by Jean Bruller
As soon as I released her, my lascivious vixen simply ceased mewing and even purring. She sprawled on the carpet, rolling about a little, softly rubbing her cheek. I looked at her from a distance and felt seething in me a strange mixture of desire and repulsion—one I had felt before, it is true, on several occasions but never with the violence of that night. Luckily for me, Sylva instantly dropped into slumber, like a very young child. She fell asleep with such animal languor, too, that the last fires died within me, leaving room only for tenderness. I took advantage of her abandon to make her take a bath. She gave no more than a little start when the warm water touched her, and continued to sleep. And I carried her, still asleep, to her bed. I had put a fresh chemise on her.
A long time ago I had lost the habit of praying, but that night I thanked the Lord for His assistance. I felt, without quite being able to explain it, that I had escaped from a particularly heinous sin. I remembered how insidiously temptation had overcome my senses while I was clasping in my arms my little vixen in human shape. Why, who’d know about it? I had said to myself. Not even she: you’ll pass in her like a sword through water, like a lizard over a stone, she won’t even remember it tomorrow… I thank Thee, my Lord, for having spared the sinner the shame of his own remembrance in the gray morning light of a nauseous awakening…
I went to bed in my turn. As often now in the middle of the night, I felt a weight, a warmth against me. This presence so close and tempting, roused again my senses and their sting for a moment. But I had recovered my self-control. Having resisted at the height of the tempest, I was not going to succumb on reaching the port.
Chapter 11
NEVERTHELESS, a disappointment lay in store for me the next morning. When she felt I was stirring, Sylva too woke up, yawned, stretched herself and finally jumped to the floor. And almost at once she was at the door again, scratching and sniffing. Then trotting around the room. Then looking through the window, whining softly.
“So you want to run away again!” I said to myself sadly. “Are you incapable, then, of the least memory… ?” To see what she would do, and knowing that the whole house had been locked up for the night, I opened the door. She almost knocked me down and ran along the corridor, but on the point of starting to descend the staircase she seemed to hesitate, slowed down and remained leaning over the bannister with an air of uncertainty and alarm, as if she were listening to sounds I could not hear. She remained thus for so long that finally I went to her. And she let herself relax against me, nuzzling her little face into my armpit as if to seek shelter there against the hardships of the world. I did not dare to move. But when at last I lifted her chin to look at her face, I saw a tear roll down.
I felt stirred by a deep emotion. Tears! The first tears she had shed! Hitherto she had moaned very often, whimpered sometimes, but never any tears. Was this the prelude to a change? Was it something to hope for or fear? At any rate, without a shadow of doubt, it was the sudden emergence of memory. As long as we had kept her imprisoned in the house all her instinct, as a wild animal, strained toward freedom. In the locked bedroom this morning, awakening, it was still this instinct—and this instinct only—which had flooded back and filled her entirely. But when I had let her out, when she had thought she could escape again to the forest, to her fox and her cubs, the memory of the day before must suddenly have surged up in all its cruelty. One could not otherwise explain, I believe, that she had so brusquely stopped short, showing her grief and those tears. For the first time, therefore, my little vixen had not automatically followed her unreflecting instinct, but had drawn the lesson of a misadventure like a sentient being. I did not, however, indulge in exaggerated illusions: this is the sort of memory, after all, which is not lacking in my dogs. I was moved and uncertain whether to rejoice or not.
I led her back to the bedroom—I did not have to lead her, she was sticking to me as she had done on the day of the train journey, as if she were afraid of losing me; and no words could have made me understand more clearly that since the forest was rejecting her, this room and I had now become her whole universe. Yet for many nights to come I would still hear her trot along the walls, sniff and scratch at her door, at the window. Any other behavior would have been surprising on the part of a creature who was still steeped to the core in atavistic independence. It would have been most surprising if the memory of her mishaps had not faded at times, in her savage soul, before the irresistible call of her native earth. Was it not already wonderful that I could now open doors and windows, at least in the daytime, without having to dread her escape? Fear of the unknown seemed to have succeeded the lure of the forest. Inside the house she would not now leave my side, any more than a puppy would. And when I came home from the farm I would find her behind the door, sitting cross-legged, waiting for me.
I felt calm and reassured at last. It never crossed my mind that this tranquillity might still prove deceptive.
Meanwhile, according to her promise, Dorothy had arrived on the Wednesday following Sylva’s return. As she got out of the pony trap which she drove herself, the first word she said was: “Well?”
I answered, “She is back!”
With a big smile, Dorothy passed the reins to the farm boy to take the trap around to the stables, and cried, “I told you so!” She was carrying a small traveling bag. “I have brought my things but is there any need now?”
I took the bag out of her hand. “You don’t imagine I’m going to let you go away again!” I exclaimed, and preceded her into the house.
We entered. She first warmed herself at the fire and then I said, “I’ll show you to your room.” We went upstairs. As we passed the door of my bedroom we could hear the noise of trotting feet, scratching on wood, impatient whining.
Dorothy stopped me. “Is that she?”
I nodded.
“Oh!” she said, “I’d love to see her!”
“Settle in first, then I’ll take her to you.”
“Oh no! Right now!” she said. She was so eager, her face alight with curiosity, that I could not resist.
“Stay there,” I said, and went to open the door. Sylva was standing behind it in her woolen shirt. Seeing I was in company, she gave a start and tried to run away. I held her back by the wrist. “Come on, come… don’t be afraid…”
Dorothy gently stepped forward, one hand outstretched, smiling exaggeratedly as one does for a very small child. Sylva watched her approach with fixed eyes. Her lips drew up, baring her sharp little teeth. And a deep snarl rose from her throat.
I quickly warned: “Don’t come closer!” There was no doubt that if Dorothy persisted she would be bitten. She must have realized it, for she swiftly pulled her hand back and looked at me with deep dismay.
“She is a little wild animal,” I said. “Give her time to get used to you.”
“Animals generally like me,” she complained, “and let me stroke them.”
I smiled. “It’s not quite the same thing. Didn’t you say so yourself last Sunday?”
“Do you mean… it might be… feminine jealousy?”
“Might be. It’s not impossible.”
Sylva never took her eyes off the newcomer, nor did she stop growling darkly.
A little later, when Dorothy was back in the living room with me, the poor reception she had been given still seemed to rankle a little.
“She is very pretty to look at,” she admitted. “But what a foul temper!”
“Go on! Complain!” I protested. “She has let herself be locked up unprotestingly. Have you often come across such meekness in a wild beast? Or in a jealous woman?”
“You defend her very well,” said Dorothy.
I did not take the hint (if it was one) and contented myself with smiling.
“What are you going to do with her in the long run?” she asked after a moment.
“As for that…” I said, with a gesture of ignorance. “The first thing is to tame her, isn’t it?”
“But isn’t she tame, since she
has come back? She seems very fond of you.”
“She is, but you have seen for yourself she knows only me. Apart from Mrs. Bumley, of course. I’ve got to make her more sociable.”
“Do you think you’ll succeed?”
“The progress she has made makes me hope so. If you had seen her in the first days! Why, just ask your father!”
Dorothy kept silent for a moment before saying, “That’s just it. My father isn’t very hopeful.”
“Why?” I said, worried.
“He says that she was born too old.”
I merely raised my eyebrows and waited for what was to follow.
“He says that if the basis, the groundwork of intelligence has not been laid in the earliest youth, between the age of two and six, it is too late afterwards. At the age of your… fox… he says you might perhaps train her like a cat or a dog, if as much.”
This coincided so exactly with my own fears that all I could manage to do was to show myself disagreeable.
“That’s what you’re hoping, I suppose?” I snapped.
Dorothy grew pale, then blushed, her lips quivering with anger too.
“What are you trying to say? Why should it matter to me? I didn’t make this lucky find in my garden!”
I felt contrite. It was true, what had I meant to say?
“Forgive me,” I apologized. “I don’t know what came over me—probably the fear that you might be right.”
“I don’t quite see why it should matter to you, either. This creature has no claim on you—nor you on her, for that matter.”
“The fact remains that I rescued her. I suppose this implies some duties. At all events, I can’t bear the idea of letting her molder in this savage state, without lifting a finger.”
“Just because of her anatomy? But if, in every other respect, she’s only a fox, after all?”
“If there is just one chance that she is no longer a fox, have I the right to neglect any means in my power?”
“But in that case there are plenty of educators, specialized institutions that know a lot more about it than you or even Mrs. Bumley.”
It was a curious thing: what I had so much wanted to talk about with Dorothy and her father was precisely this. And now this discussion was irritating me, I found it almost hateful.
“I have already explained to you,” I said testily, “that that is impossible for all sorts of reasons. But one reason will do. I can’t give any proof of her existence. I have no status in respect to her: I am neither her father, brother, cousin or guardian. By what right could I ask for her to be shut away?”
“You might just tell the truth—or almost: that you don’t know where she came from, that you found her roaming near your place in a pitiful state, that you gave her shelter and some care. But now you’re asking the public authorities to take charge of her.”
“It’s too late for that. The whole village believes by now that I have taken in my sister’s daughter.”
“The Board of Control is discreet. They’ll investigate—there’s no doubt about the result of their inquiries. Your objections won’t wash. My father could testify if you wanted him to. Why are you so set on it? You’re assuming an absurd responsibility without any reason.”
This was wisdom itself speaking, yet such a project went deeply against my grain. And I was annoyed with Dorothy for forcing me to oppose it when I was unable to advance any reasons that I could believe in myself.
I had asked Fanny to cook dinner for us. During the meal and after it both Dorothy and I avoided continuing this argument. We talked of one thing and another, of the lives we led, of our childhood memories. She remained oddly elusive on the subject of her stay in London. Being naturally reserved, I did not press her for confidences. Moreover, I feared that my insistence, apart from being rude, might only make her withdraw into her shell. Whereas her trustfulness filled my heart with gentle warmth. And hers too, it seemed. We remained chatting by the fireside till deep into the night.
At last I led her to her room and went into mine. Sylva was sleeping, rolled up in a ball, under the counterpane below the bed, as usual. She moaned a little when I put on the light, but without waking up. It seemed to me that, with Dorothy under my roof, it would have been bad form to share a room with Sylva, even in all propriety. I went to lie down in the room next door.
I found it hard to get to sleep. My feelings were mixed up and contradictory. Why shouldn’t we have more delightful evenings like this one? Why didn’t I marry Dorothy? Love? We were both past thirty; love is not indispensable for a happy union. And there would be two of us instead of one to bring up Sylva. She would be our foster child. But this idea struck against some obstacle that I could not manage to locate. As if I had sensed that the two women could never bear each other, get on with each other. That, sooner or later, I would certainly be forced to sacrifice one to the other. And that it would necessarily be Sylva. That was something I could not make up my mind to. Was I, then, going to sacrifice the prospect of a future filled with mellow, quiet happiness for the sake of this silly vixen? I had to admit that I would be acting like a fool. Come on, I told myself, stop driveling! Don’t think about it any more and go to sleep. But my thoughts continued their endless merry-go-round. I only dozed off at the first light of dawn.
I don’t know what Dorothy had thought about during the night, but in the morning she was more charming than ever, and in the kindliest disposition toward Sylva.
“Let me take her up her breakfast,” she begged me. “We have got to make friends.”
Together we fried some eggs and bacon and I walked upstairs behind her, at a distance but not too far away. I was not very sure of Sylva’s mood when, despite the appetizing smell of breakfast, she would see a woman instead of me.
I did not have to step in, but it was not a success. When Sylva saw Dorothy with the tray, she began to growl, and shouted: “No!” She wrenched the tray out of Dorothy’s hands and sent it flying, whereupon she picked up from the floor whatever she could of the eggs and bacon and went off to devour them under the bed, like a messy little animal.
“I am so sorry!” said Dorothy, contritely.
She helped me scrub the dirty floor. I was very annoyed, but with whom? Sylva or Dorothy? I watched the latter cleaning up; she really had a natural, simple grace. Would Sylva whenever crossed always fall back into her primitive savagery? Wasn’t I inviting an endless series of troubles if I persisted in keeping her?
Dorothy was mopping and I was looking at her profile, slightly banal but full of gentle sweetness under the very fair hair coiled in intertwining plaits. And I thought of my nocturnal reveries and told myself again that I would be a fool if I didn’t marry her.
When everything was clean she stood up and said, “You won’t punish her, will you?”
I protested, “If she were a child she’d be punished. You can’t overlook such bad behavior. She’d only start again.”
Dorothy was insistent. “If she gets punished on account of me she’ll bear a grudge against me for ages.”
I finally had to promise. Sylva stayed on under her bed although she must certainly have finished the crumbs of her meal. It was obvious that she was sulking.
“Let’s leave her,” said Dorothy.
We went down to the study and sat at the fireside. After a while I said, “Maybe you’re right. Perhaps I should hand her over to an institution.”
“There’s no hurry,” said Dorothy (which surprised me a little) .
She was smiling at me with trustful affection.
“I’m wondering whether the passage of time…” I began.
She interrupted me. “Wait and see. Mind you, in any case…”
She seemed uncertain whether to go on. I said, “Well?” and she continued:
“In any case—whatever progress she makes—to whom could you show her afterwards? You’ll have taken a lot of trouble for nothing.”
“What do you mean: to whom?”
“Well, I mean
, she’s not one of our sort.”
I suppose my eyes must have expressed my blank incomprehension.
“I mean you’ll only be able to present her as a freak,” she went on, a little crossly. “Not as a relative, or even a friend.”
“Why ever not?” I was amazed.
“Well, it would shock people.”
“For heaven’s sake, do explain!” I cried impatiently.
“She has a pretty skin, but it’s amber-colored. Her eyes are fine, but black as jet. Her eyelids are almond-shaped, and her cheeks like apricots…”
“Are you composing a poem or a still life?”
“In a word, she is an Asiatic, my boy. I suppose foxes must have come originally from Asia. She looks as if she were born in India or Annam.”
“With red hair?”
She pursed her lips ironically, and said, “Some misalliance, perhaps…”
I was rather taken aback. I had thought myself that Sylva had a vaguely exotic look, but not to that extent… If this were so, there would indeed be some rebuffs coming to me on the day I tried to introduce a “native” among the gentry. I wanted to get this straight at once. “Let’s go and see her,” I said.
We went upstairs again. We found Sylva asleep, snuggled up in an armchair, her face still smeared with egg. We could thus scrutinize her for a long moment; then we withdrew as quietly as we had come and I closed the door.
“You must admit you’ve exaggerated,” I said at once.
“You don’t agree with me?”
“I won’t say there isn’t a little something. But from there to…”
“Little or not, isn’t it too much already?”
“I didn’t know you were so particular,” I said with astonishment.
“Me? I adore Indians—Gandhi, Krishnamurti, Tagore… But everyone in his place, don’t you think?”