Sylva

We set out at once. In the forest the woodcutters showed us the way and we soon discovered Jeremy’s shack. It stood in the middle of a narrow clearing, under the verdant shimmer of trailing birches. There was no one in it. But according to his cronies, Jeremy was used to coming back for a snack around ten o’clock. It was past nine. I asked Walburton to be good enough to wait with me and he accepted with a jovial alacrity which barely concealed a keen curiosity. We examined the shack. It was a rather dreadful hovel. I could see that my friend’s eyes, like mine, roved obstinately toward the shapeless litter that served as a bed. At the foot of the litter lay something that, at a pinch, might be taken for a pallet of leaves and dry twigs. With a little willingness, Sylva could have laid herself down and slept there amidst a welter of heterogeneous objects: rusty, peeling household utensils, more or less warped and worn-out tools, and other decrepit oddments in such an inextricable muddle that it was almost impossible to identify them.

Walburton was sucking at his mustache. There was an odd, somewhat sly glint in his bulging eyes which he tried to extinguish before turning toward me. He was shaking his head with a look of gravity on his face but his big, carroty nose twitched peculiarly. “I hope,” he said, “that this den has not been the scene of some regrettable impropriety…”

He seemed to be waiting for me to express a similar hope; but after the wise resolutions I had taken I no longer knew what, if anything, I was hoping for. All I could produce in answer was an embarrassed grunt, and he added in a slow, emphatic drawl: “Because if, don’t you see, there were any consequences… I mean to say, between this half-wit, don’t you know, and this… h’m… poor child…”

But I did not say a word, and he became irritated. “Can you imagine the consequences?” he said with some brutality.

“Oh, you never know,” I stammered in a dubious tone, but he brushed the words aside with a “Come now, really!” which he rapped out so ruthlessly that he left no room for the least uncertainty. He kept his eyes fastened on me and repeated: “Can you imagine?” and I acquiesced mutely, but with a more worried expression than I actually felt.

Try as I would, I could not manage to find myself guilty. “Consequences”? Well, if there were any, worse luck, I’d take care of them, that was all. As for the rest, the “regrettable impropriety,” ever since the brainstorm I had passed through, victoriously as I believed, I flattered myself on accepting it as what it was in fact for those primitive creatures: a mere act of nature, an innocent obedience to instincts, very far removed from what we called good or evil, or sin.

But when, twenty minutes later, I saw the supposed “culprits” returning, my fine composure abandoned me in a jiffy.

A stiff, matted mop of hair which must have been fair but was blackened with soot and ashes; a young but wrinkled, ravaged face stuck upon the massive hulk of an orangutan; the torso itself crushing the legs into a pair of brackets like those of stiff-jointed old horsemen; moreover, a swelling of the throat which, without being a goiter, was at least a crop; vacant eyes blinking under the jutting visor of a brow arched like a Romanesque vault and bristling with stubble. In a word, a brute of the Stone Age.

Sylva was walking at his side, hanging slightly back. When she recognized me, she flung herself on my neck with quiet joy, cuddled up a little and kissed me under the chin in her fashion, with a flick of her tongue. Seeing us, the fellow had stopped six steps away. He rapped at her with a rough, caveman’s voice:

“Who’s the man? Be he your father?”

She turned her face toward him, but did not answer: how could she? The word “father” was still unknown to her. He took a few strides on his bandy legs and gripped her wrist. He repeated more loudly, motioning toward me with his chin, with an increasingly furious look on his face:

“I’m askin’ yer who that feller is, be he yer father?”

He was shaking her by the arm. She must have realized unconsciously what was upsetting her swain for she said “Bonny” and kissed me.

The lad planted himself right in front of us. I towered over him by a good head and he had to raise his. I saw his eyes flash under the bristly brows. He growled, “What ’ave yer come for?” and without even waiting for my reply, he yelled, “She’s mine. D’ye hear? Be off and leave us alone!” He clasped the fragile wrist even more tightly.

The Mayor had stepped forward. He loomed very high above all three of us.

“Listen, my lad. You’ll have no trouble if you’re reasonable. But this girl is under age. You have a good chance of getting sent to jail, I’m warning you.”

“I want ter wed ’er,” said the other somberly.