Sylva

I thought at first that she had not heard me-or did not wrant to hear. I called more loudly and she turned around, gave me a faithful doggy look with a facial twitch that could have been a smile had she known how to smile. But she set off again at a run. This time I shouted her name peremptorily, with a hint of anger in my voice. She began to trot in a circle, almost turning around herself, but still trotting until she was face to face with me. She waited. I said, “It’s very late, we must go home.”

She remained silent, gazing at me with an attentive, distant look in her eyes.

“And I don’t even know where we are! Can you guide us?”

As if in answer, she passed in front and streaked off like an arrow. “Not so fast!” I cried, laughing.

She probably did not understand and went on. I had to make an effort to catch up with her, grab her skirt, pull her back.

“Not so fast,” I repeated, and she slowed down her pace. We walked like that for a good quarter of an hour. I was not in the least worried about the way we were going: I was sure that she still had that innate sense of direction which civilized man has lost with his wildness. And indeed we soon found ourselves at the edge of the wood-much closer, happily, than I had feared.

Sylva had stopped on the verge of the forest, she let me pass, as if courteously stepping aside in a doorway. I took a few steps forward, in the direction of the house where I could see Nanny anxiously waiting for us on the threshold. She motioned to me wildly. I was gaily waving back when, I don’t know why, I had the feeling that Sylva was not following me. I just caught a fleeting glimpse of both Nanny’s arms flung up in despair before I turned around.

Sylva was no longer there.

Chapter 14

I RUSHED into the forest in an immediate reflex, calling her as on the day of her first flight. But once I found myself among the trees and bushes, amid all this forest murmur deeper than silence, I did not take long to recover my wits and recognize wisely-with consternation-that it would be a waste of time to search for her. Sylva had vanished in the forest like a lizard in long grass; it was quite vain to pursue her.

Thus, what I so much feared on setting out had completely slipped my mind on the way back, had taken me completely unawares. I was furious and vexed, though more the latter, for once again, beneath my anger against myself, I found the subtle feeling of serenity, if not of elation, that I had felt a little earlier at the thought that she might resume her original shape. The pleasure of knowing Sylva free in her former kingdom weighed in my heart against the displeasure of seeing her disappear. I could measure in these contradictory emotions the strength of my affection for her.

In any case, this loss no longer racked me to excess. As I have said, I had envisaged this accident and even foreseen what might follow: probably a spontaneous return when Sylva had roamed to her heart’s content; if not, a combined search that could not reasonably be expected to meet with failure.

I walked back to the house. On the edge of the wood I almost knocked down a panic-stricken Nanny, breathless from running on her short legs. I soothed her as best I could, but she gave me a thorough dressing down. When she saw us walk toward the forest, she could have sworn this would happen! she cried. What stupid imprudence, what reckless foolishness! A man of my age! And what would happen to her now, poor mite?

“What do you think can happen to her?” I said with the greatest calm (fortified by my earlier experience).

“How can I tell?” she wailed. “Anything can happen!”

“Such as?” I inquired with a hint of irony.

We were striding back toward the house. She stopped and glowered at me. When Nanny was in a temper, she looked even more like a bulldog. Between her flabby cheeks which shook with anger, under the truffle of a nose with flaring, quivering nostrils, her lips bared ferocious fangs. In this state she would have scared a tiger. Not being a tiger I smiled, and this smile brought her rage to a climax.

“What about the wood choppers?” she spluttered into my face. “The poachers? Tramps, hooligans, the woods are full of satyrs on Sundays! Don’t you know that?”

My smile faded. She was exaggerating, but good Lord, she was right! By thinking of the young creature as a fox all the time, I had totally forgotten that for a resolute fellow on the lookout for adventure she would be just a pretty wench like any other-prettier than any other. She would run away, I told myself to set my mind at rest. But was I so sure she would? And I recalled a scene which had occurred that very morning.