by Jean Bruller
Sylva
Jean Bruller
From the return of Jimi Hendrix, as witnessed by a hero-worshipping spaced-out roadie, to the death of Christ as witnessed by a time-traveling tourist, from the end of the universe to the creation of a new one, these are stories about martyrdom, salvation and apocalypse.
Nominated for Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1963. A very rare case of a translated novel being nominated for an American SF award.
Sylva
by Vercors (Jean Bruller)
Part One
Chapter 1
MY name is Richwick, and if I answer to the Christian name of Albert it is out of pure courtesy, for I hate Albert and would have liked to be called Bruce. Anybody can look up my birth certificate at Somerset House in London, in the register for 1892, a leap year, under the date February 29th. I am giving these particulars to enable the incredulous to assure themselves, if they wish, of my existence.
I was born in Richwick Manor and my paternal grandmother brought me up, both my parents having died in a hunting accident deep in the Ardennes forest, where they had been invited by the Baron Antoine van Werpen (a near relation, as everyone knows, of the Dutch royal family) . My mother, who was born in Antwerp, was a second cousin of the Baron, whom my father used to supply with stock-bred—i.e. semiwild—foxes. People have often attributed to this Belgian ancestry certain apparently Continental traits in my character, such as—according to my friends—an immoderate liking for statements of principle and for Byzantine arguments. After the death of my parents the stock breeding was abandoned, and my grandmother had the fences pulled down and the animals scattered. I grew up with her in the manor house, a lonely old place isolated from the world, in the midst of fields and woods. When I was old enough to ride to hounds, she passed away, and with her dying breath she made me swear that I would never hunt. I gladly complied, for the stories she had told me together with my parents’ death had left me with a loathing for this bloody sport. My principal pastime, therefore, apart from my work—I manage the farm—was reading.
Ever since childhood I have lived among books. They have formed my character. As far as one can know oneself, I would describe myself thus: I am a good Christian, though doubtless from habit, since my faith lacks vigor. From what I have read I have not gained a high opinion of mankind, despite its supposed mental powers. It shuns stern truths and welcomes flattering errors. The prophets were only human, so how can I be sure that they did not err in interpreting their divine revelations? Nor do I trust churches and men of the cloth any more than philosophers and scholars. Only one artifact seems to me to deserve adherence, and that is the least reasoned and humblest one, yet also the oldest and most enduring: tradition. And with tradition, decorum; and with them religion; and that is why, even without much belief in its dogmas, I do remain faithful to it. It makes for a gentler, easier life among men. It eschews violence. One cannot ask for more, I am sure.
I believe this more than ever since the strange experience which befell me and which I propose to set down today, though not for public consumption. Indeed, I have decided to let three decades pass before publishing these pages—a precaution prompted by elementary prudence. People will only believe in miracles consecrated by the Scriptures; they will refuse to admit a single one, even though it happen under their very eyes, unless it is vouched for by the authorities which they themselves have established.
It must not be inferred from this remark that I have some foolish leaning toward anticonformism. No, on the contrary: I think the existing state of society quite right and proper. I have intimated what great store I set by law and order, and if free thought became too widespread these would soon disappear.
And yet, what I have to tell is definitely a miracle, even though nobody will believe it. There might ensue, were I to publish this tale too soon, a number of unpleasant investigations into a certain person on the pretext of exposing me and my fantasies. In thirty years’ time it will be too late for such prying, and though the world will probably not believe me any more than now, the practical inconveniences of its disbelief will have disappeared, I hope, by 1962. Meanwhile, it is 1925, and I am thirty-three years old. Only last year I was still a confirmed bachelor, with occasional vague thoughts of marriage as I wearied of the short-lived involvements in which I became entangled, and as quickly disentangled, in London where I used to spend the winter months, at least whenever the farm could spare me. I toyed with the idea of marriage without much eagerness, I confess. One Monday in September, as I sat, a little bored, in the train that was taking me back to Wardley, I foraged in my suitcase full of books—I always bring back plenty of new ones from the bookshops around Charing Cross Road—and chose one by David Garnett that friends had recently mentioned with favor, praising its attractive and subtle humor. I was disappointed. That a young woman turns into a fox under the eyes of her poor husband was an amusing idea, and I accepted it with amusement. But the subsequent slow transformation of a well-bred lady into a wild beast seemed to me tedious and lacking in force and interest. I had, not long before, read Kafka’s Metamorphosis, just published in German. What a difference![1]
As can be seen, my feelings did not differ from what was, in fact, the fairly general literal judgment. The idea of taking this improbable story seriously, or rather literally, could hardly have come to a man of sound mind. It was not a long story; I had finished it by the time the train pulled into Wardley Station. I stuffed the book into my suitcase and promptly forgot it.
I swear the story never once crossed my mind again until one evening in the autumn when I was both witness and object of a similar adventure, though in reverse. I mention this to make it quite clear that neither imagination nor autosuggestion nor memory can have played any part in it. Garnett feels obliged to bolster up his story with all sorts of precautions and furthermore with a dozen trustworthy witnesses. Whereas I, for my part, cannot produce a single one, for a good reason. The reader must simply take my word for it.
Still, just as he can check up on my existence at the local registrar’s, so he can, if he likes, check the registers for the whole of England without finding any Sylva Richwick. Though everyone in the village has seen the girl out walking in my company many times, it is within the power of the most hardened skeptic to verify that, legally, she did not exist. I can provide no other evidence.
So, to the point.
The date is October 16, 1924. Dusk is falling, it is five o’clock. As usual, whenever the weather is fine, I am taking a walk in the woods of Richwick Manor, which once belonged to the family but had to be sold to pay estate expenses. I had reserved for myself the right to walk in it, though I was unable to prevent the land I had sold from being thrown open to hunting: there are still some stag there and a number of foxes, survivors of the past.
This evening I am walking alone—I always walk alone, but this evening, I don’t know why, the rustle of the leaves under my boots exacerbates my loneliness. Can it be that it is beginning to weigh on me? And yet, I could continue to walk untiringly if the last light of day were not fading fast. I am strolling slowly back toward the house, its calm and comfort already beckoning as I inhale the scent of moss and mushrooms. No, this lonely life does not weigh on me, I still love it as much as ever. I am happy, peaceful, infinitely calm.
I emerge from the woods. Another few hundred yards through the fields, a fence to cross, and I’ll be home. Just then I hear, from quite far off in the forest, the baying of a pack of hounds.
My dislike for the sport has only grown with the years. As soon as I hear the dogs I begin to hate hounds and hunters and all my sympathy goes out to the quarry. An ineffectual sympathy, unfortunately, for there is nothing I can do about it. Moreover, I don’t decline the gift of a haunch or saddle which is often brough
t to me—as the former squire, no doubt. And if the whole truth be told, I generally send the joint to the kitchen and don’t deny myself the pleasure of relishing roast venison.
On that particular evening, when I reached the garden gate which opens straight onto the fields, it was already dark. The clamor of the hunt seemed to be drawing near. It is extremely rare for them to go on so late, and they must have been following a very experienced beast. If it could evade the hounds long enough, there was a good chance it might get away under cover of night. From the bottom of my heart I hoped it would. I don’t know why it occurred to me (could it be, after all, the unconscious memory of the last hunt that ends David Garnett’s story, when the heroine is mangled by the hounds in the very arms of her husband?) to leave the little gate open, in the faint and rather foolish hope that the hunted animal might run to me for shelter. But the noise faded, silence fell again. The quarry—stag or fox—must have fled elsewhere. I entered the house and went into the kitchen to put the kettle on.
I was just about to pour myself a cup of tea when I thought I heard muffled sounds of barking. I left my tea, went outside, and found that the hunt had come quite close. And I saw, running out of the woods toward me, a superb fox, tired out by the chase, the hounds almost upon him. Had he seen the open gate? He was making straight for it. But it was a mistake to have shown myself, for at the sight of me he suddenly swerved and began to race madly along the hedge. I was distressed and furious; the hounds would get him and only my stupidity would be to blame. Forgetting the danger of a pack in full cry, and at the risk of being knocked down, I rushed out of the house, gesturing wildly, hoping to scare the animal and drive it back toward the gate. But the fox fled before me, searching for a hole in the hedge, frantic with fear, the yelping dogs hard on its heels. I covered my eyes before the horror of the spectacle. The hounds’ baying pierced my ears.
And suddenly there was silence. Or rather, a vast sough of breath, gaping and gasping. The hounds were around me, their heads averted. They turned this way and that in foolish, awkward uncertainty.
There was no fox. But protruding from the hedge, on the ground, a pair of bare legs. They were kicking. The rest of the body, caught in the hedge and slashed by the thorns, was trying to push through. One or two of the hounds sniffed at the feet, then moved away silently, their tails between their legs. But the horsemen were arriving. I had no time to stop and think or even marvel. I dashed out again, plunged forward, pulled the creature out of the hedge. It struggled to escape me. I felt the cruel bite of sharp teeth in my hand, but I flung myself on it with all my weight and pinned it to the grass. I heard the thudding of hoofs, shouts and questions, exclamations of surprise. It seemed to me that these lasted a long time, because of my struggle on the ground in the now complete darkness. The creature wriggled beneath me, and I had the greatest trouble holding it down. Actually, only a brief moment could have passed. I heard orders being shouted, the crack of whips. The dogs whined. The horses’ hoofs stamped the ground close to the hedge, a few feet from my ears.
When at last I could no longer hear a sound, I relaxed my grip. The creature did not move. It remained stretched out on its flank, exhausted.
I got up and looked at it.
It was a woman.
Chapter 2
AS I have said, I have no witness to this singular occurrence. I can only affirm that I was at least as doubtful as my most skeptical readers of what had just occurred before my very eyes. Even later, when there was no longer room for doubt, I relived over and over again in my memory each second, each sequence, in the course of which a hunted fox, within sight of my eyes, had suddenly changed into a woman. All I can say is that a faked substitution—to trick whom? for what purpose?—would be even more incredible, would require the invisible presence, right among the pack of hounds, of a prodigious conjurer. In any case, the subsequent course of events would render such an assumption even more absurd.
Not that it matters, anyway. What I intend to relate is not the phenomenon itself. I have said all there is to say about it; there is nothing I can add to my account. And if what went before was not a miracle, what followed happened nonetheless. The rest, after all, is of no great importance except to minds obsessed by metaphysics. Let them plague themselves with questions if that is what they enjoy.
In any event, there I stood on the lawn that occupies most of my garden, under the darkened sky in which the first stars glittered. I gazed down at the young creature, swooning and naked at my feet, who, though she might be only a fox, bore henceforth all the outward appearance of a young girl.
She was naked but covered with mud and bruises, stained with blood. I picked her up in my arms. She was slim and light. Her eyes were hidden under silky eyelids, tinted blue by fatigue and perhaps the cold. When I raised her she gave a start and drew back her chops—her lips—over small but very sharp teeth, with an instinctively threatening growl. That was all. She was panting, her breathing short and labored.
Holding her in my arms, I found myself exceedingly embarrassed. My first thought was to carry my prey up to the farm and entrust it to the farmer’s wife. But nobody had been present at the metamorphosis. What explanation could I give? Imagine my walking into the farmer’s house, bringing them a stark-naked girl, half dead with exhaustion, striped with blows and covered with bruises. What would they have thought? No, it was impossible. I must carry her into the house and hope that not a soul, near or far, would see me with my singular burden. Fortunately I reached the front door without impediment.
I climbed to the second floor, laid the girl down on my bed, and ran the water for a bath, seeking to confine my thoughts only to my actions, to wonder as little as possible. Meanwhile, a contrite voice within me paid tribute to David Garnett. I reproached myself, in petto, for my so-called common sense, my vulgar incredulity. There are more things, Horatio… There you go! Right away the great Will on your lips! Isn’t that like you, you bookish monkey! Try and think for yourself once in a while… I watched the hot water run into the tub and began to envisage the consequences of my adventure. Here you are with a woman on your bed as naked as on Judgment Day, but one who does not descend from Eve or Adam, with no birth certificate, without the merest beginning of a passport, the least scrap of an identity. What are you going to do with her? Who can you show her to? What can you tell the Home Office, the Immigration Department? Who’d believe a word of what you would say? It was much more awkward than a murder, I realized with a kind of terror. A man or a woman too few is reasonably easy to justify, especially a foreigner: he might have gone back to his country. But one too many! How can you explain that? I could see myself grappling with an enormous felony which, though the very opposite of a murder, was nonetheless an act of the same ilk, equally out of conformity with the law.
And a woman too many who was, moreover, in actual fact no more than a vixen. For she was nothing else, as she showed me without delay. When the bath was ready, I went to fetch her from my bed. She opened her eyes for a split second—her narrow, brilliant eyes. But she let herself be borne away. Extreme fatigue or a budding confidence? I was almost moved to tenderness, but as soon as she felt the water, her whole body gave a frenzied jerk, she slipped from my arms and struggled to get out of the tub. I was determined to keep her there. A battle ensued which I am not likely to forget. Within three seconds I was soaked from head to foot, and as I was dressed for autumn in corduroy and suede, I became as clumsy as a bear. She caught hold of my tie with her little jaws and would not let go of it. Fortunately I must have been roughly twice her weight and this, added to her great exhaustion, finally compelled her to give in. Perhaps, too, the warmth of the bath gradually filled her with its soothing gentleness. Whatever the cause, in the end she kept still. With a thousand precautions, I began to sponge her poor scratched body (so pitiful in aspect, truly, as to disarm all sensuality) and she lay quiescent. She only moaned faintly when the sponge touched her wounds. Her eyes were open but she was not looking at m
e. An occasional tremor hinted at an urge to flee; but I needed only to press her shoulder to restrain her. In the end, she must have felt such a sense of well-being that she closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.
I took this opportunity to get her out of the bath, wrap her in a big bathrobe, dry her and tuck her into bed. Then, while I was taking off my wet clothes and getting into a dressing gown, I got a glimpse of that famous duplicity, that Reynard cunning which I had so far known only from Aesop and other authors. As I suddenly turned around I saw that she was not asleep at all. On the contrary, she was looking at me with those narrow, overbrilliant eyes. A moment later she seemed once more sunk in a deep slumber. I concluded that she was waiting for the first opportunity to give me the slip.
It was at this moment that certain reactions, certain inexplicable feelings, began to stir in my mind. What more could I hope for than that she’d escape? She wanted to recover her freedom, her wild life? Well, do so, my girl! Go back to your forest! No more problems. Good riddance. That’s what should have been the normal effect produced on a reasonable man by this cunning, this transparent plan to regain her freedom. Yet that wasn’t what I was thinking, not at all. I told myself, on the contrary, that if she escaped I would never forgive myself. For if she tried to resume her wild life in the forest, I told myself, she would either die of cold or hunger, or would sooner or later be discovered by the gamekeepers, taken to the village and inevitably sent to some asylum where she would end her life in a strait jacket. I was the only witness to her birth as well as to her true nature; the only one, in consequence, able to understand her. This, then, I went on, dictates your duty, which is to keep her here, even against her will, to shelter her for as long as necessary.