Vamireh

by J. -H. Rosny aîné

  Eyrimah wanted to get down from her stone and continue on her way, in search of a village. But another shape was outlined on the bed of the torrent—a slow and ponderous form. A bear was walking in the moonlight. Standing up on its hind feet, it walked thus for some time, a beast at play, and then fell back with a broad sweep of it head. The stones and the Moon appeared to amuse it; it rolled pebbles and rolled over itself, presenting its belly to the Moon.

  The young woman, paralyzed by fear, did not move, following the animal’s casual game with her eyes. Then the bear became suspicious of its solitude, exploring the surroundings with its nostrils. It caught the odor of flesh; two minutes later, it had discovered Eyrimah’s retreat and began to climb the rock. It lost its footing at first and fell back, but at the second attempt its claws gripped the ledge.

  The girl’s screams, and the small stones she hurled at its muzzle caused the dim-witted and playful beast to pause, but not for long; it began to hoist up its formidable bulk, and at halfway had already eclipsed In-Kelg’s frail lover when a stone struck it in the chops and a voice from down below called out, in the language of the mountains: “Come on!”

  The bear made haste to descend, growling, then weighed up its adversary. It was familiar with humans and mistrusted them, not only by virtue of the mistrust transmitted by an animal to its descendants but by virtue of having been wounded itself in a fight. It therefore went away, unhurriedly, sometimes turning its head toward the aggressor. The latter, a tall, grim mountain man, shook his lance, annoyed by that retreat, and threw stones at the beast, arrogantly shouting: “Come on! Come on!”

  The insulted bear stopped, and the man persisted in provoking it by throwing stones at it. “Come on! Come on!”

  The bear came. Obscurely enraged by the challenge, perhaps it felt the need to demonstrate that it was courageous and dangerous. Some distance away, the bear reared up on to its hind feet; approaching in that manner it looked like a gigantic human. Then there was a vague annoyance in the man, and in beast and man alike an apprehension of the taciturn adversary—and in the beast, a fear mingled with the confused instinct that its species was to be annihilated by the prodigious strength of humankind. Stones cracked by frost, rain and the violence of the torrent, full of sharp-edged holes and clefts, surrounded the scene. In three places valleys were visible in which oak-trees fleeced the gentle slopes. Eyrimah, grateful, praying, loved the tall blond kinsman who was challenging the monster. She found in him the instincts of heroism that were stirring within her, a nobility that the thickset lacustrians never attained.

  “Come on, then! Come on, then!”

  The slightly tremulous words vibrated on his lips like a learned bravado, a pride alimented by the tales told in the evenings, hatred of the last two livestock-thieves, the bear and the wolf, and a rivalry not yet extinct in the echoes of his savage soul.

  The bear spread out its forepaws, distended its claws, and opened its maw. It showed its redoubtable fangs, in a hateful laugh. The man thrust with his lance, twice, but missed the bear both times.

  Eyrimah’s convulsive muscles were too taut for her to move. In the horror of the moment, everything seemed to her to have come to a standstill; she could scarcely distinguish the bear from the surrounding rocks, whose breaches and sharp projections also seemed to be the maws of monsters full of avid fangs. The great lance thrust for a third time, though, sinking into the beast’s throat, and the duel turned in the man’s favor. Eyrimah, surrendered to anguish, collected herself, while the bear, in frightful agony, broke the ash-wood shaft. It seemed to tear itself free, however, vomiting up the sharp point, and fell upon the man, embracing him savagely. A blow from a bulbous bludgeon, which the mountain man was holding in his hand, caused it to recoil.

  There was a pause.

  The mountain man’s chances had decreased, the lance having been the best, the only means of fighting the bear. He would not admit defeat, however, and, sacrificing his life, he lifted his axe, carved from Alpine rock but unpolished, and shouted: “Come on! Come on!”

  The beast did not move forward. Blood was running from its lips over its fur, but the wound could not be deep or dangerous. A dull fury, mingled with dread, shone in its poor eyes, and as the mountain man amplified his bravado, the bear turned tail and fled.

  Eyrimah had come down from her rock and placed herself at the man’s side. When the beast had gone they both sat down and, breathing heavily, rested without saying a word.

  Through an open breach, a vale extended beneath the moist light, and it was as if a light snow were settling on the brushwood, on the pine woods and on the corners of rock. The two young people gazed at it, gradually recovering from their emotion, but not yet daring to speak.

  Eyrimah found her companion young and admirable; he thought her agreeable, surprised that she was of his race even though she wore a linden-fiber tunic. A tender desire overtook him, further excited by the recent struggle and the solitude. He smiled at the blonde girl, and leaned over her gently. She smiled too, full of gratitude and trust. Then he leaned more insistently, and kissed her fresh lips. She struggled, wounded, but he squeezed her harder, holding her in his strong hands like a little bird, murmuring tender words, with a smile that was sensuous and determined.

  There was a madness, a fear clouded by sadness and weakness, a vague struggle against the instinct that floats like submarine vegetation beneath the multiplicity of being. Amorous appeal mingled with resistance, concern for In-Kelg with panic abandon: a whirlpool of the soul swallowing, pell-mell, the polished corollas of modesty and the red fruits of desire, as her whole being rose up like a river in flood.

  Deep down, by virtue of the troubled impulses of her will, In-Kelg prevailed. An abrupt energy having detached her, she took three rapid strides; then, seeing that the man was not following her, she waited for him to speak. As he remained silent, she begged him, telling him in badly ordered words about her captivity, her desire to be put in the hands of women.

  Unmoving, he listened to her in profound astonishment, and his response was benevolent, for the pale maiden had captivated more than his flesh. She understood that by the humble tone of the man’s voice, and they walked side by side, without fear.

  The sound of the trumpets was still spreading through the mountains. He explained that the war was against the lake-dwellers. She told him about her escape, her hope of being adopted by the mountain tribes.

  After an hour, they reached a cluster of huts on a plateau protected by rocks. A large fire was burning on one of the rocks, maintained by women and children. The young mountain man called out in a loud voice: “Dithèv! Hogioé!”

  Two young women came forward, surprised to see the unknown woman in the linden-fiber tunic. The man told Eyrimah that Dithèv and Hogioé were his sisters and that his name was Tholrog.

  Hogioé took Eyrimah by the hand and led her to one of the huts. The fugitive was astonished by the poverty of the dwelling, doubly lit by the Moon and a pine-wood branch that Dithèv planted in the earth in front of the door. It was not the little familial world of lake-dwellers, with furniture and pottery, separated into rooms, with wardrobes and floors, but merely a round space with large unpolished stones for seats and earth underfoot. The walls were, however, ornamented with furs, ibex horns and weapons.

  In sum, in spite of the impression of savagery, liberty and a return to her childhood, Eyrimah was disappointed. Hogioé and Dithèv, tall girls, noble in their attitude, did not have the apparent subtlety, the prompt dexterity and the confident gestures of the lacustrian brunettes. Dull and slow, their generosity could not expand to the lacework of ceremony; the dishes that they offered Eyrimah, coarse and abundant, were piled up in front of her, and were almost all of meat, accompanied by a few pine nuts.

  While she ate, and drank the pure water of Alpine springs, her fortified heart swelled. She threw herself into the arms of Hogioé and Dithèv, and suddenly, in the returned caress, sensed her powerful race like a grave history
contained in song.

  She wept, sobbing the story of her captivity, her flight, the loss of In-Kelg, the dream enlarged by her journey, by the mountains, the sheer slopes, the peace of the sky, the slumber of the wind and the anguish of danger. The two tall girls held her close and, in answer to a profound instinct, let her weep, feeling sad themselves, their lips tremulous.

  Tholrog came in. The maiden’s affliction made him anxious. One does not let guests weep; the roof is cursed under which a stranger’s tears flow—but Eyrimah’s face appeared through her hair, and her smile strayed over the clarity of her features.

  Hogioé told Tholrog that the young woman had a heavy heart, but that she was content with her welcome. He was still vague, desiring the maiden ardently, like a tree that is preparing with all the sovereign skills of love, in the secret swarming of its roots, the harmonious network of its branches and the manufacture of its leaves, the precious vases of its flowers.

  Anxious and breathless, he took her to a fire where men and women were listening to a robust old man. Hogioé and Dithèv kept her between them. Tholrog sat down facing her, eager for the sight.

  The man who was speaking looked at her for a long time. He was Tholrog’s father, renowned for reading faces. In the capricious light, shadowed by smoke, the pale and sensitive girl suddenly astonished him, and he admired her in silence, with the presentiment of patriarchs before beings who surpass their time. His large long head, with its mane of hair, turned toward his son. “This one’s heart has spoken!”

  Tholrog went pale; he dreamed of winning Eyrimah by the death of his rival, and by his exploits. She had a soft smile for his father, and the old man’s majesty sympathized with the young workman’s proud spirit, at an interval of half a century. Excited by her youthful presence, he resumed talking to the men and women gathered around the fire, and Eyrimah, attentive and delighted, far from the active and unemphatic lacustrians, heard a story to make the mountain tremble.

  III. The Massacre

  Wet through, full of bitter resentment after his fight with Rob-Sen, Ver-Skag remained sitting on the platform where he had climbed back up. The night, the moonlight on the lake, the charm of things steeped in a radiance more delicate than sunlight, which made the Earth seem a watery kingdom at the bottom of a limpid ocean, the soft breeze and the distant profile of the blue-tinted mountains with vast shadows set up a unique vibration in his head, amplifying his lust for vengeance, his need to make the bones of a human creature cry out, to experience the ponderous and profound sensuality of a massacre. It did not take long to bring forth the idea that he had nurtured as soon as he saw the mountain men. To cut their throats would avenge the theft of two cows, of which he accused them. It would put Rob-Sen in the wrong to unleash war, for Rob-Sen represented the party of peace. Finally, amid the disorder, a poisoned arrow might strike the colossus.

  He got to his feet, and consulted his grim instinct. Vanquished at first by custom, dread of sorcerers and the fear of failure, a ruse soon came into his thick head like a glow-worm in a bush—a very small, quite simple glimmer of light in the opacity of his brain—and a smile of prideful and idiotic joy spread across his ferocious features.

  Slowly, he walked through the village, knocking on the doors of houses. He soon assembled 20 men, and explained to them that the mountain men had come to spy on them, and that if they were permitted to come down from the mountains like this, in small groups, there was nothing to prevent them from taking possession of the village one night and cutting the throats of the defenseless warriors. Besides, had they not fired an arrow at the village? The enemy’s audacity would only increase in response to such mildness!

  They all thought as he did, because they belonged to the ferocious party, retaining the dream of their ancestors, a politics of strict reprisals. Each of them ran in search of supporters. When they were 50 strong, they ran through the village uttering cries of alarm. A crowd emerged from the houses. With loud cries, feigned anger and an eloquence skillful in sowing suspicion and fear, Ver-Skag and his allies exasperated the perfidious instinct of the multitude, his madness partly simulated and partly real. The women immediately set up a dastardly clamor, demanding the blood of the mountain men, reproaching the menfolk for having favored the enemies of their race.

  Rob-Sen and a few chiefs of his party, trying in vain to mount an opposition, were elbowed aside and threatened, and Ver-Skag, at the head of the most ferocious, raised his polished axe over the head of In-Kelg. He stopped in response to the cries of lacustrians opposed to the murder of one of their own—for they were behaving like ants in the same formicary—but he led everyone toward the bridges.

  The murderous frenzy carried away the human flood, and those that were calm at other times, were caught up in the whirlwind, furiously brandishing their favorite weapons—axes, stone clubs, oaken bows and flint-tipped arrows.

  Rob-Sen and his allies, however, had gone to the bridges and were holding them, unarmed servants to the fore, then the free men of the party, and then the chiefs, of which Rob-Sen was the most powerful in stature. The mob demanded passage, without daring as yet to touch the chiefs—but Ver-Skag struck one of the servants with his fist, and they all howled like dogs at the Moon, the threats becoming more distinct and the circle of hatred closing further.

  Armed with his lance and club, Rob-Sen, abruptly presented himself. Everyone recoiled. The chief declared his intention to prevent a war that was cruel and unnecessary, since the high plateau and gorges where the blond men lived were of no use to the lake-dwellers. A colossus, whose muscles calmed resentments, he added wise words regarding the need to be at peace with the mountain folk, in order to conserve their strength for use against invaders of the great western lakes. He and his allies had been preaching that politics for a long time: union among the lacustrians of the center; alliance with the mountain tribes. He spoke on the bridge, softly but forcefully. Charmed by his vigor, astonished by his prudence, conscious of the superiority of his foresight and his courage, the crowd fell silent, as a herd of hinds falls silent when the stag bells.

  A murmur of admiration and regret replaced the shrill squealing and the furious demands when young In-Kelg, a symbol of the beauties of the race, set himself beside his father, his eyes sparkling—but Ver-Skag, and those who had fingers avid for fresh blood, saw that they would be lost if people listened to the colossus, and one of them, known for his eloquence, accused the foreigners at some length of having intended to set fire to the village. His anger, his feigned indignation, his clever allusions to the objects of old quarrels and the play of his physiognomy reanimated the crowd’s rancor and thirst for blood. Ver-Skag and ten of his cronies were already marching forward, axes raised against Rob-Sen, when Vi-King, the priest, interposed himself.

  He stood there, in the fading moonlight, an effigy of the old fantastical race. A troubled dream, the pride of a being who reckons with occult powers, the cruelty of nerves refined by excessively gentle climates and an intolerance of prompt syntheses quivered in his smile, in his dark, flat eyes, devoid of melancholy or gaiety, upon his brow, rigid and tempestuous, and in his hands, which were making sacerdotal gestures. He spoke as the law, as the species, as a voice of the collective will, a genius animating the crowd. His sole reservation was that it was necessary to exterminate the mountain folk to the very last man, in order that none of them could spread the news of the murder.

  Rob-Sen was still opposed, but two more priests joined Vi-King, and the encouraged crowd, becoming impatient with the obstacle, growled and protested. Finally, the other chiefs stood aside. Only In-Kelg remained rebellious. Although the adolescents, on the whole, were in favor of the great adventure, he did not cease hurling invective at the crowd. His father silenced him, though. Both were frowning deeply, the chief in anticipation of the war against the western lake-dwellers, the young man furiously opposed to futile murder, and also anxious about Eyrimah, whom Ver-Skag might perhaps overtake as she fled.

  Meanwhile,
as the mass of warriors, women and children were surging forth pell-mell on to the shore, Ver-Skag sent out his most able scouts and swiftest runners; then, as the crowd was noisy and disorderly, he demanded silence, in order to take the enemy by surprise. They ran then with panting breath, all with the same fixed smile on their features, dark silhouettes possessed by a ferocious dream, their brains accustomed to bloody sensuality, the children as caught up as the rest of them in the toils of the drama. Silently running beneath the Moon, bathed by its soft light, they advanced toward the terrible unknown.

  They continued thus for an hour, and came close to a little wood of oaks and elms. There, grouped in a circle around Ver-Skag, they became drunk on his hatred, increasingly haggard and frenzied, brandishing weapons whose weight in their hands gave them courage. The scouts Slang-Egh and Berg-Got soon came back; they were seen from a distance making signs of victory, and when they drew close to the chiefs they said that the mountain men were camped a short distance away under the trees, that they had lit a fire there, and that they were all asleep save for one watchman.

  A silent rage swelled their heads; women and children prepared flint daggers for horrible tortures, and they discussed recipes for murder and means of prolonging agony: black practices infused in the blood of the race by torrid sunlight and sacrifices to fetishes and brought to flower, like venomous plants, in the rich soil of human fury.

  Slang-Egh and Berg-Got divided the troop into two companies, of which they would each guide one, while Khan-Ut, the infallible archer, would go on ahead to the mountain men’s camp.

  As they came ever closer, the latter’s sentry became anxious. Moving a little further away from the fire and his recumbent companions, he scrutinized the darkness. Just as he raised his arm in a gesture of surprise, Khan-Ut’s arrow penetrated his rib-cage at the location of the heart. He could only utter a dull croak.