As for the mirror, we did indeed leave it where it was. I do not know if the doctor really clung to the hope that it might produce a revelation some day, or if he simply persisted in order not to cry off at once. He questioned me about it from time to time. Then, after always getting the same reply, he too seemed to lose hope. And with his hopes fading, he showed himself less often, letting his daughter drive over on her own. She often did. I was delighted with these newly found bonds of friendship and grateful to my little vixen who had so charmingly forged them without knowing it.
Chapter 13
THIS close companionship, those evenings spent by the fireside with Dorothy, sometimes with her father, leave me with memories full of charm, but also of monotony. What I mean is that nothing noteworthy ever happened, they were all very much alike and they have all merged in my mind. Several times, carried away by the warmth of the moment, I tried to lead the conversation toward veiled hints at a life together. Every time Dorothy contrived to divert its course before it risked involving a frank avowal of her feelings or mine. They were, quite visibly, of the same kind: enough tenderness and understanding to make for a successful marriage but not enough love to rush into it. I would admire her prudence after she had gone; and though I sometimes resented it a little, I nonetheless applauded this circumspection which prevented me, against my own will, from plunging headlong into too-hasty decisions.
When did I notice a change? Did I even notice it or was it much later only that I became aware of it in retrospect? Still, I may have been alive to odd quirks in Dorothy’s behavior, to some often rather queer changes of mood. There were days when she was, if not exactly morose, at least absent-minded, a little unresponsive; then gradually she would be gripped by a sort of excitement, a volubility that drowned me in meaningless chatter. On other occasions, on the contrary, she arrived in high spirits which would slowly subside into an indifference that was almost melancholy. It was quite unpredictable. I also had the impression that she was spacing out her visits, but I did not keep count of them; I only remember several times preparing everything as if I were expecting her and then being slightly disappointed to find my expectations dashed.
All these oddities ought to have disquieted me but, as I say, these recollections strike me only today; at the time I hardly paid heed to them, if I noticed them at all. The reason was that around that time there occurred some dramatic events at Sylva’s end, and they were sufficiently startling to mobilize all my attention.
Already the gold of the winter jasmine was fading, giving way to that of the forsythias, brightly blazing all alone among the bare, black branches of the hawthorn bushes only just bursting into bud. Snowdrops and crocuses were springing up on the lawn; the Virginia creeper was licking the walls with its thousand pointed little crimson tongues. The sun was now rising to the east of the forest which all through the winter had hidden its birth. Life was quivering everywhere.
It is in spring and autumn that the forest calls me—when it is dying and when it returns to life. The birches are the first to turn green, tinting the nakedness of the oaks and elms with a fine spray no denser than a mist. The carpet of dead leaves has taken on a moist tinge of mahogany, of maroon. You no longer crush it underfoot with a dry, metallic crunch; it rather yields resiliently with the muffled sound of seaweed at low tide. The deep, stagnant, brooding stillness of October—a cathedral stillness—has been succeeded all of a sudden by the fervent chirping of birds calling to each other. One can see them darting in a muted flutter through the fine lacework of the boughs; the leaves have not yet put up a screen of thick embroidery that masks this winged coming and going in summer. A thousand other sounds burst gently, the creaking of a breaking twig above our heads, the patter of a soft-footed scurry on the dead leaves, a growl, a distant call, a sigh. You advance in the midst of this murmuring which crackles softly, rustles, whispers, whistles, drones, fragmenting the heavy, motionless silence of the trees, though powerless to destroy it. Sometimes, just for a moment, all this noise stops as if to listen, and you almost feel you can hear the rising of the sap…
Should I take Sylva into the heart of this seething life of which, so recently, she had still formed an intimate part, like a fish in water, flesh of its flesh? I did not make up my mind to it without some fear. But I now had too much affection for her, unselfish affection; yes, I loved her too much for what she was—a vixen—to want to deprive her of the forest and the ecstasy of spring which I myself felt so strongly. What risk was I running, after all? If her homeland reclaimed her and if she escaped, what else could she do but return to me, as she had done the first time? And even if she did not, I could nowadays call out the whole village to be my beaters, since she passed for my niece, a “backward” child. And if, assuming the worst, one did not find her again, it meant that she had resumed her pristine shape—so much the better for her—and I should be free for Dorothy… Come on, I thought, be a little bold, be generous…
Six days a week Nanny would take her for a walk. On Sundays it was my turn, unless some unforeseen problem kept me at the farm. The wild joy Sylva displayed every morning when setting out was even more rapturous when she saw me put on my boots, coat and hat. While I was going through the garden, she would gambol all around me, skipping and shouting: “Bonny walk! Bonny walk!” Then she would streak through the gate before me, along the path through the fields which she took with Nanny every day.
This time I called out to her: “Sylva!” She stopped still, turned around, the pointed little face gazing at me with a questioning look. I thought I even saw her ears prick up.
I motioned to her and turned toward the path leading to the forest. With a bird’s cry she came scampering back, overtook me and ran on for some twenty yards, still uttering those larklike cries. Then she fell silent, hesitated as if to listen, set off again. Was she running less quickly? It seemed to me that something was restraining her. She stopped again and then, as if regretfully, turned around and came back toward me with uncertain steps. She seemed constrained, intimidated. When she was level with me, she came close a little gauchely and clung to my side to keep in step with me, silently and with lowered head. It seemed to me that she was trembling a little.
I could well understand that the forest, if not exactly frightening her, had at least assumed for my vixen since her last flight an unfriendly, hostile, perhaps even a cruel, face. So that, to check it, I turned around and walked toward the house. But when I looked back Sylva was gazing at me fixedly, with that particular look in her eyes that dogs have when they are on a track and see their master does not follow them. I naturally gave in to this mute appeal and we set out again toward the woods. Sylva was calming herself, anyway, and by the time we had reached the edge of the wood she was no longer trembling.