The Wolf

Guy de Maupassant

This is what the old Marquis d'Arville told us after St. Hubert's dinner at the house of the

Baron des Ravels.

We had killed a stag that day. The marquis was the only one of the guests who had not

taken part in this chase. He never hunted.

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

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

imitated the attacks and the combats of men against beasts, raised their arms, romanced in a

thundering voice.

His name was Jean. He was married, father of that child who became my great-grandfather,

and he lived with his younger brother, Francois d'Arville, in our castle in Lorraine, in the

midst of the forest.

Francois d'Arville had remained a bachelor for love of the chase.

They both hunted from one end of the year to the other, without stopping and seemingly

without fatigue. They loved only hunting, understood nothing else, talked only of that, lived

only for that.

They had at heart that one passion, which was terrible and inexorable. It consumed them,

had completely absorbed them, leaving room for no other thought.

They had given orders that they should not be interrupted in the chase for any reason

In the countryside they were called M. le Marquis and M. le Cadet, the nobles then not

being at all like the chance nobility of our time, which wishes to establish an hereditary

hierarchy in titles; for the son of a marquis is no more a count, nor the son of a viscount a

Livros Grátis

finds profit in that arrangement.

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

than the older, had a voice so strong that, according to a legend of which he was proud, all

the leaves of the forest shook when he shouted.

When they were both mounted to set out hunting, it must have been a superb sight to see

those two giants straddling their huge horses.

Now, toward the midwinter of that year, 1764, the frosts were excessive, and the wolves

became ferocious.

They even attacked belated peasants, roamed at night outside the houses, howled from

sunset to sunrise, and robbed the stables.

The brothers d'Arville determined to find and kill him, and several times they brought

together all the gentlemen of the country to a great hunt.

They beat the forests and searched the coverts in vain; they never met him. They killed

wolves, but not that one. And every night after a battue the beast, as if to avenge himself,

attacked some traveller or killed some one's cattle, always far from the place where they had

looked for him.

Finally, one night he stole into the pigpen of the Chateau d'Arville and ate the two fattest

pigs.

The brothers were roused to anger, considering this attack as a direct insult and a defiance.

They took their strong bloodhounds, used to pursue dangerous animals, and they set off to

The elder said:

"That beast is not an ordinary one. You would say it had a mind like a man."

"Perhaps we should have a bullet blessed by our cousin, the bishop, or pray some priest to

pronounce the words which are needed."

Then they were silent.

Jean continued:

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

He had hardly finished speaking when his horse reared; that of Franqois began to kick. A

large thicket covered with dead leaves opened before them, and a mammoth beast, entirely

gray, jumped up and ran off through the wood.

Both uttered a kind of grunt of joy, and bending over the necks of their heavy horses, they

their people and the dogs.

And now, suddenly, in that mad race, my ancestor struck his forehead against an enormous

branch which split his skull; and he fell dead on the ground, while his frightened horse took

himself off, disappearing in the gloom which enveloped the woods.

The younger d'Arville stopped quick, leaped to the earth, seized his brother in his arms, and

saw that the brains were escaping from the wound with the blood.

Then he sat down beside the body, rested the head, disfigured and red, on his knees, and

waited, regarding the immobile face of his elder brother. Little by little a fear possessed

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

loneliness, the fear of the deserted wood, and the fear also of the weird wolf who had just

saddle to carry it back to the chateau; then he went on his way softly, his mind troubled as if

And all at once, in the growing darkness a great shape crossed his path. It was the beast. A

down his back, and, like a monk haunted of the devil, he made a great sign of the cross,

dismayed at this abrupt return of the horrible prowler. But his eyes fell again on the inert

body before him, and passing abruptly from fear to anger, he shook with an indescribable

rage.

Then he spurred his horse and rushed after the wolf.

He followed it through the copses, the ravines, and the tall trees, traversing woods which he

no longer recognized, his eyes fixed on the white speck which fled before him through the

night.

His horse also seemed animated by a force and strength hitherto unknown. It galloped

straight ahead with outstretched neck, striking against trees, and rocks, the head and the feet

of the dead man thrown across the saddle. The limbs tore out his hair; the brow, beating the

stars. But, before beginning battle, the strong hunter, seizing his brother, seated him on a

rock, and, placing stones under his head, which was no more than a mass of blood, he

shouted in the ears as if he was talking to a deaf man: "Look, Jean; look at this!"

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

bruise stones in his hands. The beast tried to bite him, aiming for his stomach; but he had

seized the fierce animal by the neck, without even using his weapon, and he strangled it

gently, listening to the cessation of breathing in its throat and the beatings of its heart. He

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

delirium of joy, "Look, Jean, look!" All resistance ceased; the body of the wolf became

limp. He was dead.

And often, later, when he talked again of that day, he would say, with tears in his eyes: "If

only poor Jean could have seen me strangle the beast, he would have died content, that I am

sure!"

The widow of my ancestor inspired her orphan son with that horror of the chase which has

The Marquis d'Arville was silent. Some one asked:

"That story is a legend, isn't it?"

And the story teller answered:

"I swear to you that it is true from beginning to end."

Then a lady declared, in a little, soft voice

"All the same, it is fine to have passions like that."