serves as the William Henry Belk Distinguished
Professor of Management at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He com-
pleted the BSBA, MBA, and MA Ed degree from East Carolina University, the EdD
degree from Campbell University, and the PhD degree from the University of Memphis.
His academic career includes a number of institutions, including service as professor
and head of the Department of Marketing & Management at Texas A&M University-
Commerce. He received the H. M. Lafferty Distinguished Faculty Award at Texas A&M-
Commerce in 2002, the Adolph Dial Award for Scholarly & Creative Activity at
UNC-Pembroke in 2005, and the Pope Center Spirit of Inquiry Award in 2011.
Dr. Parnell is a recognized authority in the field, having published more than 200 articles,
cases, proceedings, books, and book chapters in strategic management and related fields.
Recent work appears in leading journals such as Academy of Management Learning and
Education, Management Decision, and the British Journal of Management. He serves on a
number of academic journal editorial boards and consults with select firms in the area of stra-
tegic planning. He has also appeared frequently as a guest discussing issues related to business
and competitiveness on Sirius XM’s The Wilkow Majority.
Dr. Parnell has lectured at a number of institutions abroad, including Instituto Tecnologico
Y De Estudios Superiores De Monterrey-Campus Estado de Mexico (ITESM-CEM), Chung Yuan
Christian University in Taiwan, and China University of Geosciences in Beijing. He also served
as a Fulbright Scholar in Cairo, Egypt, in 1995.
AbouttheAuthor
xix
chapter 1 Fundamentalsof Strategic Management 1
1
c h a p t e r 1
Fundamentalsof
StrategicManagement
What do Circuit City, Washington Mutual, Saab, Blockbuster, and Borders have in
common? All of these recognized companies filed for bankruptcy during the past
several years. While the situation surrounding each firm is different, all of them failed to
meet various strategic challenges. Put another way, organizations typically do not succeed
or fail randomly. Some plan, prepare, and execute more effectively than others.
Today’s business world is global, Internet-driven, and obsessed with speed. The challenges
it creates for strategic managers are often complex, ambiguous, and unstructured. Add to this
the incessant allegations of top management wrongdoings, economic stagnation, and increas-
ing executive compensation, and it is easy to see why firm leaders are under great pressure to
respond to strategic problems quickly, decisively, and responsibly. Indeed, the need for effec-
tive strategic management has never been more pronounced. This text presents a framework
for addressing today’s strategic challenges.
This chapter introduces the notion of strategic management, highlights its importance, and
presents a five-step process for strategically analyzing an organization. The remaining chapters
expand on the various steps in the process with special emphasis on their application to ongo-
ing enterprises.
What Is Strategic Management?_________________
Organizations exist for a purpose. The mission is articulated in a broadly defined but enduring
statement of purpose that identifies the scope of an organization’s operations and its offerings to
affected groups and entities. Most organizations of a significant size or stature have developed a
formal mission statement, a concept discussed further in Chapter 5.
Strategy refers to top management’s plans to develop and sustain competitive
advantage—a state whereby a firm’s successful strategies cannot be easily duplicated by its
1
22.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
2
competitors1
—so thatthe organization’s mission is fulfilled.2
Following this definition, it
is assumed that an organization has a plan, its competitive advantage is understood, and its
members understand the reason for its existence. These assumptions may appear self-evident,
but many strategic problems can be traced to fundamental misunderstandings associated with
defining the strategy. Debates over the nature of the organization’s competitive advantage, its
mission, and whether or not a strategic plan is really needed can be widespread.3
As such, com-
ments such as “We’re too busy to focus on developing a strategy” or “I’m not exactly sure what
my company is really trying to accomplish” can be overheard in many organizations.
Strategic management is a broader term than strategy and is a process that includes top
management’s analysis of the environment in which the organization operates prior to formulat-
ing a strategy, as well as the plan for implementation and control of the strategy. The difference
between a strategy and the strategic management process is that the latter includes considering
what must be done before a strategy is formulated through assessing whether or not the success
of an implemented strategy was successful. The strategic management process can be sum-
marized in five steps, each of which is discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters of the
book (see Figure 1.1):4
1. External Analysis: Analyze the opportunities and threats, or constraints, that exist
in the organization’s external environment, including industry and forces in the
external environment.
2. Internal Analysis: Analyze the organization’s strengths and weaknesses in its
internal environment. Consider the context of managerial ethics and corporate
social responsibility.
3. Strategy Formulation: Formulate strategies that build and sustain competitive
advantage by matching the organization’s strengths and weaknesses with the
environment’s opportunities and threats.
4. Strategy Execution: Implement the strategies that have been developed.
5. Strategic Control: Measure success and make corrections when the strategies are
not producing the desired outcomes.
The sequential order of the steps is logical. A thorough understanding of the organization
and its environment is essential if the appropriate strategy is to be developed, put into action,
and controlled. One could transpose the first two steps and analyze the internal environment
before the external environment—the logic being that comprehending the organization informs
the strategic assessment of factors outside of the firm. The external environment is analyzed
before the internal environment in Figure 1.1, however, because internal goals, resources, and
competencies are viewed in a relative fashion to some extent and are understood within the
context of the industry and the factors that drive it. This dilemma resembles the chicken and egg
argument; in a practical sense, external and internal analysis often occurs simultaneously.
A distinction between outside and inside perspectives on strategy is also relevant. Outsiders
analyzing a firm should apply a systematic approach that progresses through these steps in
order. Doing so develops a holistic understanding of the firm, its industry, and its strategic
challenges.
Inside organizations, strategies are being formulated, implemented, and controlled simulta-
neously while external and internal factors are continually reassessed. In addition, changes in
one stage of the strategic management process will inevitably affect other stages as well. After
a planned strategy is implemented, it often requires modification as conditions change. Hence,
because these steps are so tightly intertwined, insiders tend to treat all of the steps as a single
integrated, ongoing process.5
23.
chapter 1 Fundamentalsof Strategic Management 3
Consider the strategic management process at a fast-food restaurant chain. At any given
time, top managers are likely assessing changes in consumer taste preferences and food prep-
aration, analyzing the activities of competitors, working to overcome firm weaknesses, con-
trolling remnants of a strategy implemented several years ago, implementing a strategy crafted
months earlier, and formulating strategic plans for the future. Although each of these activities
can be linked to a distinct stage in the strategic management process, they occur simultaneously.
An effective strategy is built on the foundation of the organization’s businessmodel, the mech-
anism whereby the organization seeks to earn a profit by selling its goods or services. While all firms
seek to produce a product or service and sell it at a price higher than its production and overhead
costs, a business model is stated in greater detail. For example, a magazine publisher might adopt a
subscription model, an advertising model, or perhaps some combination of the two. Profits would
be generated primarily from readers under the subscription model but from advertisers under the
advertising model. As we can see, identifying a firm’s business model can become more complex
when intricate details are considered. Progressive firms often devise innovative business models
that extract revenue—and ultimately profits—from sources not identified by competitors.
Figure 1.1 Organization of the Book.
Foundation
Chapter 1: Fundamentals of Strategic Management
Step 1: External Analysis
Chapter 2: Industry Competition
Chapter 3: The External Environment: Political-Legal and Economic Forces
Chapter 4: The External Environment: Social and Technological Forces
Step 2: Internal Analysis
Chapter 5: The Organization: Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility
Step 3: Strategy Formulation
Chapter 6: Corporate-Level Strategies (also called Firm Strategies)
Chapter 7: Business Unit Strategies (also called Competitive Strategies)
Chapter 8: Functional Strategies (also called Tactics)
Chapter 9: Strategy Formulation
Step 4: Strategy Implementation
Chapter 10: Strategy Execution: Structure
Chapter 11: Strategy Execution: Strategic Change, Culture, and Leadership
Step 5: Strategic Control
Chapter 12: Strategic Control and Crisis Management
24.
STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT
4
Consider therazor and blades business model invented by Gillette. A company gives away
or deeply discounts a product—the razor—while planning to profit from future sales of required
replacement or complementary products—the blades. Cell phones are often given to customers
willing to sign a 2-year service contract. Computer printers are typically sold below production
cost, but customers must periodically replace the ink cartridges, which are high-margin items.
This model is not foolproof, however. In a competitive marketplace, customers may be able to
purchase the required complementary products at lower prices from rivals not under pressure
to recoup initial losses.
Successful business models can change over time. Since the early 2000s, a number of
authors have strayed from the traditional business model whereby book publishers offer con-
tracts and pay royalties of 10% to 15%. Leveraging advances in publishing software, social
media, and a strong online retail book market, they have opted for a self-publishing model.
Enterprising authors who publish their own work also shoulder the initial risk but can net as
much as a 70% return on e-book sales from companies such as Amazon.com. The total print
book and e-book output of self-publishers in the United States rose from about 50,000 titles in
2006 to over 125,000 in 2010.6
While a successful strategy is built on the firm’s business model, crafting one can be a chal-
lenge. Realistically, a number of factors are typically associated with successful strategies. Some
of these factors including the following:
1. The organization’s competitive environment is well understood, in detail.
2. Strengths and weaknesses are assessed in a thorough and realistic manner.
3. The strategy is consistent with the mission and goals of the organization.
4. Plans for putting the strategy into action are designed with specificity before it
is implemented.
5. Possible future changes in the proposed strategy—a process called strategic
control—are evaluated before the strategy is adopted.
Careful consideration of these factors reinforces the interrelatedness of the steps in the
strategic management process. Each factor is most closely associated with one of the five steps,
yet they fit together like pieces of a puzzle. The details associated with the success factors—and
others—will be discussed in greater detail in subsequent chapters.
While some of these success factors are associated with the competitive environment in
profit-seeking firms, strategic management is not limited to for-profit organizations. Top manag-
ers of any organization, regardless of profit or nonprofit status, must understand the organiza-
tion’s environment and its capabilities and develop strategies to assist the enterprise in attaining
its goals. Former Drexel University president Constantine Papadakis, for example, was widely
considered to be a leading strategic thinker among university top executives. The innovative
Greek immigrant promoted Drexel through aggressive marketing, while campaigning for an all-
digital library without books. In many respects, he managed the university in the same way that
other executives manage profit-seeking enterprises. His annual salary was close to $1,000,000 in
the years preceding his death in 2009, making him one of the highest paid university presidents
in the country.7
IntendedandRealizedStrategies
One of the most critical challenges facing organizations is the reality that strategies are not
always implemented as originally planned. Sometimes strategic decisions seem to evolve.
In this respect, strategy formulation can be seen as an iterative process where decision
25.
chapter 1 Fundamentalsof Strategic Management 5
makers take actions, make sense of those actions afterward, and then decide how to
proceed.
Henry Mintzberg introduced two terms to help clarify the shift that often occurs between
the time a strategy is formulated and the time it is implemented. An intended strategy (i.e.,
what management originally planned) may be realized just as it was planned, in a modified
form, or even in an entirely different form. Occasionally, the strategy that management intends
is actually realized, but the intended strategy and the realized strategy—what management
actually implements—usually differ.8
Hence, the original strategy may be realized with desirable
or undesirable results, or it may be modified as changes in the firm or the environment become
known.
The gap between the intended and realized strategies usually results from unforeseen envi-
ronmental or organizational events, better information that was not available when the strat-
egy was formulated, or an improvement in top management’s ability to assess its environment.
Although it is important for managers to formulate responsible strategies based on a realistic and
thorough assessment of the firm and its environment, things invariably change along the way.
Hence, it is common for such a gap to exist, creating the need for constant strategic action if a
firm is to stay on course. Instead of resisting modest strategic changes when new information is
discovered, managers should search for new information and be willing to make such changes
when necessary. This activity is part of strategic control—the final step in the strategic manage-
ment process.
ScientificandArtisticPerspectiveson
StrategicManagement
There are two different perspectives on the approach that top executives should take to strate-
gic management. Most strategy scholars have endorsed a scientific perspective, whereby strategic
managers are encouraged to systematically assess the firm’s external environment and evaluate
the pros and cons of myriad alternatives before formulating strategy. The business environ-
ment is seen as largely objective, analyzable, and largely predictable. As such, strategic manag-
ers should follow a systematic process of environmental, competitive, and internal analysis and
build the organization’s strategy on this foundation.
According to this perspective, strategic managers should be trained, highly skilled analytical
thinkers capable of digesting a myriad of objective data and translating it into a desired direction
for the firm. Strategy scientists tend to minimize or reject altogether the role of imagination and
creativity in the strategy process and are not generally receptive to alternatives that emerge from
any process other than a comprehensive, analytical approach.
Others have a different view. According to the artistic perspective on strategy, the lack of
environmental predictability and the fast pace of change render elaborate strategy planning as
suspect at best. Instead, strategists should incorporate large doses of creativity and intuition in
order to design a comprehensive strategy for the firm.9
Henry Mintzberg’s notion of a crafts-
man—encompassing individual skill, dedication, and perfection through mastery of detail—
embodies the artistic model. The strategy artist senses the state of the organization, interprets
its subtleties, and seeks to mold its strategy like a potter molds clay. The artist visualizes the
outcomes associated with various alternatives and ultimately charts a course based on holistic
thinking, intuition, and imagination.10
Strategy artists may even view strategic planning exercises
as time poorly spent and may not be as likely as those in the science school to make the effort
necessary to maximize the value of a formal planning process.11
This text acknowledges the artistic perspective but emphasizes the science view. Creativity
and innovation are important and encouraged but are most likely to translate into organizational
success when they occur as part of a comprehensive, systematic approach to strategic manage-
ment. Nonetheless, the type of formal strategic planning proposed in this text is not without its
26.
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genres, available in popular formats like
PDF, EPUB, and MOBI, fully compatible with
all devices. Enjoy a seamless reading
experience and effortlessly download high-
quality materials in just a few simple steps.
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CHAPTER XLVII
THE FOOTSTEPIN THE DUST
St. Pierre had passed away and with St. Pierre, Marie, and with
Marie his will to live.
The extraordinary and most tragically poetic part of his drama
was the manner in which St. Pierre, the lost city, clung to the vision
of the woman he loved.
She wore it as a garment; he saw her surrounded by its beauty;
dawn lit her in the Street of the Precipice, morn in the music-
haunted Place de la Fontaine; evening in the twilit Jardin des
Plantes.
The super-mortal tragedy of the city had raised her image to
supernal heights. The passion, the agony that lives alone in the
highest poetry had mixed itself in this common man’s tragedy. The
city obliterated from the world was part of his grief.
As he lay like a man fascinated by a serpent, motionless,
scarcely seeming to breathe, with eyes fixed, and pupils dilated, the
roar of the anchor-chain through the hawse pipe shook the vessel.
He sat up, leaning on his elbow, exactly as a man sits up who has
been awakened suddenly from sleep.
A disc of reflected sunlight, liquid and tremulous as the water
from which it was reflected, was cast by the porthole upon the wall
of the cabin; it trembled and moved to the motion of the vessel as
she rocked at her moorings.
29.
He gazed atit, following it with his eyes as it leapt and quivered;
then, slipping from the bunk he stood erect on the floor of the cabin.
He was fully dressed and, in the act of stepping from the bunk,
his full strength seemed to have returned to him. He opened the
door of the cabin and a moment later he was on deck.
All the crew were gathered forward; a boat was rowing away
from the ship, Captain Stock and the mate were in it, and they were
making for the nearest war-ship. The Anne Martin was close in shore
and the vast, formless, blanketed city cast its chill gray reflection on
the water of the harbour. Mounds of ashes terraced by the heavy
rains, wildernesses of ashes mounting to wildernesses of ashes,
ghosts of buildings vaguely outlined beneath their cerement of ashes
—cinders, dust, and ashes, and from all that immensity of desolation
not a sound, save now and then a call from one of the working
parties, half invisible amidst the ruins.
He cast his eyes over it all and then up to Pelée still fuming in
the windless blue; like a madman, exhausted, the great mountain
seemed inexpressibly sinister above the ruins of the city it had
protected for long years, fed with the gouyave water, sheltered from
the winds. Gaspard stretched out his arms, his fingers were crooked,
it was as though the man were saying to the mountain, “Ah, what
would I not do with you, if I only had you in my grip!”
Then he clambered over the starboard rail.
The men forward did not hear the splash, nor did they notice the
black head of the swimmer passing towards the shore.
He had not even kicked off the deck shoes he was wearing, he
swam with ease and half unconsciously; in his condition all things
were possible to him, he would have guided his way through a
turbulent sea just as surely as across this summer-smooth harbour.
And now he was clinging to the angle of a great block of stone
shaken out from the once quay-wall and slobbered round by the
tide. He dragged himself on to it, and from it to the next.
30.
The Place Bertinehad been here; here in the sunlight the
tamarinds had shaken their leaves to the wind and cast dancing
shadows on the sun-smitten pavement, the songs of the canotiers
had mixed with the sounds of trade—here where tamarind trees
would bloom no more; where the blasting scoriae had fused broken
stones and broken building; where the sunlight was horrible.
Around him lay nothing but mounds where once the sugar
barrels had been piled, where buildings had been. Mounds like the
sand dunes on a desolate coast. A little wind had arisen and, just as
amidst the dunes the wind brings the whisper of sand, here, it
brought the faint silky whisper of dust.
He had no objective—no object, here, but to feel the ruin; to
touch it, walk amidst it, become part of it. To torture his soul. All this
was her bed, the dust he trod on her winding sheet, the desolation
her silence.
He passed amidst the mounds. In the great mountain of ashes
before him the rains had washed out what seemed the bed of a
mountain torrent. It had once been a street. He began to climb it.
This horrible ravine was tainted by a faint sickly smell of corruption,
the crust of the scoriae broke beneath his feet so that he plunged
sometimes knee-deep, the sweat ran from his brow, and the sun
struck fiercely on him. The heat was terrific. Never, even in the old
days of the stokehold, had he experienced such heat, yet still he
climbed.
He had reached, now, a transverse ravine, a huge donga with
steep banks from which here and there broke out the walls of ruined
houses. It was the Rue Victor Hugo.
The silence here was terrible, the silence of Nineveh, the silence
of the Nothing, which is at the heart of things. Finotte and Lys; the
corrossole sellers; the merchants and traffickers; the coloured
crowd; the little children—nothing spoke of them here.
And, still, far above him went the mountain of ashes, the broken
streets, walls that had once been houses, charred stumps that had
31.
once been palmtrees. And still he climbed. He had cast off his coat,
never thinking of the treasure in its pocket, he had forgotten all that,
even Marie had become vague as a ghost in his mind. One thing
only stood clearly before him, half-mesmerised as he was by
exhaustion, heat, and the ruin around him—the beach of Grande
Anse. The soot-black beach and the green curling waves where a
man might find oblivion. He did not know in the least that it was the
vision of Marie that was calling him to the cliffs, where he had first
truly met her face to face.
At noon, broken, dazed, grimed with dust, having a dozen times
escaped by a miracle from death, he reached the summit of the
ruins of St. Pierre, and the path of ashes that had once been the
road to Morne Rouge. Gazing from here, and not glancing at the
ruined city, nothing had altered. The sea lay the same as of old, and
Dominica shewed ghostly and haze-blue on the far sea line, gulls
were flying over the bay. Eternal summer sat by the ruined city,
voiceless, and lost in eternal sleep. Though the silence of the Rue
Victor Hugo had been broken by no sound, up here, could be heard
a faint breathing from the sea. The requiem of the ocean whose tide
was now flooding into the bay.
“Ah, the palms, the coloured houses, the old sea-steps I used to
wash—the voices of the canotiers, the tall ships I brought thee,
where are they?” Vaguely, like a voice heard in a dream came the
whispered lament of the sea.
Gaspard did not hear it. He paused only to rest and breathe, he
had slipped and fallen many times in his ascent; coatless, his arms
were clay-coloured with sweat-caked volcanic dust; his face was
frightful; grimed and seamed—it looked as though spat upon by
Ruin. In a few short hours his eyes had become sunken, his cheeks
had fallen in; his lips baked and parched, and caked with dust were
inhuman, the lips of a tragic mask of antiquity. A frightful thirst filled
him, obliterating all other feelings. Beneath him lay the city, formless
and bulked out with cinders and dust, exactly as the ship of coral
had once lain beneath him bulked out with coral in the still lagoon.
32.
Ah, that nightwhen he had turned with Yves from the vision of
the sunken ship, feeling that what he had seen was evil; could he
but have seen this greater vision! This greater story of man’s futility
and the fate of the imaginers of vain things!
He turned, seeing nothing of it all but the great white sheet of
light that leapt from the horizon half-way to the zenith, and the
dazzle of the sea.
He came along the path of cinders that had once been a road
set with grenadillas and palms; merry with mule bells and songs of
the cane-cutters by day, drifted over by fireflies at night. The
volcanic dust, the sun, the terrible climb amidst the ruins had called
up the thirst which is known only in the desert. He walked scarcely
knowing where he went, casting his eyes from side to side of the
way in search of water. He had forgotten the black beach at Grande
Anse and his desire for the oblivion of the sea; he had only one
immediate desire, to drink.
Thirst in its acutest form like this is quite divorced from the
sensation which civilisation knows as thirst. It is a passion far
stronger than hatred or desire, it affects the soul no less than the
body, it drives all other feelings before it and reigns supreme. The
physical pangs are nothing compared to the mental desire which
drives all other desires away.
As he turned the shoulder of Pelée, the ashes ceased on the
road giving place to volcanic dust, for only St. Pierre and the western
portion of the island had been exposed to the full blast of the
eruption. The road became a road again, and, had he possessed
eyes to see, hope might have come to him.
For here, where Marie used to pause of a morning to drink in the
view before her, still lay the view as of old. The volcanic dust that
had lain grey on tree and shrub, had been washed away by rains,
and the green waving canes, the palms, and wild pines, the
tamarinds, and ceibas, the mornes, mountains, and valleys lay
33.
stretched before him;who saw nothing of it all, walking like a
somnambulist in the dream of thirst.
He had passed Morne Rouge where there was no sign of life,
and the Morne d’Avril was showing green, but unseen, before him
when the voice of water, liquid, and laughing, broke the silence. It
was a way-side fountain. Crystal water spouting from a moss-grown
lion-head.
* * * * *
It was like drinking life; the mountains in the distance became
mountains again; the wind, the wind; and the sunlight, the sunlight;
the world of shadows and semi-delirium through which he had been
walking, faded away. Like a good enchantress, the water had
washed away the stains of his journey and the thirst from his soul.
In that moment, just like one convalescing from a severe illness, he
felt newborn. He was seated upon a bank, and above him in the
trade wind waved the huge fronds of ferns, and before him lay a
field of canes overripe, that had been spared the cane-cutters’
knives.
Half drowsy, still exhausted, but wrapped in the new feeling of
well-being, like a man who is recovering from an anaesthetic, he
noted his surroundings; and, as his eyes travelled from point to
point, they suddenly came to rest on a spot just before him.
On the dust of the road, sheltered by the bank and the ferns
from the wind, lay the imprint of a naked foot. A woman’s little foot
had pressed the dust of the road but a short time before; the print
was warm to the sight and living, one could almost see the fleeting
figure swiftly moving as the breeze, and graceful as the bending
palm. The print of the heel was far less marked than that of the fore
part.
The volcanic dust, though gone from the foliage, still lay upon
the road, and on this dust of ruin lay the woman’s foot mark, vivid,
triumphant over death. Gaspard gazed at it. He glanced at the
34.
fountain beside himsinging and laughing beneath the shadow of the
ferns, then he remembered. It was here that he had paused that
day with Marie; it was here that she had given him the ratifia, it was
here—it was here.
He rose to his feet, gazed again at the mark in the road and
followed its printing. Farther on he lost it, for the wind had blown
the dust across it; further on he found it, very faint, but still
discernible.
Then, where a little side path broke off from the road, he found
it clearly again.
She had taken the path.
Along the National Road you find many paths like these. Short
cuts to villages, paths used by the cane cutters and market folk,
often mere traces half smothered by the tropical grasses.
He followed the path which led towards a wood of ceibas and
angelines, palms with enormous trunks, thick as the trunks of full
grown oak trees; tree ferns and wild pines.
As he came a voice hailed him from the liquid shadow of the
trees, it was the voice of the siffleur de montagne; clear, silvery, bell-
like, the voice of the bird came through the silence of the sultry
noon. There was no other sound but the stirring of the palm fronds
in the wind.
Here, amidst the trees, by this old forgotten pathway lay a
shrine to the Virgin; one of the thousand shrines that are found on
the roads and pathways of Martinique. As he pushed the lianas and
the air shoots of the wild pine aside, a voice other than the voice of
the siffleur de montagne met his ear. The bird had ceased, and
through the murmur of the wind in the trees came this voice; the
voice of a woman, sweeter than the voice of the bird.
* * * * *
35.
Moving silently asa shadow, pushing the leafy veils aside,
scarcely breathing, he reached a point from which he could see
vaguely in the twilight of the trees the shrine and the woman
kneeling before it.
Her voice was clear now, and the soft, childish Creole words of
the votary came to him for whom she was giving thanks.
No supplicatory prayer was this, but an assured thanksgiving for
the safety of one who had been spared the darkness and the terror
of chaos, the horror of death, the fate of her ruined world, for one
who was safe and who would return. “At morning, noon, and
evening, I have praised thee on my knees—”
It was the noonday prayer—and it passed devoutly from a prayer
of praise to one of supplication. Supplication for the souls of the
dead and for the living, for Missie Seguin who had been spared even
as she had been spared; for herself, a creature not deserving the
protection that had saved her, that had led her away to the safety of
Grande Anse when Pelée had spoken and the world had fallen in
ruins.
Then she rose to her feet, the white magic of Love and Faith still
like a light upon her face. As her eyes fell upon the man standing
beneath the trees, for one divine second she paused with breath
caught back, spirit like, and ringed with the twilight as with a charm.
* * * * *
Where the trade wind was blowing and the green waves
breaking on the beach of Grande Anse, welcome and a new life were
waiting for them.
The man he had saved from the fer de lance had the will and
the power to open the doors of a golden future for them, yet they
could not break from yesterday so soon.
Heedless of time or place they sat by the road-side fountain, till
the shadows were lengthening on the road and the valleys humming
36.
with night. Darknessfound them on the ruined road above the
ruined city.
They had come almost unconsciously to look at it again, to
breathe the air of the past through which they had so miraculously
wandered, and, as they stood clasping one another, gazing through
the vagueness at the lights of the warships in the bay, the sea of a
sudden became touched with silver and the rising moon broke above
the shoulder of Pelée.
The light flooded across the harbour and struck the shrouded
city like a tide. The ruins of the Place Bertine came into view; its
broken and veiled cathedral, the thread of darkness outlining the
Rue Victor Hugo.
In the moonlight the desolation became robbed of its terror and
all was touched with the poetry of deep antiquity, from the flooding
sea to the forms of the lovers set far above the ruins.
THE END.
37.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation,and spelling were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found in this
book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional
unbalanced quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained.
Page 1: The letters after the second “Ç” in the sub-title
“JEAN FRANÇOIS—JEAN FRANÇOIS” were missing; Transcriber
added what is shown in this ebook.
Page 294: “it was only connection with her” seems to be
missing the word “in”.
38.
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