He turned; there was the black wolf himself, creeping noiselessly along, like a dog coming to rejoin its master. The wolf would have been invisible in the gloom but for the flames shot forth from his eyes, which illuminated the darkness; he went round the hearth and sat down facing the shoemaker.
“What is this!” he said. “Master Thibault not satisfied? It seems that Master Thibault is difficult to please.”
“How can I feel satisfied,” said Thibault. “I, who since I first met you, have known nothing but vain aspirations and endless regrets? I wished for riches, and here I am in despair at having lost the humble roof of bracken under shelter of which I could sleep in peace without anxiety as to the morrow, without troubling myself about the rain or the wind beating against the branches of the giant oaks.
“I wished for position, and here I am, stoned and hunted down by the lowest peasants, whom formerly I despised. I asked for love, and the only woman who loved me and whom I loved became the wife of another, and she is at this moment cursing me as she lies dying, while I, notwithstanding all the power you have given me, can do nothing to help her!”
“Leave off loving anybody but yourself, Thibault.”
“Oh! yes, laugh at me, do!”
“I am not laughing at you. But did you not cast envious eyes on other people’s property before you had set eyes on me?”
“Yes, for a wretched buck, of which there are hundreds just as good browsing in the forest!”
“You thought your wishes were going to stop at the buck, Thibault; but wishes lead on to one another, as the night to the day, and the day to night. When you wished for the buck, you also wished for the silver dish on which it would be served; the silver dish led you on to wish for the servant who carries it and for the carver who cuts up its contents. Ambition is like the vault of heaven; it appears to be bounded by the horizon, but it covers the whole earth. You disdained Agnelette’s innocence, and went after Madame Poulet’s mill; if you had gained the mill, you would immediately have wanted the house of the Bailiff Magloire; and his house would have had no further attraction for you when once you had seen the Castle of Mont-Gobert.
“You are one in your envious disposition with the fallen Angel, your master and mine; only, as you were not clever enough to reap the benefit that might have accrued to you from your power of inflicting evil, it would perhaps have been more to your interest to continue to lead an honest life.”
“Yes, indeed,” replied the shoemaker, “I feel the truth of the proverb, ‘Evil to him who evil wishes.’ But,” he continued, “can I not become an honest man again?”
The wolf gave a mocking chuckle.
“My good fellow, the devil can drag a man to hell,” he said, “by a single hair. Have you ever counted how many of yours now belong to him?”
“No.”
“I cannot tell you that exactly either, but I know how many you have which are still your own. You have one left! You see it is long past the time for repentance.”
“But if a man is lost when but one of his hairs belongs to the devil,” said Thibault, “why cannot God likewise save a man in virtue of a single hair?”
“Well, try if that is so!”
“And, besides, when I concluded that unhappy bargain with you, I did not understand that it was to be a compact of this kind.”
“Oh, yes! I know all about the bad faith of you men! Was it no compact then to consent to give me your hairs, you stupid fool? Since men invented baptism, we do not know how to get hold of them, and so, in return for any concessions we make them, we are bound to insist on their relinquishing to us some part of their body on which we can lay hands. You gave us the hairs of your head; they are firmly rooted, as you have proved yourself and will not come away in our grasp. … No, no, Thibault, you have belonged to us ever since, standing on the threshold of the door that was once there, you cherished within you thoughts of deceit and violence.”
“And so,” cried Thibault passionately, rising and stamping his foot, “and so I am lost as regards the next world without having enjoyed the pleasures of this!”
“You can yet enjoy these.”
“And how, I pray.”
“By boldly following the path that you have struck by chance, and resolutely determining on a course of conduct which you have adopted as yet only in a halfhearted way; in short, by frankly owning yourself to be one of us.”
“And how am I to do this?”
“Take my place.”
“And what then?”
“You will then acquire my power, and you will have nothing left to wish for.”
“If your power is so great, if it can give you all the riches that I long for, why do you give it up?”
“Do not trouble yourself about me. The master for whom I shall have won a retainer will liberally reward me.”
“And if I take your place, shall I also have to take your form?”
“Yes, in the nighttime; by day you will be a man again.”
“The nights are long, dark, full of snares; I may be brought down by a bullet from a keeper, or be caught in a trap, and then goodbye riches, goodbye position and pleasure.”
“Not so; for this skin that covers me is impenetrable by iron, lead or steel. As long as it protects your body, you will be not only invulnerable, but immortal; once a year, like all werewolves, you will become a wolf again for four and twenty hours, and during that interval, you will be in danger of death like any other animal. I had just reached that dangerous time a year ago today, when
