Free Sylvia by Bryce Courtenay

shared with a young male on a cold night is a poor place for a maiden to guard her virtue. My mind harked back to a cautionary rhyme my mother taught me as a child. When, at the time, I asked its meaning, she’d laughed and said, ‘It is not for now, my precious, it is for you to remember when you are a pretty young maid.’
    When leaves turn gold
And acorns brown
Then skirts go up
And trousers down!
    Despite my father having taken my chastity and by doing so condemning me to the eternal fires of hell, I tried always to remain pure in spirit. It was most wearisome to live with so large a burden of guilt when in my mind I had few sinful thoughts. It was as if there was contained in me both sin and innocence, the one a great weight placed upon my soul and the other a lightness of being that allowed me to sing to the glory of God and to call the birds from the trees.
    So on the first morning of my journey to somewhere else, I decided to become two people at once. I would be ‘Sylvia Then’ – the sinner, and ‘Sylvia Now’ – the chaste. I had already experienced such a separation when I had been changed from Sylvia Honeyeater to Sylvia of the Gloria. I knew that until I could confess the sins my father had cast upon me and complete the terrible penance required for forgiveness, I would have to live with Sylvia Then. But with a fresh start in life, I could at the very least regard myself as Sylvia Now, the fine young maid my mother had hoped I might some day become.
    This was to prove a most convenient though not always easy idea. It was not that I gave myself permission to sin and could blame it on my old self and so add to the load of the sins waiting for remission. But in making judgements I could clearly see which of me, sinner or chaste, was involved. Or so I thought, but I was to learn that conscience can be convenient to the moment and that we all have an infinite capacity to justify our actions.
    Now, at the very beginning of my life as Sylvia Now, I knew that if I was to tarry with the ratcatcher and sojourn this night in his company I was placing myself in harm’s way. Alas, as with all matters of conscience, I found myself in a dilemma. I much desired his pleasant company but knew it to be dangerous. I tried to convince myself that he had agreed solemnly not to touch me on three separate occasions, and that I could trust him. I argued inwardly that he appeared sweet in his ways and did not seem the type to harm a young maid. I trembled at the thought of continuing on my own along the lonely road to Cologne. I had laughed more in this single day than I had done since the death of my mother. I had sung in a voice pure and true to the glory of God when the lilt of his flute had carried my hymns up to heaven. Most of all, I had been utterly enchanted with his tales of olden times and he had promised more, many more, and all he claimed were true.
    I recall that I had laughed, showing my doubt, when he had made this claim. ‘Why do you laugh, Sylvia? Do you not believe me?’
    â€˜Your stories are well told and enchanting, what matters it if they lack truth,’ I answered.
    He frowned. ‘A great deal. It matters a great deal!’ he insisted.
    â€˜Oh, I fear I have hurt your feelings,’ I said, attempting to console him. ‘That was not my intention, your tales of yore are wonderful and exceedingly well told and I should like to hear them all,’ I repeated vehemently.
    â€˜But to you they are only fairytales?’
    I sighed, my mind casting back to the Miracle of the Gloria. ‘Nay! It is only that I have seen people swear to a miraculous happening before the blessed Virgin when it was their imagination that blinded their eyes and closed their ears to the truth. Stories are no less worth hearing should they be imagined, but it is not wise to believe everything we see or hear.’ I then told him about the so-called miracle that had taken place