Sylva

by Jean Vercors

  I had no need to explain. Sylva had been found. Or rather, her whereabouts were known: she was at a wood-cutter’s shack. There had always been a fair number of them working in the forest. The man concerned was a young chap named Jeremy Hull, taciturn and-so they said-a bit half-witted. The other woodcutters were older than he and bullied him, only too happy to relieve their own misery by wreaking their malice on someone more wretched than themselves. He therefore lived apart, shy and suspicious, withdrawn in his solitude. On Monday evening, they had caught a glimpse of Jeremy coming back from his work in the company of a young lady. From a distance she seemed elegant, but she also appeared to be very tired. At first they had thought it was Walburton’s daughter, for she often rode to hounds with her father. They thought she might have got lost and spent the night in the thickets where Jeremy had probably found her, and after leading her to his hut for a meal and a rest he would take her back to the village.

  It was not without surprise and indignation (nor, I suspect, without jealousy) that they saw Sylva reappear with Jeremy the next morning when he set out. She was following him like a shadow. She returned with him in the evening. The virtuous woodcutters pondered their duty deeply and only an hour before one of them had been delegated to inform Walburton. He had expected to find a distraught father but the door was opened by Miss Walburton herself. The Mayor and he had then wondered who that creature of the woods could be. The sketchy description given by the woodcutters tallied with none of the girls of the neighborhood. Then it had suddenly occurred to Walburton, he himself told me, that he had never seen my adopted daughter or niece, and he was on the point of riding over to me when I had appeared on his doorstep.

  We set out at once. In the forest the woodcutters showed us the way and we soon discovered Jeremy’s shack. It stood in the middle of a narrow clearing, under the verdant shimmer of trailing birches. There was no one in it. But according to his cronies, Jeremy was used to coming back for a snack around ten o’clock. It was past nine. I asked Walburton to be good enough to wait with me and he accepted with a jovial alacrity which barely concealed a keen curiosity. We examined the shack. It was a rather dreadful hovel. I could see that my friend’s eyes, like mine, roved obstinately toward the shapeless litter that served as a bed. At the foot of the litter lay something that, at a pinch, might be taken for a pallet of leaves and dry twigs. With a little willingness, Sylva could have laid herself down and slept there amidst a welter of heterogeneous objects: rusty, peeling household utensils, more or less warped and worn-out tools, and other decrepit oddments in such an inextricable muddle that it was almost impossible to identify them.

  Walburton was sucking at his mustache. There was an odd, somewhat sly glint in his bulging eyes which he tried to extinguish before turning toward me. He was shaking his head with a look of gravity on his face but his big, carroty nose twitched peculiarly. “I hope,” he said, “that this den has not been the scene of some regrettable impropriety…”

  He seemed to be waiting for me to express a similar hope; but after the wise resolutions I had taken I no longer knew what, if anything, I was hoping for. All I could produce in answer was an embarrassed grunt, and he added in a slow, emphatic drawl: “Because if, don’t you see, there were any consequences… I mean to say, between this half-wit, don’t you know, and this… h’m… poor child…”

  But I did not say a word, and he became irritated. “Can you imagine the consequences?” he said with some brutality.

  “Oh, you never know,” I stammered in a dubious tone, but he brushed the words aside with a “Come now, really!” which he rapped out so ruthlessly that he left no room for the least uncertainty. He kept his eyes fastened on me and repeated: “Can you imagine?” and I acquiesced mutely, but with a more worried expression than I actually felt.

  Try as I would, I could not manage to find myself guilty. “Consequences”? Well, if there were any, worse luck, I’d take care of them, that was all. As for the rest, the “regrettable impropriety,” ever since the brainstorm I had passed through, victoriously as I believed, I flattered myself on accepting it as what it was in fact for those primitive creatures: a mere act of nature, an innocent obedience to instincts, very far removed from what we called good or evil, or sin.

  But when, twenty minutes later, I saw the supposed “culprits” returning, my fine composure abandoned me in a jiffy.

  A stiff, matted mop of hair which must have been fair but was blackened with soot and ashes; a young but wrinkled, ravaged face stuck upon the massive hulk of an orangutan; the torso itself crushing the legs into a pair of brackets like those of stiff-jointed old horsemen; moreover, a swelling of the throat which, without being a goiter, was at least a crop; vacant eyes blinking under the jutting visor of a brow arched like a Romanesque vault and bristling with stubble. In a word, a brute of the Stone Age.

  Sylva was walking at his side, hanging slightly back. When she recognized me, she flung herself on my neck with quiet joy, cuddled up a little and kissed me under the chin in her fashion, with a flick of her tongue. Seeing us, the fellow had stopped six steps away. He rapped at her with a rough, caveman’s voice:

  “Who’s the man? Be he your father?”

  She turned her face toward him, but did not answer: how could she? The word “father” was still unknown to her. He took a few strides on his bandy legs and gripped her wrist. He repeated more loudly, motioning toward me with his chin, with an increasingly furious look on his face:

  “I’m askin’ yer who that feller is, be he yer father?”

  He was shaking her by the arm. She must have realized unconsciously what was upsetting her swain for she said “Bonny” and kissed me.

  The lad planted himself right in front of us. I towered over him by a good head and he had to raise his. I saw his eyes flash under the bristly brows. He growled, “What ’ave yer come for?” and without even waiting for my reply, he yelled, “She’s mine. D’ye hear? Be off and leave us alone!” He clasped the fragile wrist even more tightly.

  The Mayor had stepped forward. He loomed very high above all three of us.

  “Listen, my lad. You’ll have no trouble if you’re reasonable. But this girl is under age. You have a good chance of getting sent to jail, I’m warning you.”

  “I want ter wed ’er,” said the other somberly.

  “Well, then,” answered Walburton, laughing, “you’ll make your official proposal of marriage at the proper place and time. Till then, be a good lad,” he repeated, “and let her go home with her uncle. You can pay your respects to her, if you like, every Sunday. Right?” he said, looking at me.

  I had not yet been able to utter a word, so choked was I with rage, so hard was it for me to contain myself. That savage, that monster, that ape! To think he may already have crushed her under his hairy chest! All my fine feelings of generous wisdom had evaporated; I was consumed with torturing anger. Fool! Fool! I raged to myself with stark male fury which could no longer even be called jealousy. I would have liked to seize Sylva by the hair, drag her to the first mossy litter on my way, make her groan with pleasure in my arms and then let her rot there, if she wanted to.

  I retained just enough common sense to note the intrigued glance w?hich Walburton cast at me. I had not answered his question and my pallor must have betrayed my feelings. I controlled myself in time to save appearances, before the ironic glint of surprise which lurked in his gray eyes had lit up altogether. And I managed to utter in a voice, whose roughness masked its tremor:

  “He can come when he likes. Come on, let’s go.”

  In my turn, I gripped Sylva by the wrist; the brute did not let go of the one he held. For a long moment, we stood glaring at each other. If I had been alone, I don’t know what turn things would have taken. I believe, yes, I do believe that we would have fought and torn each other like two reindeer stags at rutting time until death had put an end to one or the other. Happily, the presence of that distinguished giant, the phlegmatic, civilized man of taste that w
as my friend Walburton, spared me this extremity. He was patting the horrible, hairy arm, saying over and over again: “Come on, come on… no rough stuff… be sensible…” and the brute did indeed loosen his grip.

  I said gently, “Come…” and began to pull Sylva along. She seemed to give in at first and followed me unresistingly. So that I too gripped her wrist less strongly.

  We thus took a few steps. And then, with such unexpected suddenness that I did not immediately grasp what was happening, she wrenched herself free and, in three jumps across the fern, reached the thick undergrowth. And the crackle of breaking twigs faded in the distance.

  For a moment we stood speechless, all three of us, staring at the bushes that had closed upon their prey as if to defend her from pursuit. What broke the silence was the brute’s enormous roar of laughter-triumphant, insulting. “Well, go and take ’er away now, what are yer waitin’ for?” and already he was shambling off to his lair, his laughter bellowing ever more loudly.

  “Just a moment, my lad!”

  It was the Mayor speaking, and his voice was so hard and peremptory, so threatening, that the fellow shut up and turned around. He was glowering at the tranquil giant from under his monstrous eyebrows, with a crafty but not very reassured look.

  “You’ve been warned,” said the colossus. “The girl is under age. If you don’t bring her back yourself to Richwick Manor before night, of your own free will, I’ll send the constabulary out tomorrow. And you are good for a stretch in jail, maybe even hard labor. So get that into your thick skull and mind what you do.”

  And without giving him time to answer, he gripped me by the arm and dragged me away.

  Chapter 16

  WE made our way back through the forest without exchanging a word. He was walking in front of me on the narrow path, and while his back was toward me I tried to regain control of myself. I found it very hard. It has been said that love is an itch you cannot scratch. That was just the sort of unbearable, nagging discomfort I felt, and it blighted all efforts to be cool and collected.

  On the edge of the forest we parted, and he said to me: “Don’t worry. Hull will bring her back to you or else the police will. In any case, no need to be alarmed. Anyhow,” he added, with a genial laugh (why “anyhow,” and why did he laugh?), “anyhow, these primitive creatures have sometimes more chivalrous feelings than one gives them credit for. You know young Nancy, the barmaid at the inn? He was courting her for a long time-if that’s the right word. It tickled her all the more since he never once dared to kiss her, not even on the finger tips.”

  Was he saying that to reassure me? That Nancy with her mocking laughter had scared the poor chap was natural enough. It was a case of awe rather than chivalry. But why should he be awed by Sylva?

  The most elementary good manners required that I should ask Walburton to come home for a drink. I did not have the will power. I was so impatient to be alone again, to be able to “scratch” myself to my fill, that I let him leave.

  I did not go home right away. The idea of having to face Nanny in my present state (and in the state she must be in) was more than I could stand. I tried to wear out my agitation by striding fast all the way to the ancient windmill whose crumbling frame towers above the gorse at the top of Swallowsnest Hill. There I sat down, among the ruins thickly clad with immemorial ivy, recovered my breath and made an effort to think calmly.

  When I want to ponder over a personal problem I always begin by honestly examining my rights. This gives me a twofold advantage: first, I feel honest, which is not at all negligible; second, if my rights are confirmed (and they rarely fail to be) I no longer fear fresh trouble with my conscience when riding roughshod over all obstacles. This is a mental hygiene which has always proved effective.

  But this time it was not so simple. Far from confirming my rights toward Sylva, careful consideration rather confirmed those I did not possess. The only right I could grant myself was the de facto authority one has over a domestic animal. She was neither my daughter, sister nor fiancée, not even an orphan or a child entrusted to me by a friend. I could claim no other rights over her than those one assumes as a matter of course over one’s dog, one’s horse. Very well! I tried to triumph, you don’t let a tabby cat run loose in spring, you prevent its misalliance and pick a mate worthy of her. So far, so good: you refuse to give Sylva to this ape man, and you are certainly well advised. But what other mate do you offer her instead?

  That’s where the trouble started. I could think of two or three handsome chaps in the village. And I became aware that, far from satisfying me, the thought of their mating with Sylva revolted me no less than that of the ape man, perhaps even more. An insistent voice took advantage of this to suggest, despite my opposition: “Well, then… what about you?… Why not?” Of course I rejected the suggestion but it would obstinately return, so that in the end I had to face it squarely. Except that I put myself in the position of a spectator. I imagined the respectable Albert Richwick lying with a fox bitch whose only human characteristic was her anatomy, indulging in a beastly copulation with an anatomy for the sole purpose of stilling, deep inside a creature without mind or soul, a mere impatience, a blind hunger, a carnal itch. Repulsive! All in all, the business was less repulsive with a cave man, much less.

  Did honor and wisdom command, then, that I should leave Sylva in the arms of that gorilla? Wouldn’t he, after all, be the best match for a fox-woman? Weren’t they made for each other, spurred by the common savagery of their primitive natures? Made to suit and understand each other without need of words, destined to mate in innocence? Hadn’t that heavy-jowled oaf sensed that no woman could fit him so well, could give him more happiness? And what about her? I asked myself, and the answer was so obvious that it stabbed me like a dagger. She too would never find a companion better attuned to her state. She too had guessed it with the sureness of her instinct: male and female, a fox and his vixen, nothing more, nothing less. It was their truth, it could never be mine.

  Well, then? If so, could I part them? Had I a right to? But revolt again overwhelmed me, a revolt of the senses no doubt but one which, as I gradually perceived, pushed its roots to much greater depths, to strata of my mind that were still clouded with shadows. Yes, I gradually realized that to abandon Sylva to the wretched Jeremy might possibly spell happiness for her, but would certainly be a betrayal. I could not dig deeper than that. The feeling that I would be betraying something very precious in her remained an overriding presentiment, though it did not yet light up with any intelligible meaning. I would be betraying her, but in what way? Certainly not in her fox nature. Nor in her chances of happiness. Where then, I kept wondering, where then, betrayal, is thy sting? But I could not find an answer and once again felt irritated and on edge.

  And suddenly this inner agitation resolved itself in a pressing urge that was most singular in the circumstances: an urge to be among people. As if I could find the answer to that irritating question in contact with other human beings. I have always been a recluse. I go to town as little as possible; people normally tire and annoy me; more often than not they make me uneasy. I feel vulnerable amidst them and have only one desire: to be back among my books in the snug silence of the old manor. And suddenly this solitude amid the wind-swept gorse, the fields around me, the nearby forest and all this vast vegetable kingdom were oppressing me! I had the dim but powerful feeling that if I could not find an answer to my self-interrogations, the fault lay above all with this luxuriance around me, this immense burgeoning of inarticulate life and my own isolation in it-infinitesimal mankind dissolving in the welter of this blind and triumphant sea of proliferating vegetation which sided with the gorilla against me. So long as I was deafened by this elementary exuberance, I would be unable to hear a human reply. I got up, left the melancholy ruins and made for the hamlet. There I borrowed a trap from a friendly farmer who agreed to drive me to town himself. Wednesday was market day in Wardley; there would be no lack of people. Half an hour later I was str
olling amid the crowd, or rather adrift in it like flotsam carried by the sea, by its heaving and tossing, by its ebb and flow loud with the drone of surf breaking on the shingle. I no longer thought of anything. I was looking.

  Ears. Necks. Fuzzy hair. Chests straining under jerseys, others heavy and limp, wobbling like jelly. Brick-colored faces, faces the color of turnips or potatoes, two cheeks stretched tight like red marble, a chin burgeoning as if in spring, a nose like a knife stuck into a pear. Breath, shouts, laughter, groans of strain, sighs of weariness, a vast smell of meat warmed by the sun that floated above this shambling jostle, big sudden eddies beginning to liquefy like turning mayonnaise, then just as suddenly thickening again, whisked together by the reflux. I felt stifled. Once again I was flooded by the same nauseous obsession of organic proliferation that I had fled from; I had merely exchanged one surfeit for another, and whether animal or vegetable it still was on the gorilla’s side against me. All I could see in this welter of human flesh was a blind, limp lurching toward obscene agglutinations, a bestial heel-kicking until four walls and nightfall would bring it carnal release in a vast fornication. I thought of an article I had read in The Times a few days previously, expressing alarm at the growing population of the globe, which had doubled in fifty years and would be tripled again before the end of the century. Meat, meat, apes, apes everywhere! There was nothing to look for in this swarming genesis; this human glut could not give me the answer I needed.

  I felt so depressed, so disheartened, that I walked into the first public house I came to, sat myself down in the barroom in a deep leather armchair shiny with wear, and ordered a whisky, then another. I dimly felt that I was making a mistake somewhere, since in spite of everything the idea of leaving Sylva to her pithecanthrope left me with that feeling of betrayal which I could neither banish nor admit. How many whiskies did I drink? I do not know. Nor how much time I spent, sprawling in the armchair with closed eyelids, in the fumes of alcohol, subjected to an endless procession of lewd pictures which I did not even have the strength to dismiss.