Sylva

by Jean Bruller

  But in the afternoon, giving the watchful Nanny the slip, she disappeared; and we found her where we went without the least hesitation: at the dog’s grave. She had already removed almost all the earth. She did nothing to prevent my putting it back, while Nanny clasped her to her breast and kissed her. She watched me finish with a kind of motionless and absorbed attention.

  Once again she let herself be taken away quietly, and at home she played as usual, bolted down her dinner and, no sooner put to bed, went to sleep. In the morning, she went to fetch the dog where she normally found it, tied up in the yard. We had followed her. At first she seemed surprised at finding the chain abandoned, sadly sprawling on the ground. We then saw her move toward the spinney behind the outhouses, where we had buried her friend. Nanny wanted to run there, but I held her back. It seemed to me that we ought to let Sylva go to the very end of her discoveries.

  When we joined her a little later, she had indeed unearthed the dog but had not touched it. After a day underground, it looked rather atrocious; attacked by ants, moles and carrion beetles, it already resembled an old, worn, moth-eaten goatskin, stained moreover with bloody excretions. The smell was beginning to be almost unbearable. Sylva looked at the carrion with impressive immobility. I walked up to her, put my arm around her, said gently:

  “You see, he is dead.”

  Since I had let her go so far, I thought I must also teach her the word. I did not clearly think at that moment that the experience of death is essential to the formation of the human mind; let us say that I had a more or less conscious inkling of it. Sylva did not take her eyes off her unfortunate playmate. She began to tremble, very faintly but incessantly. It was rather like a long, interminable shiver. I hugged her closely against me. At last she asked, with a sort of difficulty, as if she found it hard to make use of speech:

  “No more… play…?”

  I said with as much gentleness as I could command, “No, my little Sylva. Poor Baron no more play.”

  Sylva shuddered even more intensely. And then she wrenched her eyes from the pitiful body and rested them on me. It was not a questioning look. It was more like a keen, curiously sharp scrutiny. Like a deep meditation on the meaning of the human face. I let her look at me, without saying anything, not daring either quite to smile or to show too grave, too sad a face. I returned her gaze with tenderness, but she wasn’t looking at my eyes. It was my nose, my lips, my chin. And in the end she asked, but her voice was flat and toneless:

  “Bonny too, no more play?”

  I burst into subdued laughter, soft rather than loud, a laugh just meant to banish this quaint fear.

  “Why no, Bonny will still play. Bonny isn’t dead! He is very well. He will play with Sylva every day!”

  Most unexpectedly, this answer seemed to make her cross. She jerked out of my arms as if to stand aloof. She repeated, more imperatively:

  “Bonny too, no more play?”

  I believed at first, however astonishing it may seem, that she meant to order me to mourn for her friend. Yes, for a moment I thought that the idea of playing when Baron was dead seemed to her revolting. It was obviously a stupid thought, when applied to a little soul still so close to an animal. But on the spur of the moment I answered:

  “Not at once, of course. You are right.”

  With even greater surprise I saw her stamping her foot with a movement of childish impatience—the exasperated movement of a child whom the grownups refuse to understand. And her whole face twisted with irritation but at the same time was marked with such anguish, such torment, perhaps such terror, that when for the third time she almost shouted, and her voice broke: “Bonny too, no more play?” I understood at last, understood with poignant certainty that what she wanted to know was whether some day, some day like Baron, some day “Bonny too” would play no more, nevermore.

  At the stage we had reached, I could hardly back out. Nanny was making frantic signs, her eyes imploring, for she had understood as well as I, and her sagging cheeks were quivering with distress. But I shook my head. Come on, I thought, some courage! And I said as quietly as possible, as untragically and unemotionally as possible:

  “Yes, Bonny too, some day… but a long, long time ahead! So long it’s not worth thinking about,” I added quickly as I saw Sylva’s eyes widen.

  I was not having any illusions about the effectiveness of this “long time” which there was so little chance she could understand. And besides, there can be no possible softening for a revelation like this. It has to be received, accepted and digested in its cruel totality.

  Sylva opened her mouth at first. She opened it wider and wider and suddenly, nervously, she laughed—but with that laugh which I have already described as more like fright. And then the laughter disappeared and only the fright remained. And even so great a fright that for a moment she gasped for breath, like a newborn baby.

  When at last she recovered her breath, I thought that—still like a baby—she would start to scream. And she did scream, but she was screaming words, an incessant “Don’t want! Don’t want!” with such agonized grimaces that her sweet, fresh, triangular face assumed a simian ugliness, all crinkled and crimson. She was screaming and stamping—and then abruptly she stopped. She passed her forearm upward over her face, which had suddenly too gone limp and pale—so limp and colorless that for a moment I was afraid she might swoon. She passed her arm twice or three times, sweeping her delicate, blenching fox-face and brushing back the red locks that were falling over her eyes—eyes alive with panic, fixing me intently as if I too was going to die there, at her feet, like a dog.

  That at least was what I thought—what I thought she dreaded at that moment. But her thoughts, what must henceforth be called her thoughts, now that they were on the move, were ravaging her little fox-brain with such speed that they had already reached the conclusions when I still thought they were all mixed up, when I still supposed them to be just about to be born in rending pain. So she brushed back the rebellious red wisp with her arm for the last time and in an indescribable voice, a murmuring, broken, hardly intelligible voice, she said as if in a sigh, while her eyes at the same time grew dim, “And Sylva… ?”

  Chapter 26

  I CANNOT continue this story without a certain emotion. Even if, at the second when Sylva uttered her name, and in uttering it understood, realized that she must die; even if in that cruel, fascinating second I had not been seized by the indubitable, coruscating feeling that she had just undergone a second metamorphosis, less miraculous perhaps on the face of it than her physical transformation, but so much more fraught with consequences, with deep-scarring stigmata; even if I had not told myself that at that moment, at that very second, there before me, she stood transfigured for the second time, that she was shedding forever her unconscious, carefree and happy foxish nature to take the first frightened steps into the shadowy sphere, the tragic, doomed, nocturnal, boundless, cursed and sublime sphere of man’s revolted questioning of his gods; even if this illumination had not burst upon my brain at the very second when that of her own perishable and incomprehensible condition burst upon hers—even if I had thaught of none of this on the spur of the moment, Sylva’s behavior would have forced these thoughts upon me without delay. For I may really say that at that second, from that second onward, everything changed forever.

  She had murmured, “And Sylva… ?” and I had not dared reply.

  Did she even expect an answer? Wasn’t her question an answer in itself? She said, “And Sylva… ?” and looked at Nanny. Looking at her rather than at me, she sensed, she guessed that she would encounter a weaker defense.

  And indeed, before that look in her eyes poor Nanny weakened; she could not hide her commotion and her pain. She held out her arms to Sylva with dismayed pity and affection. But far from running to her, the young girl jumped backward. She stared from one to the other of us with something like hatred. Her mouth opened, but she did not know any words of abuse. So she spun around and fled.

&n
bsp; She did not go far. She stopped abruptly as if dazed, as if she had come up so hard against the sky, the horizon, that she had almost bumped her head against them. She passed her forearm over her brow, turned away, ran off again, through the orchard; this time she really collided with a young apple tree and slumped down like a bird stunned by a windowpane, got up again almost immediately, darted off in a third direction where thick dogwood shrubs hedged in the orchard, ran straight into them head on, dived into them like a ball, swung around among the twigs and once more collapsed in a heap. She gathered herself up slowly, without rising to her feet. And at last renouncing these aimless escapes, she remained in her shelter, huddled and motionless, like a sick hare.

  Nanny wanted to run to her but once more I restrained her. The ordeal through which Sylva was passing was not of those that another can share. On the contrary, I motioned her to follow me and we walked away. From the upper story of the manor one could see the hedge down below where Sylva cowered. We ourselves stayed behind a window, in the linen room, keeping an anxious watch on her. Nanny kept blowing her nose, although with such studied discretion that it would have made me laugh at any other time. But I did not feel at all like laughing. Night was falling lazily. I began to be afraid: such immobility! Considering how long it lasted, might it not be that she had fainted? Just then—due to the cold, perhaps—we saw Sylva stir. She dragged herself out of the bush, got up, seemed to waver for a long time. Then, to our relief—Nanny was squeezing my arm till it hurt—she came tottering back toward the house, in the misty twilight.

  We ran down to the living room to welcome her. Had we been wrong to switch on the light? She did not come in. We saw her figure pass outside the window and turn toward the farm. I motioned to Nanny to stay where she was and crossed the hall. When I got outside, Sylva was standing before the shadowy archway that leads to the inner courtyard; she seemed to be waiting, as if she found herself facing not an archway but an impassable wall. Did she see me? Or was it some noise, the chain shaken by the surviving mastiff, a cackling goose, the cluck of a hen? Was this familiar sound more than she could bear in the state she was in? I saw the motionless figure come to life, glide suddenly toward the front of the building, streak like a silent ghost along the wall with its shaky shutters and, just as soundlessly, disappear all of a sudden, as if swallowed up. The stable door, no doubt!

  I dashed through it after her. The two horses and the donkey stirred nervously in the solid darkness. It took me a few seconds to accustom my eyes. In the corner formed by one wall and the tool shed I thought I could make out a squatting shape. From close by it turned out to be a saddle on a block. I searched for Sylva in vain; she must have slipped out by the front. Where could I trace her now?

  I turned back to the house. Nanny was no longer in the drawing room. I called her. I could hear footsteps in the corridor upstairs. They fell into a run, so that I ran too, bounding up the stairs. The somewhat winding corridor branches off on either side. I stood and listened: no further sound. Instinctively I turned to the left where our rooms were. The door to Sylva’s stood open. Inside, Mrs. Bumley was standing all alone, before the bed, with a numbed look. The pillow was lying across the bed, its bottom corner a little uplifted, as if someone had been rummaging under it. As she heard me come in, Nanny turned her head.

  “She has gone, with her two-pronged bit.”

  While I was searching the stable Nanny had heard the front door open and close again. She had first thought that it was my return, but the lightly mounting steps on the stairs, their nimble swiftness, could not be mistaken. She had immediately hurried upstairs, but what with her old legs, you see, and her tired heart… On the upper floor in the corridor not a soul, nor in Sylva’s room. The pillow in disarray. Nanny had then run toward the back staircase, the one that leads down to the pantry, just in time to hear down there a soft, patter of steps, a door slamming. She had dashed to the small bull’s-eye window, and in the intermingled glow of the rising moon and the fading twilight she had seen a slender silhouette run away in the direction of the woods.

  What was she to do? Nanny could not dream of pursuing her. She had slowly gone back to the room. And suddenly, goodness knows why, had thought of that precious bit. When I arrived she had just made sure it was not in its usual place, under the pillow.

  What could I do? I wondered in my turn. I thought I understood the last attempt, the last hope of this quite new soul against the ominous destiny in which she found herself caught. Just as a despairing old man seeks in his childhood memories a vain remedy for his decrepitude, so my little vixen, with the help of her swallow-tailed sheet anchor, was fleeing from death toward her forest of the perennial present, toward the impossible refuge of her lost unconscious. What could I do? I kept repeating to myself.

  At any rate, it was too late for an organized search. And where was one to look for her? In Jeremy’s shack? The thought struck me suddenly, brutally, in an upsurge of hate and fury. And for a moment I pictured myself and the farmer’s son saddling the two horses, riding through the forest by torchlight, trampling the gorilla under the stallion’s hoofs, and carrying my damsel off on my crupper with savage joy. This imaginary ride soothed my nerves, I overcame my fit of furious jealousy, and with returning calm recovered my feelings of tenderness. Jeremy? Oh, let her, I thought, let her for the last time, if she wants to and is still able to, find with him the candid young animal joys that have been spoiled forever. Grant her this last favor—a last feast for the little vixen in her state of innocence, a last blaze of sinless pleasure.

  We went to bed early and I spent a very bad night.

  As usual in the case of insomnia, I fell at daybreak into such a heavy sleep that I could not tear myself out of it. Yet somebody was trying to wake me. I felt that it was being done as gently as possible. But as is also usual with those belated slumbers, I could not manage to open an eye without at once closing it again, pulled down to the depths by an enormous, nauseous hand. Gradually, however, I extricated myself from this sticky slime. When I had at last recovered my wits completely, I found myself in Sylva’s arms. She had come back! Shock, joy, relief and gratitude made me sit up straight with a jerk.

  A weight against my chest pushed me back toward the pillow. Sylva was holding me in her arms but her head weighed on my breast. She was not asleep. A hand was kneading my shoulder with a kind of nervous tenderness. I heard her sniff softly. I hoisted myself up as best I could. I took her head in my hands, lifted it, turned her pointed face toward mine.

  The look in her eyes!

  It was unrecognizable, and I experienced such surprise, such a commotion rather, such deep and almost rapturous excitement that it can only be called a revelation. Hitherto I had seen quite well that Sylva’s gaze, her narrow, fixed eyes gleaming with mineral brilliance, had always hovered on the surface, never had any background. The eyes fastened on things with a kind of sharp grip which yet remained vague and distant, and they would detach themselves in the same way, without having really weighed them, questioned them.

  Where have I read that there are two kinds of women’s eyes: those that look at you and those that let themselves be looked at? There is a third kind: the look of the feline’s eye, which does not offer itself but takes, never touching, never lingering, never caressing. Two attentive emeralds glowing with an icy fire. I realized that in her most affectionate, intimate moments, those most laden with warm curiosity, Sylva had never ceased to have those eyes, eyes behind which things might perhaps happen, but in deep darkness, without ever reaching the surface.

  Whereas now—whereas the eyes now resting on mine! They were no longer eyes that only saw, they penetrated, bored into mine, as if they, in turn, would have liked to discover an answer, a secret. I had actually seen that look in them once before, two months ago, when she had recognized herself in the mirror, but it was a look of such short duration, so quickly averted, forgetful, forgotten… And even then it had not reached this intensity, the deep concentration, the
pathetic introspection that it presented at this moment as it rested on me with such rapt attention, brimming over with feelings of such heaviness.

  I was pressing her face between my hands. I was saying, “You’ve come back.” I do not know whether she could understand what lay behind those softly spoken words, if she could guess or feel all the tenderness, the gratitude, the sadness, joy and sweetness that they contained. She did not answer. She simply kept her eyes on my lips which had spoken.

  I repeated, “You’ve come back,” and then I began to kiss her gently on her forehead, her eyes, all over her face. She let me. I kissed her as one kisses a tenderly loved woman, and she let herself be kissed like a woman, her head thrown back a little, dangling, abandoned, and as I thus kissed her like a woman I felt an upsurge of emotion close to the tears of a mother for her cured but still fragile child, of a lover for his mistress on the eve of a long separation. Not for an instant did I think of a vixen or even wonder if there did not, after all, remain something of a fox under my lips. No, I never thought of it, I only thought, She’s come back, with an immense tenderness, a poignant gratitude, and I kissed her with the infinitely gentle warmth of a wistful gladness.

  I said, “You were not cold last night?” and she shook her head without ceasing to look at me.

  “Not cold,” she said after a moment.

  I hesitated for a long time before I asked her, “Where were you?” But perhaps she did not understand or else she did not want to answer. She simply looked at me, with that meditative insistence which, since my awakening, had pierced my heart with an almost painful delight.

  And then she murmured, “Bonny.” She uttered that ridiculous nickname, nothing else, but in a voice that was so new to me, with a tone of such anxious trust, like a lost child or one that had been found again, that I pressed her face more tightly, nodding as if to say: “Yes, yes, darling, I am here…”