Sirius

by Olaf Stapledon

  Before the lorry came to transport the last load from Garth, Plaxy had opened one of the cases and taken out some bedding, towels and so on. She dumped the remaining crocks and pans into the one empty case. Together they made a list of essential furniture which must he fetched back from the store and sent to Tan-y-Voel. When the furniture removers returned, they were mildly annoyed at the change and the confusion, but Plaxy used all her charm, and they duly delivered the goods at the cottage.

  Even a two-roomed cottage takes some settling into, and Plaxy spent most of the following day arranging their new lite. She brushed out the two rooms, scrubbed the stone floors, cleaned the grate, improvised blackout curtains for the little windows, and bought such stores as were possible in war-time. In the evening Sirius returned from his work to find a smiling home and a smiling though rather exhausted Plaxy. The table was laid for her supper, and on the carpet beside her chair was Sirius's customary "tablecloth" and bowl. Sirius had two distinct styles of feeding. In the wild he fed wild, on rabbits and hares and so on; in the house he was given porridge, soup, bread-and-milk, bones, crusts of bread, cake and a good deal of tea. At one time it had been very difficult to buy enough to feed him adequately, because of the rationing system; but Thomas had pulled wires and secured a special ration for him as a valuable experimental animal.

  After the meal, when Plaxy had washed up, they sat together on the couch that had been rescued from the old home. They had been gay, but now a sadness settled on them. Sirius said, "This is not real. It is a very lovely dream. Presently I shall wake up." And she, "Perhaps it will not last long, but it is real while it lasts. And there is a rightness in it. It had to be, to make us one in spirit for ever, whatever else may come. We shall he happy, never fear." He kissed her cheek.

  They were both tired after the day's work, and very soon they were yawning. Plaxy lit a candle and put out the lamp. In the next room her familiar bed was awaiting her, and on the floor was Sirius's old sleeping basket, a vast pan of wicker containing a circular mattress. Strange! They had been brought up together, child and puppy, sharing the same room; and even when they were grown up she had been thoroughly used to undressing before him without any self-consciousness; yet now, unexpectedly, she was shy.

  At this point I cannot resist pausing to ask the reader a question. Does not Plaxy's momentous decision to give up her career and live with Sirius need some explanation? Here was a young woman of outstanding charm, with many admirers, and one of them her accepted lover. She had taken up a teaching post which she filled with distinction, and in which she was finding a good opening for self-expression. Suddenly she gave up her work and practically broke off relations with her lover in order to join her life with the strange being who was her father's most brilliant creation. Does it not seem probable that the underlying motive of this decision was the identification of Sirius with her father? Plaxy herself, now my wife, scorns this explanation, holding that it does not do justice to the power of Sirius's own personality over her. Well, there is my theory, for what it is worth.

  On the morning after the occupation of Tan-y-Voel, Plaxy began her apprenticeship on the farm. She cleaned out a pigsty, harnessed the horse, loaded muck into the cart and unloaded it on the manure heap. She also helped Sirius to attend to a sick sheep on the moor. Towards the end of the day she put in some hard work on the wilderness that was meant to be the cottage garden. In such style, with variations, the days passed. Her face took on the healthy glow that delighted me when in due season I discovered her. With mingled distress and pride she watched her hands go blistered, grime-ingrained, scratched, cut and hard. Mrs. Pugh taught her to milk. Pugh himself taught her to broadcast a field with oats, while the instrument which she insisted on calling the "sowing machine" was out of order. Always there were countless nameless jobs to do about the farm. Her main function, she said, was to save Sirius's teeth, which were beginning to wear down with too much gripping of wood and iron. So far as possible he confined his attention to the sheep and the super-sheep-dogs, but there was no end to the number of small unexpected tasks which really called for hands but could most easily be disposed of at once by his own clumsy jaws. On the farm premises he was always, in spite of his painfully acquired skill with those unsuitable instruments, too pitifully handless. But on the moors he was in his clement. Plaxy greatly enjoyed the expeditions into the hills with Sirius and his canine pupils. Bounding through the bracken, he was a storm-tossed but seaworthy boat. Trotting around, giving orders to his pupils, he was a general and his charger all in one. When a sheep broke away and had to be retrieved, he would streak after it, belly to earth, like a torpedo.

  In this new life there was almost no leisure, no time for reading, music, writing. Contact with the world beyond the hills was at a minimum. Expeditions to sheep sales were rare excitements. On these occasions both Sirius and Plaxy would accompany Pugh, she as Pugh's unofficial land-girl. The bustle, the babble of Welsh voices, the clamour of sheep, the variety of human and canine types, the social atmosphere of the pubs, and of course the young men's unconcealed admiration of this bright and humorously self-important, this forthcoming but rather queer land-girl (not in uniform)--all this Plaxy vastly enjoyed as a change from the seclusion of the farm.

  Apart from these infrequent excursions, social intercourse was to be had only on expeditions to the village, and on visits to neighbouring farms to borrow or lend tools, or simply for friendly intercourse. Often Plaxy would tidy herself up and revert as far as possible to the gay young lady; and it was with deep peace of mind that she walked through the fields with the great sinewy beast at her side. With a careless, queenly self-confidence she accepted the inevitable admiration of the young farmers and shepherds, and sensed their puzzlement over her indefinable oddity.

  After she had been with Sirius for several months, however, something happened which spoiled these social occasions for her. She was made to realize that, though she was so popular with many of the local people, there were some who were outraged by her living alone with the man-dog. Increasingly it was made difficult for her to be unselfconscious with Sirius in public. And her observed shyness with him fomented the salacious rumours.

  The trouble began with a visit from a local nonconformist minister. This earnest young man took it upon himself to save Plaxy from damnation. He was simple enough to be impressed by the notion that Sirius was inspired by Satan, and he listened to the rumours of perverse relations between the dog and the girl. As the cottage lay within his sphere of responsibility, he felt it his duty to intervene. He timed his visit well. Plaxy had returned from the farm to prepare supper, and Sirius was still at work. Plaxy foresaw a late meal, but she treated the Reverend Mr. Owen Lloyd-Thomas with friendly ease. Indeed she made a point of being sweet to him, knowing that his good opinion counted. After beating about the bush for some time, he suddenly said, "Miss Trelone, it is my difficult duty as a minister of the Lord to speak to you on a very delicate matter. It is believed by simple people in the neighbourhood that your dog, or Mr. Pugh's dog, is not merely an extraordinary animal but a spirit clothed in a dog's flesh. And simple people, you know, sometimes go nearer to the truth than clever people. In spite of all the wonders of science, it may really be less false to say that the dog is possessed by a spirit than that it is just the work of man's scientific skill. And if it is indeed possessed, then perhaps the spirit in the dog is of God, but perhaps it is of Satan. By their fruits ye shall know them." He fell silent, cast a self-conscious glance at Plaxy, and fell to twisting the brim of his soft black hat. At last he continued, "It is felt by the neighbours, Miss Trelone, that for you to live alone with the animal is unseemly. It is believed that Satan has already snared you through the man-dog into sin. I do not know what the truth is. But I believe you are in danger. And as a minister I offer you advice. Change your way of living, even if only because it is an offence to the neighbours."

  According to the reverend young man's reading of womanly nature, Plaxy should have
blushed, either with innocent modesty or with guilty shame. If indeed she was guilty, then she might be expected either to confess with tears of penitence or to deny with self-righteous and unconvincing indignation. Her actual behaviour disconcerted him. For some time she just sat looking at him; then she rose and silently moved off into the minute larder. She came back with some potatoes, and sat down to peel them, saying, "Excuse me, won't you, I must get the supper ready. We can talk while I do this. You see, I love Sirius. And to leave him alone now would be unkind. And it would hurt our love, because it would be a running away. Mr. Lloyd-Thomas, your religion is love. You must surely see that I can't leave him."

  At that moment Sirius appeared in the doorway. He stood with his nostrils moving, to catch the smell of the visitor. Plaxy stretched out her arm to welcome him to her, and said. "Mr. Lloyd-Thomas thinks we ought not to live together, because you may be Satan dressed up as a dog, and perhaps you have taught me to live in sin." She laughed. This was not a very tactful beginning, but tact had never been Plaxy's strong suit. It is possible that if she had not made this remark their whole future would have been different. Lloyd-Thomas flushed, and said, "It is not good to jest about sin. I do not know whether you have done this thing, but I know now that your spirit is frivolous." Sirius moved over to her, and she laid a hand on his back. He was still analysing the visitor's smell. She felt the hair on his back rise against her hand. A very faint growl made her fear lest he should go wild. He advanced half a pace towards the cleric, but she clasped him round the neck with both arms. "Sirius!" she cried, "don't be silly!" Lloyd-Thomas rose with careful dignity, saying, "This is not a good time for us to talk. Think over what I have said." In the garden he turned, and saw through the open door Plaxy still holding Sirius. Girl and dog were staring at him. She bowed her head to the dog's head, and laid her cheek to it.

  When he had gone, Sirius said to Plaxy, "He smells as if he were in love with you. He smells a decent sort, really; but probaby he would sooner see you dead than living in sin with me; just as McBane, I suspect, would rather see me dead than fail to squeeze every drop of information out of my body and mind. Morality and truth! The two most relentless divinities! I'm afraid we're for it with Lloyd-Thomas sooner or later."

  Lloyd-Thomas's sermons began to have obvious references to Plaxy and Sirius. He prayed for those who had been snared into unnatural vice. Some of his congregation were very receptive to the new minatory trend of his services. Little by little, among those who had no personal contact with Plaxy, there grew up a considerable movement of censure and indignation; and also anxiety, for would not the Lord punish the whole neighbourhood for harbouring the wicked couple? Fresh rumours seemed to sprout every day. Someone claimed that he had seen Plaxy swimming naked in a lonely llyn with the man-dog. This harmless story developed into unpublishable accounts of dalliance on the turf while they were basking in the sun before the bathe. A boy also reported that one Sunday he had peered through the hedge at Tan-y-Voel and seen Plaxy lying naked on the grass ("black as a nigger, she was, with the sun"), while the dog licked her from head to foot. The patriots and spy-hunters were also roused. It was affirmed that Sirius's panniers contained a radio-set with which he signalled to enemy planes.

  Sirius's friends ridiculed these stories, or indignantly reprimanded those who spread them. Plaxy was still able to do her shopping in an atmosphere of friendly attentiveness. There were, however, a few unpleasant incidents. A village girl who worked for Mrs. Pugh on the farm was forbidden by her mother ever to enter Tan-y-Voel; and after a while she ceased to come to Caer Blai at all. Sometimes, when Plaxy entered a shop, conversation between shopkeeper and customers would suddenly cease. Some young hooligans, apparently in the hope of collecting evidence for scandal, haunted the spur of the moor overlooking the cottage. One evening, just before black-out time, a bold lad crept up to the window and peered into the lamp-lit room. Sirius with ferocious clamour chased him out of the garden and half-way to the main road.

  These little incidents were of no great moment in themselves, but they were significant of a spreading movement of hostility. Plaxy began to be reluctant to go to the village. Both she and Sirius grew suspicious of callers. And between them there developed a rather tense emotional relationship, which alternated between reserve and tenderness.

  Hitherto they had lived very happily. Their days were spent in hard work on the farm or away on the moors, often in cooperation upon the same task. Plaxy found a good deal to do in the cottage itself, cleaning and cooking, and there was always work in the little vegetable garden. The evenings they sometimes spent with the Pughs or at one or other of the neighbouring farms, where music often formed the medium of social intercourse. The musical Welsh were at first hostile to Sirius's own unconventional creations, but his singing of human music won their applause. And in a few houses the more sensitive were becoming interested in his distinctively canine modes. But under the influence of scandal these social occasions were reduced. Far more often Plaxy and Sirius spent their evenings at home upon household chores, or singing in private the strange duets and solos that Sirius still occasionally conceived. Sometimes they would spend their evening with books. Sirius still took a deep delight in listening to prose and poetry read aloud by a good human voice. Often he would persuade Plaxy to read to him. And not infrequently he would suggest subtle modifications of tone or emphasis: for though his own reading was inevitably grotesque, his sensitive ear had detected many emotional cadences and changes of timbre, which human beings were apt to overlook until their attention was drawn to them.

  As Plaxy and Sirius became more aware of the hostility and suspicion round about them, their relationship began to change. It became more passionate and less happy. Isolation, combined with contempt for the critics, drew girl and dog into closer intimacy, in fact into a manner of life which some readers may more easily condemn than understand. Plaxy herself, in spite of her fundamental joy in her love for Sirius, was increasingly troubled by a fear that she might irrevocably be losing touch with her own species, even that in this strange symbiosis with an alien creature she might he losing her very humanity itself. Sometimes, so she tells me, she would look at her own face in the little square mirror over the dressing-table, and feel a bewildering sense that it was not her face at all, but the face of the tyrant species that she had outraged. Then she would find herself in the same breath hating her unalterably human physiognomy and yet being half surprised and wholly thankful that it had not suffered a canine change.

  This fear of ceasing to be human occasionally induced in her a dumb antagonism towards Sirius, which sprang not from any real sense of sin or even of indecorousness, for she was convinced that her behaviour was a fitting symbol of their deep spiritual union. No, the source of her infrequent fits of gloom was simply her consciousness of alienation from the world of normal human beings. The call of her kind was still strong in her, and she was tormented by her outlawry. The solemn taboos of humanity still dominated her through her unconscious nature, though consciously she had long since declared her independence of them. Once she said to Sirius, "I must indeed have become a bitch in a girls body, and so humanity has turned against me." "No, no!" he answered. "You are always fully human, but just because you are also more than merely human, and I am more than merely canine, just because we are both in essence intelligent and sensitive beings, we can rise far above our differences, to reach across the gulf that separates us, and be together in this exquisite union of opposites." Thus, in the rather naively formal diction that he was apt to use when he was speaking most earnestly, he tried to console her. In his mind there was no conflict over their intimacy. His love of her combined a dog's devotion with human parity in comradeship, and blended the wolf's over-mastering hunger with the respect of spirit for spirit.

  At a later date both Plaxy and Sirius told me much about their life together at this time; but though after our marriage she urged me to publish all the facts for the light they throw on Sirius, con
sideration for her feelings and respect for the conventions of contemporary society force me to be reticent.

  It was at such times that she would write those tortured letters to me, and by all sorts of devices contrived to have them posted far from home, lest I should track her down. For while she longed increasingly for human intimacy and human love, while she yearned to take up once more the threads of her life as a normal English girl, she clung with passion to the strange life and the strange love that fate had given her. It was clear from her letters that in the same breath she longed for me to take her away, and yet also dreaded the disruption of her life with Sirius.

  CHAPTER XV

  STRANGE TRIANGLE

  I HAVE already told how I found Plaxy with Sirius at Tan-y-Voel, and how clear it was to me that any attempt to persuade her to leave him would have alienated her from me. It was not till some days after our first meeting, and after many talks with Plaxy, that I realized how intimate her relations with the dog had become. The discovery was a shock to me, but I took pains not to betray my revulsion; for Plaxy, finding me sympathetic, soon poured out in a flood of confession the whole story of her emotional relations with Sirius. When she had many times dwelt upon this theme I found myself putting aside the conventional feelings of the outraged lover. I could not but realize that the passion which united these two dissimilar creatures was deep and generous. But this made me all the more fearful lest I should never win my strange darling back again. And I was deeply convinced that for her own sake, no less than for mine, she must in the end be won back to human ways.