Mystery & Suspense - Daily Short Stories

The Wolf - Guy de Maupassant

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Duration:: 13m
Broadcast on:: 17 Jul 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

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From marketing and showing your property, to screening tenants and preparing the lease, their team of experts handles it all so you can sit back and watch the rent roll in. Renter's warehouse even warranties their tenants for up to 18 months at no extra cost. And if you need ongoing management, they've got you covered, too, all for a flat monthly fee. Visit renterswearhouse.com to request a free rental price analysis. That's renterswearhouse.com. Or call 303-974-9444 to speak to a rent estate advisor today. The Wolf by Guy de Marpissant. This is what the old Marquis Darville told us after St. Hubert's dinner at the house of the Baron de Ravel. We had killed 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 that long repast, we had talked about hardly anything but the slaughter of animals. The ladies themselves were interested in bloodied and exaggerated tales, and the orators imitated the attacks and the combats met against beasts, raised their arms, romanced in a thundering voice. Ms. Yardarville talked well in a certain, flowery, high-sounding, but effective style. He must have told this story frequently, for he told it fluently. Never hesitated for words, choosing them with skill to make his description vivid. Gentlemen. I've never hunted, neither did my father, nor my grandfather, nor my great-grandfather. This last was the son of a man who hunted more than all of you put together. He died in 1764. I will tell you the story of his death. His name was Jean. He was married, father of that child who became my great-grandfather, and he lived with his younger brother, Francois Darville, and our castle in Lorraine, in the midst of the forest. Once while Darville 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 hunting. Understood nothing else, talked only of that, lived only for that. They had it hard 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 whatever. My great-grandfather was born while his father was following a fox, and Jean Darville did not stop the chase, but exclaimed, "The deuce! The rascal might have waited till after the view." "Hello!" His brother Francois was still more infatuated. On rising, he went to see the dogs, then the horses, then he shot little birds about the castle until the time came to hunt some large game. In the countryside they recalled, "Mizirla Marquis" and "Mizirla 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, no more a count, nor the son of a vie count a bear, and then a son of a general is a colonel by birth. But the contemptible vanity of today 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. And sooner a rumor began to circulate. People talked of a colossal wolf with grey fur, almost white, who had eaten two children. Not off a woman's arm, strangled all the watchdogs in the district, and even come without fear into the farmyards. The people in the houses affirmed that they had felt his breath, and that it made the flame of the lights flicker. And soon a panic ran through all the province. No one dared go out any more after nightfall. The darkness seemed haunted by the image of the beast. The brothers Darville 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 covers in vain. They never met him. They killed wolves, but not that one. And every night, after a bat to the beast, as if to avenge himself, attacked some traveler or killed someone's cattle, always far from the place where they had looked for him. Finally, one night he stole into the pigpin of the Chateau Darville, 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 the hunt. Their hearts filled with rage. From dawn until the hour when the unpurpled sun descended behind the great naked trees, they beat the woods without finding anything. At last, furious and disgusted both were returning, walking their horses along the lane board with hedges, and they marveled that their skill as huntsmen should be baffled by this wolf, and they were suddenly seized with a mysterious fear. The elder said, "That beast is not an ordinary one. You would say it had a mind like a man." The younger answered, "Perhaps we should have a bullet blessed by our cousin, the bishop, or pray some priests to pronounce the words which are needed." Then they were silent. John continued, "Look how red the sun is." The great wolf will do some harm tonight. He had hardly finished speaking when his horse reared. That a françois began to kick, a large thicket covered with dead leaves open before them, and a mammoth beast entirely grey jumped up and ran off through the wood. Both utter a kind of grunt of joy in bending over the necks of their heavy horses they threw them forward with an impulse from all their body, hurling them on at such a pace, urging them, hurrying them away, exciting them so with voice and with gesture and with spur that the experienced striders seemed to be carrying the heavy beasts between their thighs, and to bear them off as if they were flying. Thus they went, plunging through the thickets, dashing across the beds of streams, climbing the hill sides, descending the gorges and blowing the horn as loud as they could to attract 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 Darville 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 older 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 killed his brother to avenge himself upon them both. The gloom thickened. The acute cold made the trees crack. And Swag got up, shivering, unable to remain there longer, feeling himself growing faint. Nothing was to be heard, neither the voice of the dogs nor the sound of the horns. All was silent along the invisible horizon. And this mournful silence of the frozen night had something about it terrific and strange. He seized in his immense hands the great body of Jean, straightened it, laid it across the saddle to carry it back to the chateau. Then he went on his way softly. His mind troubled as if he were in a stupor, pursued by horrible and fear-giving images. And all at once in the growing darkness a great shape crossed his path. It was the beast. A shock of terror took the hunter, something cold like a drop of water seeming to glide 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 corpses of 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, and without stretched neck, striking against trees and rocks. The head and the feet, the dead man, thrown across the saddle. The limbs tore out his hair, the brow, beating the huge trunks spatter than with blood. The spurs tore their ragged coats of bark, suddenly the beast and the horsemen issued from the forest rushed into a valley, just as the moon appeared above the mountains. The valley here was stony, enclosed by enormous rocks. This saw the nuttered yellow joy which the echoes repeated like a peel of thunder, and he leapt from his horse's cutlass in hand. The beast, with bristling hair, the back arched, awaited him. Its eyes, gleaming like two 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 his throat and the beatings of his 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. Francois took him up in his arms and carried him to the feet of the elder brother where he laid him, repeating in a tender voice. "There, there, there, my little Jean. See him." Then he replaced on the side all the two bodies, one upon the other and rode away. He returned to the chateau, laughing and crying like gargantua at the birth of Pantagruel, stirring shouts of triumph and boisterous with joy as he related the death of the beast, and grieving and tearing his beard and telling of that of his brother. 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 that beast, he would have died content. That, I am sure." The widow of my ancestor inspired her orphaned son with that horror of the chase, which has transmitted itself from father to son as far down as myself. The Marquis Darville was silent. Someone asked, "That story is a legend, isn't it?" And the storyteller 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. End of the Wolf When it comes to renting out your property, the uncertainty of finding reliable tenants can feel like a real guessing game, responsible renter or perpetual party animal. Enter, renter's warehouse, the pros who turn the uncertainty of finding great tenants into peace of mind. Renter's warehouse offers top-notch leasing and tenant placement services, ensuring you get trustworthy renters without the hassles and headaches. With no upfront fees, renter's warehouse works for you, not the other way around. From marketing and showing your property, to screening tenants and preparing the lease, their team of experts handles it all so you can sit back and watch the rent roll in. Renter's warehouse even warranties their tenants for up to 18 months at no extra cost. And if you need ongoing management, they've got you covered too, all for a flat monthly fee. 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