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by Corry Shores
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[Dumas. The Wolf-Leader (Le meneur de loups), entry directory]
[The following is summary. Boldface, underlining, bracketed commentary, and section subdivisions are my own. Proofreading is incomplete, so please forgive my mistakes. Text is copied from online sources (see bibliography below).]
Summary of
Alexandre Dumas
Le meneur de loups
The Wolf-Leader
18
“Mort et résurrection”
“Death and Resurrection”
Brief summary (collecting those below):
__(18.1)__ (Recall from section 17 that Thibault the sorcerer had taken up the body of Raoul the Lord of Vauparfond and he was secretly visiting Raoul’s illicit lover Comtesse de Mont-Gobert. Her husband was ready for this deception and fought Thibault, resulting in the Count getting hamstrung by Thibault and Thibault being stabbed through the chest by the Count’s partner Lestocq). Thibault regains consciousness. He sees the blood from the fight, but since the Count and Lestocq are gone, he concludes Lestocq helped the Count inside and left Thibault/Raoul to die. “He had it on the tip of his tongue to hurl after them all the maledictory wishes wherewith one would like to assail one’s cruellest enemy. But since Thibault had been no longer Thibault, and indeed during the remainder of the time that he would still be the Baron Raoul, or at least so in outward appearance, his demoniacal power had been and would continue in abeyance. [Mais, depuis que Thibault n’était plus Thibault, et pour tout le temps qu’il lui restait à être encore le baron Raoul, ou du moins à se dissimuler, sous son enveloppe, tout son pouvoir fantastique était perdu.]” Thibault hopes he can stay alive until nine that night, at which time presumably he will return to his normal body. He regrets the fact that when he was originally cursing Raoul and making his wishes to the devil, he mentioned this very sort of violent encounter with the Count, and so he inadvertently brought this upon himself. Thibault tries calling to passers-by for help, “but the blood filled his mouth and nearly choked him.” He instead signals to them using his hat on his knife blade and then falls unconscious. Peasants take him to a village priest. When the Priest comes, he recognizes Raoul as a former student. A doctor arrives, examines the terrible wound, and says there is no treatment left and that Thibault/Raoul will probably die today. The Doctor dresses the wound and when leaving says he will come back tomorrow, even though probably Raoul will be dead by that time. Thibault falls into delirium. Before his mind flashes the important events of his life going back to his meeting the Wolf-Devil. When the flashbacks finally arrive at his recent attempted escape, “he found himself at a cross-road where three ways only met, and each of these was guarded by one of his victims: the first, by the spectre of a drowned man, that was Marcotte; the second, by a young man dying of fever on a hospital bed, that was Landry; the third, by a wounded man, dragging himself along on one knee, and trying in vain to stand up on his mutilated leg, that was the Comte de Mont-Gobert. He fancied that as all these things passed before him, he told the history of them one by one, and that the priest, as he listened to this strange confession, looked more like a dying man, was paler and more trembling than the man whose confession he was listening to; that he wanted to give him absolution, but that he, Thibault, pushed him away, shaking his head, and that he cried out with a terrible laugh: ‘ want no absolution! I am damned! damned! damned!’[Pas d’absolution ! je suis damné ! je suis damné ! je suis damné !]” As time passes, Thibault feels himself dying until finally he does die at “exactly one second after the half hour after nine.”
[Thibault’s Experience of Raoul’s Death]
Summary
[Thibault’s Experience of Raoul’s Death]
[(Recall from section 17 that Thibault the sorcerer had taken up the body of Raoul the Lord of Vauparfond and he was secretly visiting Raoul’s illicit lover Comtesse de Mont-Gobert. Her husband was ready for this deception and fought Thibault, resulting in the Count getting hamstrung by Thibault and Thibault being stabbed through the chest by the Count’s partner Lestocq). Thibault regains consciousness. He sees the blood from the fight, but since the Count and Lestocq are gone, he concludes Lestocq helped the Count inside and left Thibault/Raoul to die. “He had it on the tip of his tongue to hurl after them all the maledictory wishes wherewith one would like to assail one’s cruellest enemy. But since Thibault had been no longer Thibault, and indeed during the remainder of the time that he would still be the Baron Raoul, or at least so in outward appearance, his demoniacal power had been and would continue in abeyance. [Mais, depuis que Thibault n’était plus Thibault, et pour tout le temps qu’il lui restait à être encore le baron Raoul, ou du moins à se dissimuler, sous son enveloppe, tout son pouvoir fantastique était perdu.]” Thibault hopes he can stay alive until nine that night, at which time presumably he will return to his normal body. He regrets the fact that when he was originally cursing Raoul and making his wishes to the devil, he mentioned this very sort of violent encounter with the Count, and so he inadvertently brought this upon himself. Thibault tries calling to passers-by for help, “but the blood filled his mouth and nearly choked him.” He instead signals to them using his hat on his knife blade and then falls unconscious. Peasants take him to a village priest. When the Priest comes, he recognizes Raoul as a former student. A doctor arrives, examines the terrible wound, and says there is no treatment left and that Thibault/Raoul will probably die today. The Doctor dresses the wound and when leaving says he will come back tomorrow, even though probably Raoul will be dead by that time. Thibault falls into delirium. Before his mind flashes the important events of his life going back to his meeting the Wolf-Devil. When the flashbacks finally arrive at his recent attempted escape, “he found himself at a cross-road where three ways only met, and each of these was guarded by one of his victims: the first, by the spectre of a drowned man, that was Marcotte; the second, by a young man dying of fever on a hospital bed, that was Landry; the third, by a wounded man, dragging himself along on one knee, and trying in vain to stand up on his mutilated leg, that was the Comte de Mont-Gobert. He fancied that as all these things passed before him, he told the history of them one by one, and that the priest, as he listened to this strange confession, looked more like a dying man, was paler and more trembling than the man whose confession he was listening to; that he wanted to give him absolution, but that he, Thibault, pushed him away, shaking his head, and that he cried out with a terrible laugh: ‘ want no absolution! I am damned! damned! damned!’[Pas d’absolution ! je suis damné ! je suis damné ! je suis damné !]” As time passes, Thibault feels himself dying until finally he does die at “exactly one second after the half hour after nine.”]
[ditto]
Le froid du matin rappela Thibault à la vie.
Il essaya de se soulever, mais une vive douleur le clouait à sa place.
Il était couché sur le dos, n’avait nul souvenir ; et ne voyait au-dessus de sa tête qu’un ciel gris et bas.
Il fit un effort, s’appuya sur le côté, se souleva sur son coude et regarda autour de lui.
La vue des objets extérieurs lui rendit la mémoire des événements accomplis.
Il reconnut la brèche du parc.
Il se rappela son entrevue amoureuse avec la comtesse, son duel acharné avec le comte.
À trois pas de lui, la terre était rouge de sang.
Seulement, le comte n’était plus là.
Sans doute Lestocq, qui lui avait donné, à lui, le joli coup de pointe qui le clouait à cette place, avait aidé son maître à rentrer chez lui.
Quant à Thibault, on l’avait laissé là, au risque qu’il y mourût comme un chien.
Le sabotier avait sur le bout de la langue tous les souhaits de désastres que l’on peut jeter à son plus cruel ennemi.
Mais, depuis que Thibault n’était plus Thibault, et pour tout le temps qu’il lui restait à être encore le baron Raoul, ou du moins à se dissimuler, sous son enveloppe, tout son pouvoir fantastique était perdu.
Il avait jusqu’à neuf heures du soir ; seulement, vivrait-il jusque-là ?
Thibault ne laissait point que d’éprouver une vive inquiétude. S’il mourait auparavant, lequel mourrait de lui ou du baron Raoul ? Il y avait autant à parier pour lui que pour l’autre.
Mais ce qui faisait surtout enrager Thibault, c’est que ce mal lui arrivait encore par sa faute.
Il se rappelait qu’avant de souhaiter d’être le baron pour vingt-quatre heures, il avait, ou à peu près, prononcé ces paroles :
« Je rirais bien, Raoul, si le comte de Mont-Gobert te surprenait ; il n’en serait point là comme il en a été hier chez le bailli Magloire, et il y aurait des coups d’épée donnés et reçus. »
Le premier désir de Thibault, on le voit, s’était aussi fidèlement accompli que le second ; et il y avait eu, en effet, des coups d’épée donnés et reçus.
Thibault parvint, après des efforts inouïs et des douleurs atroces, à se mettre sur un genou.
Dans cette position, il aperçut, suivant un chemin creux, des gens qui s’en allaient au marché de Villers-Cotterêts.
Il tenta d’appeler.
Mais le sang lui vint à la bouche et l’étouffa.
Il mit son chapeau au bout de son couteau de chasse et fit des signes comme un naufragé.
Mais les forces lui manquèrent de nouveau, et il retomba sans connaissance sur la terre.
Cependant, au bout de quelque temps, il lui sembla que le sentiment renaissait en lui.
Il lui parut que son corps éprouvait une espèce de balancement pareil à celui que l’on ressent dans un bateau.
Il ouvrit les yeux.
Des paysans l’avaient vu, et, sans le connaître, ayant pitié de ce beau jeune homme tout couvert de sang, ils avaient fabriqué un brancard avec des branches d’arbre et le transportaient à Villers-Cotterêts sur ce brancard.
Mais, arrivé à Puiseux, le blessé se sentit incapable de supporter plus longtemps le mouvement.
Il demanda qu’on le déposât chez le premier paysan venu, où il attendrait qu’on lui envoyât un médecin.
Les porteurs le déposèrent chez le curé du village.
Thibault tira deux pièces d’or de la bourse de Raoul, donna ces deux pièces d’or aux paysans pour les remercier de la peine qu’ils avaient prise et de celle qu’ils allaient prendre encore.
Le curé disait sa messe.
En rentrant, il jeta les hauts cris.
Eût-il été Raoul lui-même, Thibault n’eût pas choisi un meilleur hôpital.
Le curé de Puiseux avait été autrefois vicaire à Vauparfond et avait été chargé à cette époque de la première éducation de Raoul.
Comme tous les curés de campagne, il savait ou croyait savoir un peu de médecine.
Il examina la plaie de son ancien élève.
Le fer avait glissé sous l’omoplate, avait traversé le poumon droit et était sorti par-devant, entre la deuxième et la troisième côte.
Il ne se dissimula point la gravité de la blessure.
Cependant, il ne dit rien que le docteur ne fût arrivé. Le docteur arriva et visita la plaie.
Il hocha piteusement la tête.
– Est-ce que vous ne le saignez pas ? demanda le prêtre.
– Pour quoi faire ? demanda le médecin. Sur l’heure où il a reçu le coup, oui, cela eût pu être utile ; mais maintenant il serait dangereux d’opérer dans le sang un mouvement quel qu’il fût.
– Qu’augurez-vous de son état ? demanda le curé, qui pensait que moins il y avait à faire pour le médecin, plus il restait à faire pour le prêtre.
– Si la blessure suit son cours ordinaire, dit le docteur en baissant la voix, le malade ne passera probablement pas la journée.
– Alors, vous le condamnez ?
– Un médecin ne condamne jamais, ou, quand il condamne, c’est en laissant à la nature son droit de faire grâce : un caillot peut se former et arrêter net l’hémorragie ; une toux peut faire sauter le caillot et l’hémorragie tuer le malade.
– Alors, vous pensez qu’il est de mon devoir de préparer le pauvre garçon à la mort ? demanda le curé.
– Je crois, répondit le médecin en haussant les épaules, que vous feriez mieux de le laisser tranquille : d’abord, en ce moment-ci, parce qu’il est assoupi et ne vous entendra point ; ensuite, plus tard, parce qu’il aura le délire et ne vous comprendra pas.
Le docteur se trompait.
Le blessé, tout assoupi qu’il était, entendit ce dialogue, plus rassurant pour le salut de son âme que pour la santé de son corps.
Que de choses on dit devant le malade que l’on croit qu’il n’entend pas et dont il ne perd pas un mot !
Puis aussi cette acuité du sens de l’ouïe, peut-être tenait-elle à ce que c’était l’esprit de Thibault qui veillait dans le corps de Raoul.
Si c’eût été l’esprit de ce corps, peut-être eût-il subi plus sympathiquement l’influence de cette blessure.
Le médecin mit un appareil sur la blessure du dos. Quant à la blessure de la poitrine, il la laissa à découvert, en prescrivant seulement de tenir dessus un linge mouillé d’eau glacée. Puis il versa dans un verre d’eau quelques gouttes d’une liqueur calmante, recommandant au prêtre d’en faire avaler une cuillerée au malade toutes les fois que celui-ci demanderait à boire.
Ces précautions prises, le docteur se retira en disant qu’il reviendrait le lendemain, mais qu’il avait bien peur de faire une course inutile.
Thibault eût bien voulu mêler un mot à la conversation et dire à son tour ce qu’il pensait de lui-même ; mais son esprit était comme en prison dans ce corps mourant et subissait malgré lui l’influence du cachot dans lequel il était enfermé.
Cependant il entendait le prêtre qui lui parlait, qui le secouait, qui essayait de le tirer de l’espèce de léthargie dans laquelle il était plongé. Cela le fatiguait fort.
Il fut bien heureux pour le digne curé que Thibault, n’étant plus Thibault, eût perdu son pouvoir fantastique, car plus de dix fois, dans le fond de sa pensée, le blessé l’envoya à tous les diables.
Bientôt il lui sembla qu’on lui glissait sous les pieds, sous les reins, sous la tête, un espèce de brasier ardent.
Son sang commença à s’agiter, puis se mit à bouillir comme de l’eau sur le feu.
Il sentit toutes ses idées qui se brouillaient.
Ses mâchoires fermées s’ouvrirent ; sa langue, nouée, se délia ; quelques mots sans suite lui échappèrent.
– Ah ! ah ! ah ! dit-il, voilà probablement ce que le brave docteur appelle délire.
Ce fut, pour le moment du moins, sa dernière idée lucide. Toute sa vie – et, en réalité, sa vie n’existait que depuis l’apparition du loup noir, – toute sa vie repassa devant lui.
Il se vit poursuivant et manquant le chevreuil.
Il se vit attaché au chêne et recevant les coups de ceinturon.
Il se vit faisant avec le loup noir le pacte qu’il subissait.
Il se vit essayant de passer la bague infernale au doigt d’Agnelette.
Il se vit essayant d’arracher ses cheveux rouges, qui avaient maintenant envahi le tiers de sa tête.
Il se vit allant chez la belle meunière, rencontrant Landry, se débarrassant de son rival, poursuivi par les garçons et les filles du moulin, et suivi par les loups.
Il se vit faisant connaissance avec madame Magloire, allant à la chasse pour elle, mangeant sa part de cette chasse, se cachant derrière les rideaux de sa chambre, découvert par maître Magloire, raillé par le seigneur Jean, éconduit par tous trois.
Il se vit dans son arbre creux, avec ses loups couchés tout autour de l’arbre, les hiboux et les chouettes perchés dans les branches.
Il se vit prêtant l’oreille, écoutant les sons des violons et du hautbois, sortant sa tête de son trou, regardant passer Agnelette et la joyeuse noce.
Il se vit en proie à toutes les colères de la jalousie, essayant de lutter contre elle à l’aide du vin ; à travers son cerveau troublé, il reconnaissait François, Champagne, l’aubergiste ; il entendait le galop du cheval du baron Raoul, il se sentait heurté et roulant dans la boue du chemin.
Puis il cessait de se voir, lui, Thibault.
Il ne voyait plus que le beau cavalier dont il avait pris la forme.
Il serrait la taille de Lisette.
Il effleurait de ses lèvres la main de la comtesse.
Puis il voulait fuir ; mais il se trouvait dans un carrefour où il n’y avait que trois chemins.
Chacun de ces trois chemins était gardé par une de ses victimes :
le premier, par un spectre de noyé : c’était Marcotte ;
le second, par un fiévreux agonisant sur un lit d’hôpital : c’était Landry ;
le troisième, par un blessé se traînant sur un genou et essayant en vain de se redresser sur son jarret coupé : c’était le comte de Mont-Gobert.
Il lui semblait qu’il racontait tout cela à mesure qu’il le voyait, et que le prêtre, à qui il faisait l’étrange confession, était, à l’écouter, plus mourant, plus pâle, plus tremblant que celui qui se confessait ; qu’il voulait cependant lui donner l’absolution, mais que lui la repoussait, secouait la tête et riait d’un air terrible en riant :
– Pas d’absolution ! je suis damné ! je suis damné ! je suis damné !
Et, au milieu de ce délire, de cette hallucination, de cette folie, l’esprit de Thibault entendait sonner les heures à l’horloge du curé et les comptait.
Seulement, il lui semblait que cette horloge avait des proportions gigantesques, que le cadran n’était autre que la voûte bleue du ciel, que les numéros des heures de ce cadran étaient des flammes, que cette horloge s’appelait l’éternité, et que le monstrueux balancier qui la faisait mouvoir disait à chacune de ses secousses :
– Jamais !
À l’autre :
– Toujours !
Il entendit ainsi passer toutes les heures de la journée.
L’horloge sonna neuf heures du soir.
À neuf heures et demie, il y aurait vingt-quatre heures que lui, Thibault, était Raoul et que Raoul était Thibault.
Au dernier tintement de neuf heures, le sabotier sentit toute cette fièvre qui s’éloignait de lui ; une sensation de refroidissement qui allait jusqu’au tremblement lui succéda.
Il ouvrit les yeux en grelottant, reconnut le curé à genoux et disant au pied de son lit la prière des agonisants, et la vraie pendule marquant neuf heures un quart.
Seulement, ses sens avaient acquis une telle subtilité, qu’il voyait, si insensible que fût en réalité leur double mouvement, marcher la grande et même la petite aiguille.
Toutes deux s’acheminaient vers l’heure fatale :
Neuf heures et demie !
Quoique aucune lumière ne donnât sur le cadran, il semblait illuminé par une lumière intérieure.
Au fur et à mesure que la grande aiguille marchait vers le n° 6, un spasme de plus en plus violent serrait la poitrine du moribond.
Ses pieds étaient glacés, et le froid montait lentement, mais sans s’arrêter, des pieds aux genoux, des genoux aux cuisses, des cuisses aux entrailles.
La sueur lui coulait sur le front.
Il n’avait pas la force de l’essuyer ni même de demander qu’on l’essuyât.
Il sentait que c’était la sueur d’une angoisse qui, de moment en moment, devenait la sueur de l’agonie.
Toutes sortes de formes bizarres et qui n’avaient rien d’humain flottaient devant ses yeux.
La lumière se décomposait.
Il lui semblait que des ailes de chauves-souris soulevaient son corps et l’emportaient dans un crépuscule qui n’était ni la vie ni la mort, et participait des deux.
Enfin, le crépuscule lui-même devint de plus en plus sombre.
Ses yeux se fermèrent et, comme un aveugle trébuchant dans les ténèbres, les lourdes membranes de ses ailes se heurtèrent à des choses inconnues.
Puis il roula dans des profondeurs incommensurables, dans des abîmes sans fond, où cependant retentit le battement d’un timbre.
Le timbre frappa un seul coup.
Le frémissement de ce timbre était à peine éteint, que le blessé jeta un cri.
Le prêtre se leva et s’approcha du lit.
Ce cri était le dernier soupir, la dernière haleine, le dernier souffle du baron Raoul. Il était neuf heures et demie et une seconde.
(235-243)
THE cold morning air brought Thibault back to consciousness; he tried to rise, but the extremity of his pain held him bound. He was lying on his back, with no remembrance of what had happened, seeing only the low grey sky above him. He made another effort, and turning managed to lift himself on his elbow. As he looked around him, he began to recall the events of the previous night; he recognised the breach in the wall; and then there came back to him the memory of the love meeting with the Countess and the desperate duel with the Count. The ground near him was red with blood, but the Count was no longer there; no doubt, Lestocq, who had given him this fine blow that was nailing him to the spot, had helped his master indoors; Thibault they had left there, to die like a dog, as far as they cared. He had it on the tip of his tongue to hurl after them all the maledictory wishes wherewith one would like to assail one’s cruellest enemy. But since Thibault had been no longer Thibault, and indeed during the remainder of the time that he would still be the Baron Raoul, or at least so in outward appearance, his demoniacal power had been and would continue in abeyance. [Mais, depuis que Thibault n’était plus Thibault, et pour tout le temps qu’il lui restait à être encore le baron Raoul, ou du moins à se dissimuler, sous son enveloppe, tout son pouvoir fantastique était perdu.]
He had until nine o’clock that evening; but would he live till then? This question gave rise in Thibault to a very uneasy state of mind. If he were to die before that hour, which of them would die, he or the Baron? It seemed to him as likely to be one as the other. What, however, disturbed and angered him most was his consciousness that the misfortune which had befallen him was again owing to his own fault. He remembered now that before he had expressed the wish to be the Baron for four and twenty hours, he had said some such words as these:
“I should laugh, Raoul, if the Comte de Mont-Gobert were to take you by surprise; you would not get off so easily as if he were the Bailiff Magloire; there would be swords drawn, and blows given and received.”
At last, with a terrible effort, and suffering the while excruciating pain, Thibault succeeded in dragging himself on to one knee. He could then make out people walking along a road not far off on their way to market, and he tried to call to them, but the blood filled his mouth and nearly choked him. So he put his hat on the point of his knife and signalled to them like a shipwrecked mariner, but his strength again failing, he once more fell back unconscious. In a little while, however, he again awoke to sensation; he appeared to be swaying from side to side as if in a boat. He opened his eyes; the peasants, it seemed, had seen him, and although not knowing who he was, had had compassion on this handsome young man lying covered with blood, and had concocted a sort of hand-barrow out of some branches, on which they were now carrying him to Villers-Cotterets. But by the time they reached Puiseux, the wounded man felt that he could no longer bear the movement, and begged them to put him down in the first peasant’s hut they came to, and to send a doctor to him there. The carriers took him to the house of the village priest, and left him there, Thibault before they parted, distributing gold among them from Raoul’s purse, accompanied by many thanks for all their kind offices. The priest was away saying mass, but on returning and finding the wounded man, he uttered loud cries of lamentation.
Had he been Raoul himself, Thibault could not have found a better hospital. The priest had at one time been Curé of Vauparfond, and while there had been engaged to give Raoul his first schooling. Like all country priests, he knew, or thought he knew, something about doctoring; so he examined his old pupil’s wound. The knife had passed under the shoulder-blade, through the right lung, and out between the second and third ribs.
He did not for a moment disguise to himself the seriousness of the wound, but he said nothing until the doctor had been to see it. The latter arrived and after his examination, he turned and shook his head.
“Are you going to bleed him?” asked the priest.
“What would be the use?” asked the doctor. “If it had been done at once after the wound was given, it might perhaps have helped to save him, but it would be dangerous now to disturb the blood in any way.”
“Is there any chance for him?” asked the priest, who was thinking that the less there was for the doctor to do, the more there would be for the priest.
“If his wound runs the ordinary course,” said the doctor, lowering his voice, “he will probably not last out the day.”
“You give him up then?”
“A doctor never gives up a patient, or at least if he does so, he still trusts to the possibility of nature mercifully interfering on the patient’s behalf; a clot may form and stop the hemorrhage; a cough may disturb the clot, and the patient bleed to death.”
“You think then that it is my duty to prepare the poor young man for death,” asked the curate.
“I think,” answered the doctor, shrugging his shoulders, “you would do better to leave him alone; in the first place because he is, at present, in a drowsy condition and cannot hear what you say; later on, because he will be delirious, and unable to understand you.” But the doctor was mistaken; the wounded man, drowsy as he was, overheard this conversation, more re-assuring as regards the salvation of his soul than the recovery of his body. How many things people say in the presence of sick persons, believing that they cannot hear, while all the while, they are taking in every word! In the present case, this extra acuteness of hearing may perhaps have been due to the fact that it was Thibault’s soul which was awake in Raoul’s body; if the soul belonging to it had been in this body, it would probably have succumbed more entirely to the effects of the wound.
The doctor now dressed the wound in the back, but left the front wound uncovered, merely directing that a piece of linen soaked in iced water should be kept over it. Then, having poured some drops of a sedative into a glass of water, and telling the priest to give this to the patient whenever he asked for drink, the doctor departed, saying that he would come again the following morning, but that he much feared he should take his journey for nothing.
Thibault would have liked to put in a word of his own, and to say himself what he thought about his condition, but his spirit was as if imprisoned in this dying body, and, against his will, was forced to submit to lying thus within its cell. But he could still hear the priest, who not only spoke to him, but endeavoured by shaking him to arouse him from his lethargy. Thibault found this very fatiguing, and it was lucky for the priest that the wounded man, just now, had no superhuman power, for he inwardly sent the good man to the devil, many times over.
Before long it seemed to him that some sort of hot burning pan was being inserted under the soles of his feet, his loins, his head; his blood began to circulate, then to boil, like water over a fire. His ideas became confused, his clenched jaws opened; his tongue which had been bound became loosened; some disconnected words escaped him.
“Ah, ah!” he thought to himself, “this no doubt is what the good doctor spoke about as delirium;” and, for the while at least, this was his last lucid idea.
His whole life—and his life had really only existed since his first acquaintance with the black wolf—passed before him. He saw himself following, and failing to hit the buck; saw himself tied to the oak-tree, and the blows of the strap falling on him; saw himself and the black wolf drawing up their compact; saw himself trying to pass the devil’s ring over Agnelette’s finger; saw himself trying to pull out the red hairs, which now covered a third of his head. Then he saw himself on his way to pay court to the pretty Madame Polet of the mill, meeting Landry, and getting rid of his rival; pursued by the farm servants, and followed by his wolves. He saw himself making the acquaintance of Madame Magloire, hunting for her, eating his share of the game, hiding behind the curtains, discovered by Maître Magloire, flouted by the Baron of Vez, turned out by all three. Again he saw the hollow tree, with his wolves couching around it and the owls perched on its branches, and heard the sounds of the approaching violins and hautboy and saw himself looking, as Agnelette and the happy wedding party went by. He saw himself the victim of angry jealousy, endeavouring to fight against it by the help of drink, and across his troubled brain came the recollection of François, of Champagne, and the Inn-keeper; he heard the galloping of Baron Raoul’s horse, and he felt himself knocked down and rolling in the muddy road. Then he ceased to see himself as Thibault; in his stead arose the figure of the handsome young rider whose form he had taken for a while. Once more he was kissing Lisette, once more his lips were touching the Countess’s hand; then he was wanting to escape, but he found himself at a cross-road where three ways only met, and each of these was guarded by one of his victims: the first, by the spectre of a drowned man, that was Marcotte; the second, by a young man dying of fever on a hospital bed, that was Landry; the third, by a wounded man, dragging himself along on one knee, and trying in vain to stand up on his mutilated leg, that was the Comte de Mont-Gobert.
He fancied that as all these things passed before him, he told the history of them one by one, and that the priest, as he listened to this strange confession, looked more like a dying man, was paler and more trembling than the man whose confession he was listening to; that he wanted to give him absolution, but that he, Thibault, pushed him away, shaking his head, and that he cried out with a terrible laugh: “I want no absolution! I am damned! damned! damned!” [Pas d’absolution ! je suis damné ! je suis damné ! je suis damné !]
And in the midst of all this hallucination, this delirious madness, the spirit of Thibault could hear the priest’s clock striking the hours, and as they struck he counted them. Only this clock seemed to have grown to gigantic proportions and the face of it was the blue vault of heaven, and the numbers on it were flames; and the clock was called eternity, and the monstrous pendulum, as it swung backwards and forwards called out in turn at every beat: “Never! For ever!” And so he lay and heard the long hours of the day pass one by one; and then at last the clock struck nine. At half past nine, he, Thibault, would have been Raoul, and Raoul would have been Thibault, for just four and twenty hours. As the last stroke of the hour died away, Thibault felt the fever passing from him, it was succeeded by a sensation of coldness, which almost amounted to shivering. He opened his eyes, all trembling with cold, and saw the priest at the foot of the bed saying the prayers for the dying, and the hands of the actual clock pointing to a quarter past nine.
His senses had become so acute, that, imperceptible as was their double movement, he could yet see both the larger and smaller one slowly creeping along; they were gradually nearing the critical hour; half past nine! Although the face of the clock was in darkness, it seemed illuminated by some inward light. As the minute hand approached the number 6, a spasm becoming every instant more and more violent shook the dying man; his feet were like ice, and the numbness slowly, but steadily, mounted from the feet to the knees, from the knees to the thighs, from the thighs to the lower part of the body. The sweat was running down his forehead, but he had no strength to wipe it away, nor even to ask to have it done. It was a sweat of agony which he knew every moment might be the sweat of death. All kinds of strange shapes, which had nothing of the human about them, floated before his eyes; the light faded away; wings as of bats seemed to lift his body and carry it into some twilight region, which was neither life nor death, but seemed a part of both. Then the twilight itself grew darker and darker; his eyes closed, and like a blind man stumbling in the dark, his heavy wings seemed to flap against strange and unknown things. After that he sank away into unfathomable depths, into bottomless abysses, but still he heard the sound of a bell.
The bell rang once, and scarcely had it ceased to vibrate when the dying man uttered a cry. The priest rose and went to the side of the bed; with that cry the Baron Raoul had breathed his last: it was exactly one second after the half hour after nine.
(88-90)
Dumas, Alexandre. 1868. Le meneur de loups. (Nouvelle édition). Paris: Lévy.
PDF at:
https://archive.org/det ails/bub_gb_BhlMAAAAMAAJ/page/n5
and:
https://beq.ebooksgratuits.com/vents/Dumas-meneur.pdf
Online text at:
https://fr.wikisource.org/wik i/Le_Meneur_de_loups
and
https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Livre:Dumas_- _Le_Meneur_de_loups_(1868).djvu
Dumas, Alexandre. 1921. The Wolf-Leader. Translated by Alfred Allinson. London: Methuen.
PDF at:
https://archive.org/details/wolfle ader00duma
or:
https://archive.org/details/wo lfleader00dumauoft
Online text at:
.
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