Vamireh

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  XVII. The Relatives

  Swiftly running animals—red deer, fallow deer and elk—were arriving fearfully on the edge of the river and crossing over. They formed considerable herds, prey to a herbivorous panic. Their number increased as dusk fell, horses and a few urus mixed in with them.

  Startled by this strange flight, Vamireh searched in vain for a simple cause: fire or migration. He stopped paddling. Elem murmured incantations. The animals’ gallop increased. Wolves, jackals and foxes joined in with the deer, the cattle and the horses. The shaking of the undergrowth revealed the passage of smaller animals: hares, polecats, marten and potters. Finally, the carnivores appeared: lithe panthers and lumbering bears. In the distance, monkeys—scrupulous sentinels—sounded cries of alarm, and that clamor ran through the treetops like a storm-wind, crossing the river and expanding into unknown regions.

  A beautiful night was promised—there was no threat of storms, no symptom of bad weather—but the flight of the animals, like some elemental prodigy, stirred up ominous expectations in the minds of the man and the woman. All their voices, in the serenity of the sunset, were vibrant with enormous dread. Sowing the contagion of fear, Vamireh did not perceive it as the fear of animals before nature, but as the fear of creatures before other creatures: an exodus of vanquished races, the discouragement of a species confronted by the dominant species.

  He was, however, obliged to take measures against the extraordinary threat, to guard against the possibility of their being crushed by the blindly stampeding herbivores as they continued to run through the darkness. Vamireh spotted a little island where ash-trees were growing in the middle of the river; he directed the canoe to it and lit small fires there, thus putting them out of immediate range and in an excellent position to see everything.

  Neither he nor his companion thought of going to sleep after their meal. Upstream and downstream, the flow of animals had ameliorated. Some risked crossing the river, others were following the banks—and the second maneuver had the curious particularity of operating inversely in the two directions; the animals downstream were heading downstream, while those upstream were heading upstream, as if they were fleeing the area of the forest that terminated almost exactly opposite the island.

  XVIII. The Worm-Eaters

  The worm-eaters were marching in the direction of the Great Lake. Although generally dreary, their foraging took on a certain gaiety at the beginning of each stage. They scattered then and, the morning pickings remaining individual, exclaimed over good finds, childishly showing off their booty of truffles, snails, sugary umbellifer-roots or bittersweet fruits.

  Beneath the long black tufts of their hair, with their jutting muzzles and the disposition of a few clumps of hair on their cheeks, they bore a closer resemblance to some kind of dog than an anthropoid ape. Their short arms, their rounded torsos and the vague barking of their laughter completed the analogy. There was, moreover, a legend circulating among the brachycephalic tribes that a race of dog-men must have existed in the Far East, gradually destroyed by true men, the descendants of the water-beast, the sole legitimate possessors of the Steppe and the Forest, the River and the Great Lakes.

  Playing thus amid the vast tree-trunks, chasing one another through the bushes with their bellies overfull, their backs bent, sometimes trotting on all fours, they retained the instinct of orientation that guides migratory animals. Their language was reduced to a few sounds signifying fear, joy, hunger and thirst; the rest was animal miming, and also occult communication, the empathetic flow of terror or anger.

  The elders were guiding them, without ferocity, two of them commanding an advance guard of scouts while another—the oldest—brought up the rear. When crossing the territories of large predators, the leaders brought the cohort together with sharp cries. Then, with clubs at the ready, a surprising courage and solidarity allowed them to confront a bear or a leopard without trembling.

  In the afternoon they collected the common provisions, which they ate in the evening before going to sleep. Each of them carried his portion of the booty without biting into it. The division was made next to a stream or a spring; they ate and drank soberly, and then they all went to sleep, worn out by their journey, their dreams as vague as those of a lion or a wolf growling in its sleep.

  They went on. The damp forest poured its shade over them. Grave and puerile, their attention continually strayed, their poor laughter switched on and off like will-o’-the-wisps floating over marshes. Their life proceeded in short bursts of emotion, sketches of thoughts, the artifices of abortions at the breast, in lineaments of memories and anticipations. Whether the rain bathed their hard skulls, the wind whipped the napes of their necks with cold lashes, the thorns made their feet bleed, or parasites by the thousand burrowed into their epidermis, they accepted it. An entire heredity of resignation had accumulated in their skulls.

  Through the ages, ever since the advent of the men with long arms, they had ceased to progress; they stayed as they were. There was no longer any future for them; the vast Earth disdained them, and yet, Life exhausted its means, hardening their epidermis, raising fleeces on their breasts, sliding layers of fat around their bellies. The circle of rival races became ever tighter, though, and these poor human antiques would certainly not outlast the carnivorous beasts, for they had been disarmed by the long crisis of transition in which muscular strength had been solidified and altered in accordance with the adaptations to the external world made by the brain.

  In the semi-darkness of the undergrowth, they had companions in exodus to which they were not accustomed to do any harm: numerous groups of fallow-deer and jackals heading southwards, or swarms of rodents heading eastwards. They replied to the trumpeting of the placid eastern elephants and little wide-mouthed horses whose military herds crossed their path with long cries.

  On the night of the second day of their journey, the chief was sleeping in his hut of branches, the nocturnal fire was about to go out and the squatting tardigrades9 were huddling together against the cold, when a sentry’s cry brought the entire company to its feet. The word designating a lion ran around, and a great terror caused teeth to chatter. As the chief gathered the strongest, however, they huddled together, cudgels raised.

  The redoubtable silhouette of the lion came into the firelight and paused momentarily before the war-cries of the humans. Whether it had failed in its hunting, however, or preferred the flesh of primates to that of other kinds of animal, it crouched down, executed a prodigious leap, and fell upon the company. They had retreated, opening their troop according to an ancient strategy, and more than 50 clubs rained down on the beast’s skull, muzzle, eyes and spine.

  The lion moved sideways, reared up on its hind legs, and felled four enemies with three thrusts of its claws. The others, animated by the battle, became more audacious, their clubs falling more rapidly upon the bloody nostrils, and the Hercules of the group broke the beast’s paw with a single blow before ten other blows paralyzed the hind legs.

  Vanquished, the lion tried to flee; rendered ferocious, however, the worm-eaters would not permit it to do so. They rushed it all together, and while some held the feline down, the others attempted to kill it. They did not succeed in that immediately, and were subjected to terrible thrusts, but in the end, the chief having thrust his club into the depths of the gaping mouth, the lion began to choke. Savagely and vindictively, they finished it off.

  It transpired that two companions had lost their life during the adventure, and that five others were grievously wounded. The dead, extensively mourned, were deposited in the bushes, and the wounded cared for attentively. At dawn, when they resumed their march, the worst-affected were carried. In spite of their losses, the tardigrades were not without pride at having defeated the redoubtable antagonist once again, and they carried their clubs joyfully, exchanging gestures of triumph and confidence.

  The forest seemed better to them. Their bare feet bounced off the ground more rapidly, their unbowed stature became al
most vertical and their poor eyes shone. Underprivileged as they were, there was no doubt that, had victory only been possible, an expansion of vitality would have enlarged their skulls—but their victories remained confined to the animal world. Like a material pressure, like a ligature about the arteries or a degeneration of the lungs, the fear of the brachycephali shriveled them up, immobilized and annihilated them, even from afar—and the circuit of their ideas was limited to that of their habit, either because they dared not think about what they could not accomplish, or because they were unable to think about what they had not accomplished.

  About halfway through the day, the advance-guard of 15 men abruptly fell back. They were in an interminable oak-wood. Everyone was hunting for truffles; wild boar were abundant, fleeing before the travelers, and legions of avid flies were buzzing around the truffle-hunters’ heads. Going back and forth, pausing to dig, the advance-guard had spotted a family of anthropoid apes.

  It was rare for apes to attack the worm-eaters, especially when there were no females in the column; on the contrary, a sort of fraternity animated the great apes, and the tardigrades had found them precious auxiliaries against bears and cats.

  A council was held. It was decided to send a small delegation to the men of the trees in order to assure them of their peaceful intentions. That delegation, carefully monitored, attracted the attention of the anthropoid apes with cries of joy and benevolent gestures. Bewildered at first, they soon seemed to recognize allies; they signified that by means of grave gesticulations, and advanced slowly. A few minutes later, the two companies were united. The worm-eaters offered a meal of truffles, stoned fruit and edible leaves. The men of the trees accepted these things with pleasure, for their dietary regime was identical to that of the tardigrades.

  Afterwards, the two disinherited races remained silent for some time, observing one another. Their nature appeared to share a common foundation of melancholy, but the melancholy of the great apes seemed heavier than that of the tardigrades, as if it were proportional to muscular strength and the amplitude of the torso. The humans, therefore, were the first to start laughing and the first to start playing, while the apes remained serious and meditative. One of them, however, was stirred by a distant memory inspired by the analogy of circumstances. It launched into a laborious explanation. Leaning forward, the tardigrades listened without being able to understand, but the memory appeared to plant a seed in other anthropoids, and they joined in with the first.

  The confusion only increased until one of them took it into his head to pile up twigs and to indicate the dancing of flames. Then the worm-eaters understood that they meant fire, and, full of pride, the chief drew the necessary spark from two pieces of dry wood. When the light came, the darting of yellow tongues among the blue spirals, the men of the trees remained fearful and alarmed for a time, while the tardigrades laughed out loud.

  There was a gentle communion of pariahs on the frontiers of animality, a reciprocal pleasure in finding out more about one another’s consciousness, and a curiosity as to the progress each had accomplished in the disposition of matter. They parted as friends, the tardigrades heading eastwards and the anthropoids southwards, after a mutual exchange of gifts; the humans had given clubs to the apes, the apes had given eggs stolen from the highest nests to the humans.

  The separation only took place after three hours, when the worm-eaters saw the first symptoms of the flight of the animals that had made Vamireh so anxious. At first, they were the ordinary occupants of the habitat—red deer and wild boar—so the tardigrades did not worry unduly, but a few hours later, they saw their companions in exodus, the fallow deer, moving in considerable herds. Then, seized with panic in their turn, they turned back.

  XIX. On the Island

  Elem and Vamireh were chatting in expectation of an extraordinary event. The Pzânn was able by now to understand and express the fundamental ideas of the language of the brachycephali, but, although he had questioned the daughter of the Orient intensively, she had found nothing in her memories that might clarify the situation. Her superstitious skull entertained ancient legends of the “water-beast” chasing all animate creatures out of the forests in order to fill them with humans. The animals had been saved by the “horned elephant” that reigned over the mountains. The “serpent”—the rival of the water-beast and the enemy of humankind—had opposed it with the disgusting creatures that ate worms, which the sacred tribes were annihilating…10

  These things had little appeal to the nomad’s mind, and even caused him some revulsion. Did not humans live on flesh, and would the savannah and the forest not be miserable places without animals? Then again, he could not imagine an invisible beast! His doubts shook Elem’s beliefs, although she continued to murmur the appropriate words, in order to obtain the protection of religious practice for herself and her lover—and that was how it would be until the day she died, and longer still if destiny granted her children, for mystical things, though slow to be born, are like the pigmentation of skin or the form of skulls, which only Time can transform or annihilate.

  Leaning over the river, they waited for darkness. It was slow in coming. The dusk retained a glow that was weak and dazzling at the same time, doubled by reflection. In that glow, the banks seemed very distant, and, with respect to the forest, like a frontier of dawn set against eternal darkness. Fleeing animals were moving there, their black bodies outlined in vivid streaks, rounded or inflexible spins, hairy or smooth, their heads long and slender or large and broad, the pointed antlers of the red deer, the palmate spread of the elk, the undulating mane of the horse, the supple and serpentine trunk of the elephant, the heavy humped back of the bear…

  When darkness finally fell, the trees and the river slowly engulfed by the shadows, there was an observable pause. Becoming rarer by the minute, there were soon no more than slow animals, vermiform insectivores or carnivores fleeing the nearby habitat. The attention of Vamireh and Elem increased then, and they perceived a rumor similar to the howling of wolves or the plain of jackals.

  Almost at the same moment, a considerable company of worm-eaters appeared on the shore. They seemed harassed, bent double, and covered in mud and blood. They were carrying numerous wounded individuals in their arms. Confronted with the impossibility of crossing the river with the latter, their distress increased. Rearguard scouts continued to emerge from the woods with every passing minute, with gestures of alarm, but no one budged. No one could think of crossing the river without the wounded, and many of them were preparing their clubs stoically for a last stand when Vamireh leapt into his canoe and headed toward them.

  The troop he had encountered four days earlier recognized the blond giant and manifested their joy. The others, worn out by fatigue, watched the man approach dazedly. He touched land and made signs to indicate that he could transport two wounded men in his canoe. Those who remembered him obeyed him; the others passively trusted in chance.

  Vamireh made 15 trips; by then, all the wounded were on the island, and the others swam to join them. Vamireh shared his provisions with them. He killed three fleeing fallow deer with arrows, and a little wide-mouthed horse. The reassured worm-eaters went to fetch the prey, and skinned them rapidly, according to the tall nomad’s indications.

  Vamireh, saddened by Elem’s disgust, felt sorry for them. He hastened to dress the wounds of the injured, and showed all of them where they might shelter for the night—for the worm-eaters curled up to sleep immediately after the meal. Then Vamireh rejoined his companion in observation at the other tip of the island.

  They talked in whispers. Elem proposed that they should continue upriver that very night, but Vamireh objected that tree-trunks carried by the current after the previous night’s storm would break the canoe. He also objected on behalf of the worm-eaters, who were under his protection. She resigned herself, and took up her well-protected place in the canoe, covered by a bearskin. For his part, he remained awake, feeding the fires. He finished skinning the animals
he had killed and cutting them into quarters, which he then cooked in order to preserve them.

  The darkness had invaded everything. He could scarcely make out the two banks of the river. From time to time, he listened more attentively. The rumor, previously capricious, sometimes coming from the right and sometimes from the left, became more distinct. Sometimes, too, it faded away but always became audible again, at a closer distance. A slight wind rustled the leaves; the firelight was reflected from the facets of the waves; at intervals, there was the splash of a diving body and the breath of a swimmer, then silence and solitude beneath a clear and starry sky, with no Moon.

  Eventually, a human silhouette appeared at the edge of the forest and moved confusedly through the shadows. Almost immediately, there was a low undulation, as if made by hundreds of bodies, and a tempestuous racket of loud barking, reinforced by echoes: a flood of life and noise breaking the silence of the Darkness.

  Having distinguished the voice of the dogs of the great sterile plains, Elem, alarmed, ran to Vamireh’s side and murmured a word that the Pzânn did not know. The worm-eaters also woke up, and all of them, in the firelight, came in search of the nomad. Tall and serious, he attempted to pierce the shadows, to take account of the threat that was making Elem and the tardigrades tremble.

  During their slow retreat, the worm-eaters had been attacked by the dogs. Ordinarily, the animals respected the ancient humans, whose migrating bands passed through the canine villages. On several occasions, however, the Asiatics had made use of their quadruped allies to track the wandering tribes, and, fearing a battle of that nature, the worm-eaters had retreated rapidly. On the way, they had encountered other groups of their own kind, with the result that their number had increased to several hundred. They had defended themselves strenuously and had almost always succeeded in driving back their terrible enemy, when, half a day from the river, after a long rest, they had been attacked again. The number of their assailants having further increased, they had suffered considerable losses in that last battle. Then, convinced that their adversaries were moving slowly, guided by the Asiatics, they had hastened their retreat. Having arrived at the river’s edge that evening, frightfully wary and burdened with the wounded, they had fully expected to die, when Vamireh had saved them.