The Wolf
This is what the old Marquis d’Arville told us after a dinner in honour of Saint-Hubert, at the house of Baron des Ravels. They had run down a stag that day. The Marquis was the only one of the guests who had not taken part in the chase. He never hunted.
During the whole of the long repast, they had talked of scarcely anything but the massacre of animals. Even the ladies interested themselves in the sanguinary and often unlikely stories, while the speakers mimicked the attacks and combats between man and beast, raising their arms and speaking in thunderous tones.
M. d’Arville talked well, with a certain poetical flourish that was full of effect. He must have repeated this story often, he told it so smoothly, never halting at a choice of words in which to clothe an image.
“Gentlemen, I never hunt, nor did my father, nor my grandfather, nor my great-grandfather. The last named was the son of a man who hunted more than all of you. He died in 1764. I will tell you how. He was named Jean, and was married, and became the father of the man who was my great-grandfather. He lived with his younger brother, François d’Arville, in our castle, in the midst of a deep forest in Lorraine.
“François d’Arville always remained a bachelor out of his love for hunting. They both hunted from one end of the year to the other without cessation or weariness. They loved nothing else, understood nothing else, talked only of this, and lived for this alone.
“They were possessed by this terrible, inexorable passion. It consumed them, having taken entire control of them, leaving no place for anything else. They had given orders that they were never to be disturbed when they were hunting, for any reason whatsoever. My great-grandfather was born while his father was following a fox, but Jean d’Arville did not interrupt his sport, and swore that the little beggar might have waited until after the death-cry! His brother François showed himself still more hotheaded than he. The first thing on rising, he would go to see the dogs, then the horses; then he would shoot some birds about the place, until it was time to set out hunting larger game.
“They were called in the country Monsieur le Marquis and Monsieur le Cadet: noblemen then did not act as do the interlopers of our time, who wish to establish in their titles a descending scale of rank, for the son of a marquis is no more a count, or the son of a viscount a baron, than the son of a general is a colonel by birth. But the petty vanity of our time finds profit in this arrangement.
“To return to my ancestors:
“They were, it appears, immoderately large, bony, hairy, violent, and vigorous. The younger one was even taller than the elder, and had such a voice that, according to a legend of which he was very proud, all the leaves of the forest moved when he shouted. When they were mounted, ready for the chase, it must have been a superb sight to see these two giants astride their great horses.
“Toward the middle of the winter of that year, 1764, the cold was excessive and the wolves became ferocious.
“They even attacked belated peasants, roamed around houses at night, howled from sunset to sunrise, and ravaged the barns.
“Very soon a rumour was circulated. It was said that a colossal wolf, of grayish-white colour, which had eaten two children, devoured the arm of a woman, strangled all the watchdogs of the country, was now coming without fear into the enclosures and smelling around the doors. Many inhabitants affirmed that they had felt his breath, which made the lights flicker. Shortly a panic ran through all the province. No one dared to go out after nightfall. The very shadows seemed haunted by the image of this beast.
“The brothers d’Arville resolved to find and slay him. So they called together all the gentlemen of the country for a big hunt.
“It was in vain. They beat the forests and scoured the thickets to no purpose; they saw nothing of him. They killed wolves, but not that one. And each night after the hunt, the beast, as if to avenge himself, attacked some traveller, or devoured some cattle, always far from the place where they had sought him.
“Finally, one night he found a way into the pigsty of the d’Arville castle and ate two beauties of the best breed.
“The two brothers were furious, interpreting the attack as one of bravado on the part of the monster—a direct injury, a defiance. Therefore, taking all their best-trained hounds, accustomed to follow the most redoubtable quarry, they set out to run down the beast, their hearts filled with rage.
“From dawn until the sun descended behind the great leafless trees, they beat about the forests with no result.
“At last, both of them, angry and disheartened, turned their horses’ steps into a bypath bordered by brushwood, marvelling at the power of this wolf to baffle their knowledge, and suddenly seized with a mysterious fear.
“The elder said:
“ ‘This can be no ordinary beast. It almost looks as if he can reason like a man.’
“The younger replied:
“ ‘Perhaps we should get our cousin, the Bishop, to bless a bullet for him, or ask a priest to pronounce some words to help us.’
“Then they were silent.
“Jean continued: ‘Look at the sun; how red it is. The great wolf will do mischief tonight.’
“He had scarcely finished speaking when his horse reared. François’s horse started to run at the same time. A large bush covered with dead leaves rose before them, and a colossal beast, grayish-white, sprang out, scampering away through the wood.
“Both gave a grunt of satisfaction, and bending to the necks of their heavy horses, they urged them on with the weight of their bodies, driving them forward with such speed, exciting them, hastening them with voice and spur, that these strong riders seemed to carry the weight of their beasts between their knees, carrying them along as if they were flying.
“Thus they rode, at full speed, crashing through thickets, crossing ravines, climbing up the sides of hills, and plunging into gorges, sounding the horn with loud blasts, to arouse the people and the dogs of the neighbourhood.
“But suddenly, in the course of this breakneck ride, my ancestor struck his forehead against a large branch and fractured his skull. He fell to the ground as if dead, while his frightened horse disappeared into the shadows that were enveloping the woods.
“The younger d’Arville stopped short, sprang to the ground, seized his brother in his arms, and saw that his brains were coming out of the wound with his blood.
“He sat down beside him, took his disfigured and gory head upon his knees, looking earnestly at the lifeless face. Little by little a fear crept over him, a strange fear that he had never before felt, fear of the shadows, of the solitude, of the lonely woods, and also of the chimerical wolf, which had now avenged itself by killing his brother.
“The shadows deepened, the branches of the trees crackled in the sharp cold. François arose shivering, incapable of remaining there any longer, and already feeling his strength fail. There was nothing to be heard, neither the voice of the dogs nor the sound of the horns; all within this invisible horizon was mute. And in this gloomy silence and the chill of evening there was something strange and frightful.
“With his powerful hands he seized Jean’s huge body and laid it across the saddle to take it home; then he resumed his way slowly, his mind troubled by horrible, extraordinary images, as if he were intoxicated.
“Suddenly, along the path darkened by the night, a great form passed. It was the wolf. A violent fit of terror seized upon the hunter; something cold, like a stream of water, seemed to glide down his back, and he made the sign of the cross, like a monk haunted by devils, so dismayed was he by the reappearance of the frightful wanderer. Then, his eyes falling upon the inert body before him, his fear was quickly changed to anger, and he trembled with inordinate rage.
“He pricked his horse and darted after him.
“He followed him through copses, ravines, and great forests, traversing woods that he no longer recognized, his eyes fixed upon a white spot, which was ever flying from him as night covered the earth.
“His horse also seemed moved by an unknown force and ardour. He galloped on with neck extended, crashing over small trees and rocks, with the body of the dead man stretched across him on the saddle. Brambles caught in his hair; his head, where it struck the enormous tree trunks, spattered them with blood; his spurs tore off pieces of bark.
“Suddenly the animal and its rider came out of the forest, and rushed into a valley as the moon appeared above the hills. This valley was stony and shut in by enormous rocks, with no other outlet; and the wolf, caught in a corner, turned around.
“François gave a shout of joy and revenge which the echoes repeated like a roll of thunder. He leaped from his horse, knife in hand.
“The bristling beast, with rounded back, was awaiting him, his eyes shining like two stars. But before joining battle, the strong hunter, grasping his brother, seated him upon a rock, supporting his head, which was now but a mass of blood, with stones, and cried aloud to him, as to one deaf: ‘Look, Jean! Look here!’
“Then he threw himself upon the monster. He felt himself strong enough to overthrow a mountain, to crush the rocks in his hands. The beast tried to bite, and to rip up his stomach; but the man had seized it by the throat, without even making use of his weapon, and was strangling it gently, listening to its breath stopping in its throat, and its heart ceasing to beat. And he laughed with mad joy, clutching it more and more strongly with a terrible hold, and crying out in his delirium: ‘Look, Jean! Look!’ All resistance ceased. The body of the wolf was limp. He was dead.
“Then François, taking him in his arms, threw him down at the feet of his elder brother, crying out in expectant voice: ‘Here, here, Jean, dear, here he is!’
“Then he placed upon the saddle the two bodies, the one above the other, and started on his way.
“He returned to the castle laughing and weeping, like Gargantua at the birth of Pantagruel, shouting in triumph and stamping with delight in relating the death of the beast, and moaning and tearing at his beard in telling the death of his brother.
“Often, later, when he recalled that day, he would declare, with tears in his eyes: ‘If only poor Jean had seen me strangle the beast, he would have died happy, I am sure!’
“The widow of my ancestor inspired in her son a horror of hunting, which was transmitted from father to son down to myself.”
The Marquis d’Arville was silent. Someone asked: “That is a legendary tale, is it not?”
And the narrator replied:
“I swear to you it is true from beginning to end.”
Then a lady, in a sweet little voice, declared:
“Well, it is beautiful to have passions like that.”