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The wolf by GUIs de Marpaisant.
This is what the old Marquis D'Arville told

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us after Saint Hubert's dinner at the
house of the Baron de Ravel. We

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had killed a stag that day.
The Marquis was the only one of the

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guests who had not taken part in
the chase. He never hunted. During

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that long repast, we had talked
about hardly anything but the slaughter of animals.

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The ladies themselves were interested in bloody
and exaggerated tales, and the orators

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imitated the attacks and the combats.
Men against beasts raised their arms romanced in

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a thundering voice. Monsieur D'Arville talked
well, in a certain flowery, high

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sounding, but defective style. He
must have told his story frequently, for

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he told it fluently, never hesitated
for words, choosing them with skill to

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make his description vivid. Gentlemen,
I have never hunted, neither did my

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father, nor my grandfather, nor
my great grandfather. This last was the

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son of a man who hunted more
than all of you put together. He

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died in seventeen sixty four. I
will tell you the story of his death.

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His name was Jean. He was
married father of that child who became

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my great grandfather, and he lived
with his younger brother Francois D'Arville, and

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our castle in Lorraine, in the
midst of the forest. Francois D'Arville had

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remained a bachelor for love of the
chase. They both hunted from one end

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of the year to the other,
without stopping, and seemingly without fatigue.

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They loved hunting, understood nothing else, talked only of that lived only for

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that they had at heart. That
one passion, which was terrible and inexorable.

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It consumed them, had completely absorbed
them, leaving room for no other

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thought. They had given orders that
they should not be interrupted in the chase

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for any reason whatever. My great
grandfather was born while his father was following

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a fox, and Jean D'Arville did
not stop the chase, but exclaimed the

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deuce. The rascal might have waited
till after the view halloo. His brother

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Francois was still more infatuated. On
rising, he went to see the dog

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than the horses. Then he shot
little birds about the castle, until the

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time came to hunt some large game
in the countryside. They recalled Monsieur le

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marquis and Monsieur le Cadet, the
nobles then, not being at all like

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the chance nobility of our time,
which wishes to establish an hereditary hierarchy in

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titles. For the son of a
marquis is no more account nor the son

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of a viscount a baron, than
a son of a general as a colonel

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by birth. But the contemptible vanity
of today finds profit in that arrangement.

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My ancestors were unusually tall, bony, hairy, violent and vigorous. The

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younger, still taller than the older, had a voice so strong that,

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according to a legend of which he
was proud, all the leaves of the

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forest shook when he shouted. When
they were both mounted to set out hunting,

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it must have been a superb sight
to see those two giants straddling their

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huge horses. Now toward the midwinter
of that year, seventeen sixty four,

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the frosts were excessive, and the
wolves became ferocious. They even attacked belated

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peasants roamed at night outside the houses, howled from some set to sunrise,

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and robbed his stables. And soon
a rumor began to circulate. People talked

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of a colossal wolf with gray fur
almost white, who had eaten two children,

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not off a woman's arms, strangled
all the watchdogs in the district,

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and even come without fear into the
farm yards. The people in the houses

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affirmed that they had felt his breath
and that it made the flame of the

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lights flicker, and soon a panic
ran through all the province. No one

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dared go out any more after nightfall. The darkness seemed haunted by the image

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of the beast. The brothers Darville
determined to find and kill him, and

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several times they brought together all the
gentlemen of the country to a great hunt.

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They beat the forests and searched the
coverts in vain. They never met

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him. They killed wolves, but
not that one, And every night after

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a battu the beast, as if
to avenge himself, attacked some traveler or

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killed someone's cattle, always far from
the place where they had looked for him.

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Finally, one night he stole into
the pig pin of the Chateau Darvay

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and ate the two fattest pigs.
The brothers were roused to anger. Considering

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this attack as a direct insult and
a defiance, they took their strong bloodhounds

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used to pursue dangerous animals, and
they set off to hunt, their hearts

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filled with rage, from dawn until
the hour when the unpurpled sun descended behind

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the great naked trees. They beat
the woods without finding anything. At last,

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furious and disgusted, both were returning, walking their horses along the lane

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border with hedges, and they marveled
that their skill as huntsmen should be baffled

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by this wolf, and they were
suddenly seized with a mysterious fear. The

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elder said that beast is not an
ordinary one. You would say it had

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a mind like a man. The
younger answered, perhaps we should have a

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bullet blessed by our cousin the bishop, or pray some priests to pronounce the

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words which are needed. Then they
were silent. Jean continued, look,

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how red the sun is. The
great wolf will do some harm to night.

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He had hardly finished speaking when his
horse reared that of Francois began to

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kick. A large thicket covered with
dead leaves opened before them, and a

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mammoth beast entirely gray, jumped up
and ran off through the wood. Both

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uttered a kind of grunt of joy, and bending over the necks of their

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heavy horses. They threw them forward
with an impulse from all their body,

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hurling them on at such a pace, urging them, hurrying them away,

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exciting them so with voice and with
gesture and with spur that the experienced strider

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seemed to be carrying the heavy beasts
between their thighs, and to bear them

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off as if they were flying.
Thus they went plunging through the thickets,

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dashing across the beds of streams,
climbing the hillsides, descending the gorges,

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and blowing the horn as loud as
they could to attract their people and the

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dogs. And now suddenly, in
that mad race, my ancestor struck his

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forehead against an enormous branch, which
split his skull, and he fell dead

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on the ground, while his frightened
horse took himself off, disappearing in the

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gloom which enveloped the woods. The
younger Darville stopped quickly feet to the earth,

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seized his brother in his arms,
and saw that the brains were escaping

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from the wound with the blood.
Then he sat down beside the body,

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rested, the head disfigured and red
on his knees, and waited regarding the

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immobile face of his elder brother.
Little by little, a fear possessed him,

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a strange fear which he had never
felt before, the fear of the

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dark, the fear of loneliness,
the fear of the deserted wood, and

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the fear also of the weird wolf, who which just killed his brother,

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to avenge himself upon them. Both
the gloom thickened, the acute cold made

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the trees crack. Francois got up, shivering, unable to remain there longer,

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feeling himself growing faint. Nothing was
to be heard, neither the voice

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of the dogs nor the sound of
the horns. All was silent along the

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invisible horizon. And this mournful silence
of the frozen knight had something about it

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terrific and strange. He seized in
his immense hands the great body of Jean,

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straightened it, laid it across the
saddle to carry it back to the

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chateau. Then he went on his
way softly, his mind troubled as if

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he were in a stupor, pursued
by horrible and fear giving images. And

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all at once, in the growing
darkness, a great shape crossed his path.

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It was the beast. A shock
of terror took the hunter, something

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cold like a drop of water,
seeming to glide down his back, and

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like a monk haunted of the devil, he made a great sign of the

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cross, dismayed at this abrupt return
of the horrible prowler, but his eyes

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fell again on the inert body before
him, and, passing abruptly from fear

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to anger, he shook with an
indescribable rage. Then he spurred his horse

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and rushed after the wolf. He
followed it through the copses of the ravines

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and the tall trees traversing woods which
he no longer recognized, His eyes fixed

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on the white speck which fled before
him through the night. His horse also

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seemed animated by a force and strength
hitherto unknown. It galloped straight ahead,

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and with outstretched neck, striking against
trees and rocks. The head and the

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feet of the dead man thrown across
the saddle. The limbs tore out his

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hair, the brow beating the huge
trunks spattered them with blood. The spurs

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tore their ragged coats of bark.
Suddenly, the beast and the horsemen issued

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from the forest and rushed into a
valley, just as the moon appeared above

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the mountains. The valley here was
stony, enclosed by enormous rocks. Francois

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then uttered a yell of joy,
which the echoes repeated like a peal of

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thunder, and he leaped from his
horses, cutlass in hand. The beast,

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with bristling hair the back, arched
awaited him, its eyes gleaming like

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two stars. But before beginning battle, the strong hunter, seizing his brother,

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seated him on a rock and placing
stones under his head, which was

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no more than a mass of blood. He shouted in the ears as if

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he was talking to a deaf man. Look, Jean, look at this.

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Then he attacked the monster. He
felt himself strong enough enough to overturn

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a mountain to bruise stones in his
hands. The beast tried to bite him,

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aiming for his stomach, but he
had seized the fierce animal by the

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neck without even using his weapon,
and he strangled it gently, listening to

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the cessation of breathing in his throat
and the beatings of his heart. He

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laughed wild with joy, pressing closer
and closer his formidable embrace, crying in

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a delirium of joy, look,
Jean, look, All resistance ceased.

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The body of the wolf became limp. He was dead. Francois took him

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up in his arms and carried him
to the feet of the elder brother,

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where he laid him, repeating in
a tender voice, there there, there,

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my little Jean, see him.
Then he replaced on the saddle the

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two bodies, one upon the other, and rode away. He returned to

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the chateau, laughing and crying like
Gargantua at the birth of Pantoic rule,

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uttering shouts of triumph and boisterous with
joy as he related the death of the

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beast, and grieving and tearing his
beard, and telling of that of his

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brother. And often, when he
talked again of that day, he would

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say, with tears in his eyes, if only poor Jean could have seen

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me strangle that beast, he would
have died content that. I am sure

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the widow of my ancestor spired her
orphaned son with that horror of the chase,

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which has transmitted itself from father to
son as far down as myself.

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The Marquis D'Arville was silent. Some
one asked that story is a legend,

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isn't it, And the story teller
answered, I swear to you that it

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is true from beginning to end.
Then a lady declared, in a little

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soft voice, all the same,
it is fine to have passions like that.

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End of the Wolf