As if in response to my unspoken thoughts, she seemed momentarily to yield, but then, stepping closer, she suddenly dived, slipped between my hands, escaped me, ran toward the door, left, slamming it behind her, and I heard her dashing along the corridor and clambering up the stairs that led to the attic.
Should I go after her or not? Was I wrong to force her? But, for heaven’s sake, what a bizarre idea, to be frightened to death by one’s own likeness! I decided to let her sulk if she felt like it, and returned to bed.
But sleep evaded me more than ever, and strangely, I become more stirred, more intrigued by my vixen’s behavior than I had ever been before. Gradually, in this state of semiconsciousness in which I hovered once again, it seemed to me that I could guess or understand her better, that I could better identify myself with her, with what she felt. Or rather, I imagined what she had been, half an hour ago: an unconscious, carefree little being, absent from itself, who, as Dr. Sullivan had said, lived and acted without even knowing that it existed, without really distinguishing itself from the rest of things.
Ever since childhood, we ourselves have been accustomed to, been trained to, see ourselves and distinguish ourselves in this way, and this separateness is so natural to us that we never think of it. But a fox! Had I ever figured to myself what it could be like to discover suddenly that one is isolated, separated, exiled from tutelary nature with whom one had hitherto formed one warmth, one breath, one flesh? And I imagined too for the first time the dreadful revelation it must have been for our distant Neanderthal ancestors, for those bearded, shaggy primates who had no mirrors, to become self-conscious, who had to discover themselves in the eyes of others, in their shouts, their threats, their gesticulations and their hostility—and who discovered themselves as they were—fragile and naked and solitary, with nothing but their own strength in the midst of frightening forests…
At that moment, as if to illustrate those barbaric imaginings, an earsplitting pandemonium broke out. I sat up. The din started again a little farther away, with a noise of broken glass. I jumped out of bed and dashed into the corridor, where I found the two wall mirrors in pieces. At the same instant, the racket broke out downstairs, coming from the living room. Then from the hall. Then from the study. Nanny, in turn, popped out of her room, in dressing gown and curlers.
“It’s Sylva smashing the mirrors!” I shouted and hurled myself down the stairs.
But downstairs, there was no one in sight. Walking on shattered glass, I passed through the three downstairs rooms; not one mirror was whole. I walked up the other flight of stairs. Nothing. Not a sound. The door to Sylva’s room stood open. I walked in and found Nanny, motionless, looking at the bed. My vixen was lying on it, face downward, but bunched up, her head dug deep under the pillow and bolster—like a rabbit seeking refuge in its warren, like a terrorized child trying to return to the dark, reassuring, consoling warmth, to the lethe, the nepenthe, the primeval oblivion of the maternal womb… Had I not measured it before, then I could now measure at this sight alone what it must have meant for her, as for Neanderthal man, to realize with terror, to realize for the first time, for the first, decisive, irremediable time, with inexpressible terror, that the one who was here, face downward and bunched up, shaking under her pillow, and who had recognized herself in a mirror a moment ago, that this thing was she, that it was Sylva; and that this Sylva was therefore a separate thing from all others, a thing quite alone and apart which existed, which could not stop itself existing even by breaking all the mirrors; that this thing, this Sylva, was she, and that she thus existed—irremediably.
Part Two
But this man is an anachronism, for he dates from before the Iron Age, and even the Stone Age. Think of it, he stands at the beginnings of the history of man…
Chapter 21
THE days that followed that surprising night seemed to me disappointing. Though I lay in bed open-eyed till the morning, it was now with impatience. In fact I was expecting miracles. Sylva had passed a borderline, I was certain of it. She had stepped into the true land of Man; I would now witness vast and rapid changes.
The first to throw cold water on my enthusiasm was Nanny. When I found her downstairs at breakfast, she seemed rested and was calmly buttering her toast. I said:
“You were able to sleep? I spent a sleepless night.”
“On account of the broken mirrors? Is it such a big sum?”
“Who’s talking of mirrors? I don’t care a rap. But the fact that Sylva… Goodness!” I cried. “That seems to leave you quite cold! The fact that she recognized herself and got scared—don’t you understand what all this means?”
“Nothing proves yet that she did recognize herself,” Nanny said cautiously. “You’re rather jumping to conclusions.”
“Well, what else can have scared her so?”
“I don’t know, it’s a bit early to say.”
“But it’s as plain as a pikestaff!” I said, trying as well as I could to restrain a mounting exasperation. “She has at last grasped that she exists, and that is a hell of a discovery for a fox, don’t you think? So she’s frightened by it, she has the wind up—what could be more natural?—and this anguish of hers is the first evidence she gives us of a reflective intelligence, the first trace of a cogito. It’s a sensational departure!”
“She may have been scared by anything,” said Nanny with a gentle obstinacy that put me beside myself, “something very simple and very ordinary which you, not being a fox, are quite unable to imagine. One has never seen a child, even the most backward one, take fright at a mirror. On the contrary, he usually claps his hands with joy and is delighted to recognize himself.”
“That’s just it!” I retorted. “That’s what I’m saying. Wasn’t that what we expected to happen when Sylva recognized herself? And isn’t it very singular that she didn’t act like that but rather took fright?”
“That’s why I keep thinking that she did not recognize herself,” Nanny persisted doggedly, chewing her buttered toast with her head above her breakfast cup, for she had the bad habit of “dunking.”
“We’ll probably find out some day or other what frightened her, and we’ll be amazed what a commonplace thing it was.”
In spite of my excitement I could not help thinking that the cautious Nanny’s remarks were nothing if not reasonable. So much so that in the afternoon I drove over to Dr. Sullivan in quest of comfort. I was not disappointed. He was absolutely enthusiastic.
“What did I tell you? What did I tell you?” he said over and over again, leaning against the oaken mantelpiece in the familiar prophetic attitude.
“So you think that she has taken a decisive step?”
“Without a shadow of doubt. Your Nanny is just a fool, with her backward children. Sylva is nothing of the kind, she’s a creature who dates from before prehistory—yes, that’s what she is! Of course, I wouldn’t have thought, either, before you told me, that the first reaction of such a creature to such a discovery would be sheer panic and fright. But if you give it a little thought, you easily understand that this was quite inevitable.”