“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.”
My little darling: so you are crying from morning until night and from night until morning, because your husband leaves you; you do not know what to do and so you ask your old aunt for advice; you must consider her quite an expert. I don’t know as much as you think I do, and yet I am not entirely ignorant of the art of loving, or, rather, of making one’s self
