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Summary
A Grain of Truth
Geralt discovers the bodies of two people dumped in a ravine. Speaking to his horse, Roach, Geralt considers several monsters that might have killed them. Geralt soon finds a tower that is surrounded by a stone wall deep in the forest. Roach is uneasy and Geralt has a feeling of being watched. He turns to see a girl watching him. When he attempts to greet her, she runs quickly away.
The tower and the area around it is dilapidated, and Geralt notices a bush with blue roses that resemble one he saw pinned to the shirt of the dead woman in the ravine. Suddenly, Nivellen, a humanoid monster with a bear-like head bursts from the building and runs toward Geralt. He stops at the sight of Geralt’s blade, but continues to yell threats. Geralt puts his sword away and asks Nivellen for water. Seeing that Geralt is not afraid of him, Nivellen invites him inside for dinner. The monster is able to conjure lights inside and he uses a spell to create a feast. He explains that he has magic powers to control things in his house. During their meal, Geralt admits that he is a witcher. Nivellen asks who paid Geralt to kill him. Geralt insists that he is there by accident and, regardless, would not kill Nivellen because Nivellen isn’t really a monster.
Nivellen tells Geralt that he was cursed when he was the leader of a band of thieves. The men in his group pressured him to rape a priestess in a temple they were ransacking. During the assault, the priestess cursed him and took her own life with a knife she had hidden. Several days later, Nivellen transformed into the monster and his family and the rest of the gang ran away. After that, Nivellen was alone until one day when he caught a man stealing some of his blue roses. Remembering stories of frogs being transformed back into princes by maidens, Nivellen told the man that if he brought his daughter to him, he would spare his life. When the man told Nivellen that his daughter was only eight years old, Nivellen let him go but gave him some jewels and gold. Soon, other men brought their daughters to stay with Nivellen for a year in exchange for gold and treasure. As time went by, Nivellen realized that a virgin’s kiss wouldn’t break the spell. Instead, he came to like his new form.
As Nivellen leads Geralt back outside, Geralt asks if Nivellen lives alone and Nivellen reveals that he does not. Geralt believes that the girl who lives there, Vereena, killed the people in the ravine. Geralt tells Nivellen that Vereena is likely a rusalka. Nivellen tells him that he suspected as much but tells Geralt that he truly loves her. Geralt leaves and stays the night on a nearby hilltop. He hears screaming in the night and finds charred human bones the following morning. When Roach shies away from a ring of mushrooms, Geralt realizes that Vereena is something more sinister.
Geralt arrives back at the tower to find Vereena sitting at the top of the fountain in the courtyard. He guesses aloud that she is a vampire that can come out during the day. Then, she screams with enough force to push him back into a wall. Vereena transforms into an enormous bat and launches herself at him. The two fight and the sound of their battle draws Nivellen out of the house, where he sees that Geralt is injured. Nivellen calls her name and drives a pole through her chest. Vereena pulls herself closer to Nivellen and attempts to bite him, but Geralt cuts her head off. In the moments that follow, Nivellen transforms back into a human. The witcher explains that, like in fairy tales, true love and blood both possess a mighty power.
Analysis
“A Grain of Truth” draws on the structure of the famous fairytale “Beauty and the Beast,” but uses the archetype to tell a much different story. Nivellen’s story touches on many of the hallmarks of the fairy tale. He takes on the role of the beast. Like in the fairy tale, Nivellen brings a young woman into his home in an attempt to free himself from the curse that turned him into a terrifying monster. Like the beast in the fairy tale, Nivellen is lonely and isolated. In this version of the story, Nivellen’s curse is the result of his own terrible deeds rather than the whim of a passing witch. Unlike in the original fairy tale, Nivellen hosts a string of beauties, but none of them can break the curse. Unlike the storybook girls who stay with Nivellen, Vereena is the one Nivellen really loves. He is willing to overlook her faults, including the fact that she kills people, so he won’t be alone. She is the beauty in this version but, in a twist, she turns out to be the real monster. By drawing on “Beauty and the Beast,” this chapter pays homage to folkloric tradition, and also subverts their expectations. These elements work together to make it all the more shocking when Vereena reveals that she is a dangerous vampire.
In this chapter, the lines between monstrosity and humanity are blurred. Vereena and Nivellen stand out as examples of how appearances can be deceiving because their physical forms make it hard to see their true natures. Nivellen looks overtly monstrous, half-man and half-bear, with fangs and claws. By contrast, Vereena appears to be a normal girl, but she is the true monster in the chapter. Although her behavior is peculiar, her normal, pretty appearance makes it hard for even Geralt to detect her true form. Nivellen is not a faultless character. He was cursed while he was raping a priestess, although this does not make him a monster in the eyes of the witcher. Rather, the real monster is Vereena who is driven by bloodlust. She controls Nivellen and hunts people who wander near his tower. Comparing these two characters reveals what monstrosity means in the novel. It is an inherent state of being, not the result of one choice or magic spell.
Like the striga princess from the chapter “The Witcher,” Vereena is both a monster and a young girl. In the scene by the fountain, Vereena embodies both of these identities. During her fight with Geralt, Vereena screams with such a force that it knocks him into the wall. The fight is very similar to Geralt’s fight with the striga princess. Vereena deploys many surprising tactics, like turning into a bat and attempting to bite Geralt’s neck. This part of the fight echoes a similar tactic that the striga princess used. Both monsters are described as girls, both drink blood, and both have the power to make sound waves that manifest as a physical force that is strong enough to knock the witcher off his feet. While it’s not clear if there is a shared history between striga and bruxa in the world of the novel, the overt similarity between the two different monsters, suggests that there might be.
Geralt talks to Roach at several points in the chapter, which fulfills the essential narrative function of allowing Geralt to explain what is going on even though he is traveling without a human companion. Though the narrative usually takes a third-person limited point of view focusing on Geralt’s experiences and thoughts, when Geralt talks to Roach, it opens up the narrative to give readers a different perspective. This allows Geralt to speak directly to another being, rather than tightly focusing on his inner thoughts and feelings through narration. This also allows certain details to be held back from the reader. For example, readers learn that Vereena is a bruxa vampire once Geralt returns to the tower. Had the narrative focused more on his inner thoughts, this information could have emerged earlier. This would have reduced the drama in the final scene because the revelation about Vereena would not be as surprising. Geralt’s conversation with Roach has the effect of controlling what the reader knows and when, while also being engaging and conversational.
