Sylva

As a matter of fact I wrote on this point to Valery, who did not answer, and to Bergson, who was good enough to reply. He objected that in our civilized societies fright as a rule is absent from the causes that make us laugh. That did not seem convincing to me: we no longer have hair on our bodies either, but we still have goose flesh! Similarly, we continue to laugh in any situation which reminds us, if only symbolically or by dim recollection, of atavistic terrors that suddenly give way.

Bergson replied again, this time with a little sharpness in his terms, that according to my theory animals ought to laugh for the same reasons. This last objection impressed me all the more, as the very first laugh Sylva had given had also struck me as a definitely human manifestation. Fright, joy and “brutal convulsion” must therefore be components of a system-even though very primitive-of thought. I promised myself that I would think about it; but my natural mistrust of ideas (and of other people’s more especially) or my laziness in this respect often distracts me from keeping this kind of promise, and that is what happened in this case.

When Sylva and Baron (for that was the dog’s name) had turned the farmyard upside down together, I considered it time to step in. I called the mastiff, took him back to his chain, ordered him to be calm and silent. Sylva had followed us. I saw that she had not let go of the swallow-tailed bit. She sat down with crossed legs close to the dog, who in turn sat down near her. And for the rest of the morning they continued to watch together, untiringly, the hustle and bustle on the farm. From time to time, Baron turned toward Sylva and gave her face a big lick with his tongue; Sylva let him and, from that day onward, they became a pair of inseparable friends.

At dinner, Sylva persisted in keeping closely gripped in her right hand what must be called her lucky charm. This obstinacy put the dignity of her table manners to a severe test. She spilled her soup and, unable to cut her meat singlehanded, tried to seize it with her fingers. Nanny had to cut it for her as for a baby.

That night we noticed that she had gone to bed with her talisman half stuffed under the pillow. Mrs. Bumley, who is a Papist, suggested replacing it by a crucifix of the same size. If she wants to believe in the power of objects, she said, let us at least encourage her to believe in a worthy symbol which might later come to mean something to her. But in the morning Sylva flung the crucifix away in a temper; and we had to restore to her an object that was no doubt ludicrous but all the more irreplaceable for having been invested by herself with those imaginary powers.

Chapter 25

EVEN if I wished to weary the reader by recounting every day in detail, I should not be able to do so. Few indeed were the days that were marked by a novelty sufficiently striking to be remembered, such as the discovery of an apple on a painting, the magic power of an iron bit. These were rare islands scattered on an ocean of uniform habits, and as a rule nothing heralded them from afar although I patiently kept my field glass fixed.

Of course each day brought some imperceptible progress, the sum total of which after a certain while might seem appreciable; but bedmaking, shoe shining, mashing potatoes or shaking out the salad continued to form part of her training rather than of education proper. The only kinds of progress that mattered were those subtler ones that left a mark on her nature, those that made her more human, removed her further from animality, and this type of progress always occurred in the form of an unforeseen leap, a leap which, seen from the outside, sometimes seemed quite dazzling.

What most surprised me was that this leap did not appear to happen in the very field where it seemed to me one would have been entitled to expect it first: that of speech. For though her vocabulary increased, and even quite considerably, it only increased in quantity. There would sometimes be a running fire of questions and answers, but only if they kept to an absolutely practical and down-to-earth level. Any abstract idea still seemed to be quite inaccessible to her. As soon as one overstepped these limits, she fell silent, grew indifferent, staring straight in front of her with those curious, almond-shaped eyes that assumed their catlike fixity.