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.
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.