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
4
“Le loup noir”
“The Black Wolf”
(Image from archive.org)
Brief summary:
(4.1) (Recall from section 3 that Thibault the sabot-maker has taken Agnelette his potential fiancée to her home and is now returning to his own home.) Thibault was not able to kill the buck from the hunt (see sections 2.3, 3.1, and 3.3) so he instead feasts on black bread. Thibault then hears his goat bleating and goes to feed her. When he arrives to the shed where it dwells, it rushes out suddenly toward the house. Thibault chases after it, and only after great struggle was he able to pull it back into its shed. But even with its food, it continues crying. He returns to the shed and upon inspecting it finds “the animal that had so frightened the goat, the buck of the Lord of Vez; the same buck that he had followed, had failed to kill, that he had prayed for in the devil’s name [nom du diable], if he could not have it in God’s; the same that had thrown the hounds out; the very same in short which had cost him such hard blows.” But Thibault does not know how the buck could have entered the shed, because it was bolted closed quite securely; also, the buck “had been fastened up to the rack by a cord.” This made Thibault feel very uneasy: “now a cold sweat began to break out in large drops on his brow, a curious kind of a shiver ran through his body, and his teeth chattered violently.” He goes out of the shed to find the goat. Then “Thibault had a perfect remembrance of the unholy invocation [le vœu impie] he had addressed to Satan [Satan], and although his prayer had been miraculously answered, he still could not bring himself to believe that there was any diabolic intervention [diabolique intervention] in the matter. As the idea, however, of being under the protection of the spirit of darkness [l’esprit des ténèbres] filled him with an instinctive fear, he tried to pray; but when he wished to raise his hand to make the sign of the cross on his forehead, his arm refused to bend, and although up to that time he had never missed a day saying his Ave Maria, he could not remember a single word of it. These fruitless efforts were accompanied by a terrible turmoil in poor Thibault’s brain; evil thoughts [mauvaises pensées] came rushing in upon him, and he seemed to hear them whispering all around him, as one hears the murmur of the rising tide, or the laughing of the winter wind through the leafless branches of the trees.” Thibault realizes he cannot eat the buck, because it might be “food sent from the nether regions [viande d’enfer].” He reasons it is safest to sell it to a nearby Nunnery, where he can turn a profit on it all while “ ‘The atmosphere of that holy place will drive the evil out of it [la purifiera], and I shall run no risk to my soul in taking a handful of consecrated crown pieces. What days of sweating over my work, and turning my auger, it would take, to earn even the quarter of what I shall get by just leading the beast to its new fold! The devil [diable] who helps one is certainly better worth than the angel who forsakes one. If my lord Satan [messire Satan] wants to go too far with me, it will then be time enough to free myself from his claws: bless me! I am not a child, nor a young lamb like Georgine, and I am able to walk straight in front of me and go where I like.’ He had forgotten, unhappy man, as he boasted of being able to go where and how he liked, that only five minutes before he had tried in vain to lift his hand to his head.” He imagines that with the money this will earn, he can buy Agnelette a white dress: “his thoughts would keep returning towards Agnelette; and he seemed to see her clad in a long white dress with a crown of white lilies on her head and a long veil. If, he said to himself, he could have such a charming guardian angel in his house, no devil [diable], however strong and cunning he might be, would ever dare to cross the threshold. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘there is always that remedy at hand, and if my lord Satan [messire Satan] begins to be too troublesome, I shall be off to the grandmother to ask for Agnelette; I shall marry her, and if I cannot remember my prayers or am unable to make the sign of the cross, there will be a dear pretty little woman, who has had no traffic with Satan [Satan] who will do all that sort of thing for me’.” Thibault wanted to make sure the buck was in good condition for sale, so he feeds it and checks its bedding. “The remainder of the night passed without further incident, and without even a bad dream.” (4.2) The next day, Vez was hunting for the wolf that they tracked the day before (see section 1.2). It is a “genuine wolf,” and although “it must have seen many and many a year,” “it was black all over. Black or grey, however, it was a bold and enterprising beast, and promised some rough work to the Baron and his huntsmen.” It leads the hunting party on a long, complicated chase, eventually leading back to Thibault’s hut. Thibault hears the hunting horn and dogs, and so he piles heather in front of the shed door so that the party will not be able to learn of the buck inside. He then goes back inside to get intently to work, “applying to it an energy unknown even to himself before, bending over the shoe he was making with an intentness which prevented him from even lifting his eyes. All at once he thought he detected a sound like something scratching at the door; he was just going through from his lean-to to open it when the door fell back, and to Thibault’s great astonishment an immense black wolf entered the room, walking on its hind legs. On reaching the middle of the floor, it sat down after the fashion of wolves, and looked hard and fixedly at the sabot-maker.” Alarmed, Thibault brandishes a hatchet, but “A curious mocking expression passed over the face of the wolf, and then it began to laugh. [...] And what a laugh it was! If a man had laughed such a laugh, Thibault would verily and indeed have been scared out of his wits.” After Thibault lowers the hatchet, the wolf speaks to him in a human voice, saying “I send you the finest buck from His Royal Highness’s forests, and in return, you want to split my head open with your hatchet. [...] let us be sensible and talk together like two good friends. Yesterday you wanted the Baron’s buck, and I led it myself into your shed, and for fear it should escape, I tied it up myself to the rack. And for all this you take your hatchet to me! [...] what I want to know is, are you willing to make me some return for the service I have done you?” Thibault agrees but wants to know the price. The Wolf asks for water, and Thibault eagerly gets some from a nearby brook. The Wolf then asks Thibault to help him get the hounds off his trail. They then negotiate what the Wolf will do in return, and Thibault asks for endless granting of wishes: “yesterday I wanted the buck, and you gave it me, it is true; to-morrow, I shall want something else. For some time past I have been possessed by a kind of mania, and I do nothing but wish first for one thing and then for another, and you will not always be able to spare time to listen to my demands. So what I ask for is, that, as you are the devil [le diable] in person or someone very like it, you will grant me the fulfilment of every wish I may have from this day forth.” The Wolf says this is too much and that Thibault must assume that he the Wolf depends on Thibault’s help. To demonstrate otherwise, the Wolf then suddenly disappears. Thibault asks, “ ‘Where the devil [Où diable] are you?’ ‘If you put a question to me in my real name,’ said the wolf with a sneer in his voice, ‘I shall be obliged to answer you. I am still in the same place’.” The Wolf then explains that in fact the dogs will be led to Thibault, and Vez will whip him even more this time. The Wolf says that Thibault should instead let the buck free in hopes that the dogs will give up on the Wolf and chase the buck instead. Thibault runs off to the shed, “unfastened the buck, which, as if propelled by some hidden force, leapt from the house, ran round it, crossing the track of the wolf, and plunged into the Baisemont coppice.” The dogs then come to be “on the scent of the buck, and had abandoned that of the wolf.” Relieved, Thibault returns to his hut. “He found the wolf lying composedly on the same spot as before, but how it had found its way in again was quite as impossible to discover as how it had found its way out.”
[Thibault’s Decision to Sell the Buck to a Nunnery]
[The Wolf Devil’s Introduction to Thibault]
Summary
[Thibault’s Decision to Sell the Buck to a Nunnery]
[(Recall from section 3 that Thibault the sabot-maker has taken Agnelette his potential fiancée to her home and is now returning to his own home.) Thibault was not able to kill the buck from the hunt (see sections 2.3, 3.1, and 3.3) so he instead feasts on black bread. Thibault then hears his goat bleating and goes to feed her. When he arrives to the shed where it dwells, it rushes out suddenly toward the house. Thibault chases after it, and only after great struggle was he able to pull it back into its shed. But even with its food, it continues crying. He returns to the shed and upon inspecting it finds “the animal that had so frightened the goat, the buck of the Lord of Vez; the same buck that he had followed, had failed to kill, that he had prayed for in the devil’s name [nom du diable], if he could not have it in God’s; the same that had thrown the hounds out; the very same in short which had cost him such hard blows.” But Thibault does not know how the buck could have entered the shed, because it was bolted closed quite securely; also, the buck “had been fastened up to the rack by a cord.” This made Thibault feel very uneasy: “now a cold sweat began to break out in large drops on his brow, a curious kind of a shiver ran through his body, and his teeth chattered violently.” He goes out of the shed to find the goat. Then “Thibault had a perfect remembrance of the unholy invocation [le vœu impie] he had addressed to Satan [Satan], and although his prayer had been miraculously answered, he still could not bring himself to believe that there was any diabolic intervention [diabolique intervention] in the matter. As the idea, however, of being under the protection of the spirit of darkness [l’esprit des ténèbres] filled him with an instinctive fear, he tried to pray; but when he wished to raise his hand to make the sign of the cross on his forehead, his arm refused to bend, and although up to that time he had never missed a day saying his Ave Maria, he could not remember a single word of it. These fruitless efforts were accompanied by a terrible turmoil in poor Thibault’s brain; evil thoughts [mauvaises pensées] came rushing in upon him, and he seemed to hear them whispering all around him, as one hears the murmur of the rising tide, or the laughing of the winter wind through the leafless branches of the trees.” Thibault realizes he cannot eat the buck, because it might be “food sent from the nether regions [viande d’enfer].” He reasons it is safest to sell it to a nearby Nunnery, where he can turn a profit on it all while “ ‘The atmosphere of that holy place will drive the evil out of it [la purifiera], and I shall run no risk to my soul in taking a handful of consecrated crown pieces. What days of sweating over my work, and turning my auger, it would take, to earn even the quarter of what I shall get by just leading the beast to its new fold! The devil [diable] who helps one is certainly better worth than the angel who forsakes one. If my lord Satan [messire Satan] wants to go too far with me, it will then be time enough to free myself from his claws: bless me! I am not a child, nor a young lamb like Georgine, and I am able to walk straight in front of me and go where I like.’ He had forgotten, unhappy man, as he boasted of being able to go where and how he liked, that only five minutes before he had tried in vain to lift his hand to his head.” He imagines that with the money this will earn, he can buy Agnelette a white dress: “his thoughts would keep returning towards Agnelette; and he seemed to see her clad in a long white dress with a crown of white lilies on her head and a long veil. If, he said to himself, he could have such a charming guardian angel in his house, no devil [diable], however strong and cunning he might be, would ever dare to cross the threshold. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘there is always that remedy at hand, and if my lord Satan [messire Satan] begins to be too troublesome, I shall be off to the grandmother to ask for Agnelette; I shall marry her, and if I cannot remember my prayers or am unable to make the sign of the cross, there will be a dear pretty little woman, who has had no traffic with Satan [Satan] who will do all that sort of thing for me’.” Thibault wanted to make sure the buck was in good condition for sale, so he feeds it and checks its bedding. “The remainder of the night passed without further incident, and without even a bad dream.”]
[ditto]
Le premier soin de Thibault fut de souper ; car sa fatigue était grande.
La journée avait été accidentée, et il paraît qu’au nombre de ces accidents, il en était quelques-uns qui avaient le privilège de creuser l’estomac.
Ce souper n’était pas aussi savoureux que celui qu’il s’était promis en tuant le daim.
Mais le daim, comme nous l’avons dit, n’avait pas été tué par Thibault, et l’appétit féroce qui le galopait lui faisait trouver le goût du daim à son pain noir.
Ce frugal repas était à peine commencé, lorsque Thibault s’aperçut que sa chèvre – nous croyons avoir dit qu’il avait une chèvre – poussait des bêlements désespérés.
Il pensa qu’elle aussi bramait après son souper, et, prenant dans l’appentis une brassée d’herbes fraîches, il alla les lui porter.
Lorsqu’il ouvrit la petite porte de l’étable, la chèvre en sortit si brusquement, qu’elle faillit renverser son maître.
Puis, sans s’arrêter à la provende que lui apportait Thibault, elle courut à la maison.
Thibault jeta là son fardeau et s’en alla chercher l’animal pour le réintégrer dans son domicile. Mais ce fut chose impossible. Il lui fallut employer la force, et encore à la force la pauvre bête opposa-t-elle toute la résistance dont une chèvre est susceptible, se roidissant en arrière, s’arc-boutant sur ses jambes, tandis que le sabotier la tirait par les cornes.
Vaincue dans cette lutte, la chèvre finit par rentrer dans son étable.
Mais, malgré le copieux souper que lui avait laissé Thibault, elle continua de pousser des cris lamentables.
Impatienté et intrigué tout ensemble, le sabotier quitta une seconde fois son repas et ouvrit l’étable avec tant de précaution, que la chèvre ne put s’en échapper.
Puis, il se mit à chercher des mains dans tous les coins et recoins ce qui pouvait lui causer tant d’effroi.
Tout à coup ses doigts rencontrèrent la fourrure épaisse et chaude d’un animal étranger.
Thibault n’était pas poltron, il s’en fallait.
Cependant, il se retira précipitamment.
Il rentra chez lui, prit la lumière et revint à l’étable.
La lampe faillit lui tomber des mains quand il reconnut, dans l’animal qui avait tant effrayé sa chèvre, le daim du baron Jean ; celui-là même qu’il avait poursuivi, qu’il avait manqué, qu’il avait désiré avoir au nom du diable, ne pouvant l’avoir au nom de Dieu ; celui sur lequel les chiens avaient fait défaut ; celui, enfin, qui lui avait valu de si jolis horions.
Thibault s’approcha doucement de lui, après s’être assuré que la porte était bien fermée.
Le pauvre animal était, ou tellement fatigué, ou si singulièrement apprivoisé, qu’il ne fit pas un mouvement pour fuir, se contentant de regarder Thibault avec ses deux grands yeux de velours noir, rendus plus expressifs encore par la crainte qui l’agitait.
– J’aurai laissé la porte ouverte, murmura le sabotier se parlant à lui-même, et le daim, ne sachant plus où se fourrer, sera venu se réfugier ici.
Mais, en recueillant ses souvenirs, Thibault se rappela parfaitement que, lorsqu’il avait pour la première fois ouvert l’étable, dix minutes auparavant, le verrou de bois qui fermait la porte était si bien poussé, qu’il avait dû se servir d’un caillou pour le faire sortir de la gâche.
D’ailleurs, la chèvre, qui, ainsi qu’on l’a vu, ne paraissait pas tenir à la société du nouveau venu, eût profité pour fuir de l’ouverture de cette porte, si elle eût été ouverte.
Puis, en y regardant de plus près, Thibault s’aperçut que le daim était attaché au râtelier par une corde.
Quoique, nous l’avons déjà dit, le sabotier fût assez brave, une sueur froide commença de perler à grosses gouttes à la racine de ses cheveux, un frisson singulier parcourut tout son corps, et ses dents claquèrent en s’entrechoquant.
Il sortit de son étable, en ferma la porte et s’en alla retrouver sa chèvre, qui avait, pour fuir, profité du moment où le sabotier était venu chercher une lumière, et qui était couchée au coin de l’âtre, en apparence très décidée cette fois à ne plus quitter une place qu’elle paraissait, ce soir-là du moins, préférer de beaucoup à son gîte ordinaire.
Thibault se rappelait parfaitement le vœu impie qu’il avait adressé à Satan ; mais, tout en reconnaissant que ce vœu avait été miraculeusement exaucé, il ne pouvait croire à sa diabolique intervention.
Cependant, comme cette protection de l’esprit des ténèbres lui faisait instinctivement peur, il essaya de prier ; mais, lorsqu’il voulut porter la main à son front pour faire le signe de la croix, son bras refusa de plier, et, bien que jusqu’alors il l’eût récité tous les jours, il ne put se remettre en mémoire un seul mot de l’Ave Maria.
En même temps qu’il tentait ces deux efforts infructueux, il se faisait dans la cervelle du pauvre Thibault un effrayant remue-ménage.
Les mauvaises pensées lui revenaient si abondamment, qu’il lui semblait ouïr leur murmure à son oreille, comme on entend le murmure des flots quand monte la marée, ou le bruit des branches froissées quand le vent d’hiver passe dans les branches dépouillées de leurs feuilles.
– Après tout, murmura-t-il, le front pâle et l’œil fixe, que ce daim me vienne de Dieu ou du diable, c’est toujours une bonne aubaine, et bien fou serais-je de secouer mon sarrau lorsque la manne y tombe. Si je crains que cette bique ne soit viande d’enfer, rien ne m’oblige à la manger ; d’ailleurs, je ne la pourrai pas manger tout seul, et ceux que j’inviterais à la manger avec moi me dénonceraient ; mais je puis la conduire toute vivante au couvent des religieuses de Saint-Rémy, dont la dame abbesse me l’achètera bien cher pour divertir ses nonnes ; l’air d’un lieu saint la purifiera, et la poignée de bons écus bénits que je recevrai en paiement ne peut mettre mon âme en péril.
Combien de jours ne me faudra-t-il pas suer au travail et virer la tarière pour gagner le quart de ce que je recevrai sans prendre autre peine que de conduire la bête à son nouveau bercail ! Décidément, mieux vaut diable qui vous protège qu’ange du ciel qui vous abandonne. Si messire Satan veut me conduire trop loin, il sera toujours temps de me tirer de ses griffes ; je ne suis pas un enfant, de par Dieu ! ni un agnelet comme Georgine, et je sais marcher devant moi et aller où je veux.
Il oubliait, le malheureux, qui prétendait marcher devant lui et aller où il voulait, que, cinq minutes auparavant, il n’avait pu conduire sa main jusqu’à son front.
Thibault se donna à lui-même tant de raisons si bonnes et si concluantes, qu’il résolut de garder le daim, de quelque part qu’il lui fût venu, et décida même que le prix qu’il en recevrait serait consacré à acheter la robe de noce de sa fiancée.
Car, par un étrange retour de mémoire, son souvenir se fixait sur Agnelette.
Il la voyait vêtue d’une longue robe blanche avec une couronne de lis blancs au front et un grand voile.
Il lui semblait que, s’il avait dans sa maison un si gentil ange gardien, le diable, si fort ou si rusé qu’il fût, n’oserait jamais en franchir la porte.
– Bon ! dit-il, c’est encore un moyen : si messire Satan me tourmente par trop, je cours demander l’Agnelette à sa grand-mère, je l’épouse, et, si je ne me rappelle plus mes prières et ne puis plus faire le signe de la croix, j’aurai une belle petite femme qui ne sera pas engagée avec Satan et qui fera tout cela pour moi.
Et, sur cette espèce de compromis, pour que le daim ne perdît rien de sa valeur et restât digne des saintes dames auxquelles il comptait le vendre, Thibault, à peu près rassuré, alla garnir le râtelier de fourrage et s’assurer que la litière était assez épaisse pour que l’animal pût y reposer moelleusement.
La nuit se passa sans nouvel incident et même sans mauvais rêve.
(69-73)
THIBAULT’S first thought was to get himself some supper, for he was terribly tired. The past day had been an eventful one for him, and certain things which had happened to him had evidently been calculated to produce a craving for food. The supper, it must be said, was not quite such a savoury one as he had promised himself, when starting to kill the buck; but the animal, as we know, had not been killed by Thibault, and the ferocious hunger which now consumed him made his black bread taste almost as delicious as venison.
He had hardly, however, begun his frugal repast, when he became conscious that his goat—of which I think we have already spoken—was uttering the most plaintive bleatings. Thinking that she, too, was in want of her supper, he went into the lean-to for some fresh grass, which he then carried to her, but as he opened the little door of the shed, out she rushed with such precipitancy that she nearly knocked Thibault over, and without stopping to take the provender he had brought her, ran towards the house. Thibault threw down the bundle of grass and went after her, with the intention of re-installing her in her proper place; but he found that this was more than he was able to do. He had to use all his force to get her along, for the goat, with all the strength of which a beast of her kind is capable, resisted all his efforts to drag her back by the horns, arching her back, and stubbornly refusing to move. At last, however, being vanquished in the struggle, it ended by the goat being once more shut up in her shed, but, in spite of the plentiful supper which Thibault left her with, she continued to utter the most lamentable cries. Perplexed, and cross at the same time, the shoe-maker again rose from his supper and went to the shed, this time opening the door so cautiously that the goat could not escape. Once inside he began feeling about with his hands in all the nooks and corners to try and discover the cause of her alarm. Suddenly his fingers came in contact with the warm, thick coat of some other animal. Thibault was not a coward, far from it, none the less, he drew back hastily. He returned to the house and got a light, but it almost fell from his hand, when, on re-entering the shed, he recognised in the animal that had so frightened the goat, the buck of the Lord of Vez; the same buck that he had followed, had failed to kill, that he had prayed for in the devil’s name [nom du diable], if he could not have it in God’s; the same that had thrown the hounds out; the very same in short which had cost him such hard blows. Thibault, after assuring himself that the door was fastened, went gently up to the animal; the poor thing was either so tired, or so tame, that it did not make the slightest attempt to move, but merely gazed out at Thibault with its large dark velvety eyes, rendered more appealing than ever by the fear which agitated it.
“I must have left the door open,” muttered the shoe-maker to himself, “and the creature, not knowing where to hide itself, must have taken refuge here.” But on thinking further over the matter, it came back to him that when he had gone to open the door, only ten minutes before, for the first time, he had found the wooden bolt pushed so firmly into the staple that he had had to get a stone to hammer it back; and then, besides, the goat, which, as we have seen, did not at all relish the society of the new-comer, would certainly have run out of the shed before, if the door had been open. What was, however, still more surprising was that Thibault, looking more closely at the buck, saw that it had been fastened up to the rack by a cord.
Thibault, as we have said, was no coward, but now a cold sweat began to break out in large drops on his brow, a curious kind of a shiver ran through his body, and his teeth chattered violently. He went out of the shed, shutting the door after him, and began looking for his goat, which had taken advantage of the moment when the shoe-maker had gone to fetch a light, and ran again into the house, where she was now lying beside the hearth, having evidently quite made up her mind this time not to forsake a resting place, which, for that night at least, she found preferable to her usual abode.
Thibault had a perfect remembrance of the unholy invocation [le vœu impie] he had addressed to Satan [Satan], and although his prayer had been miraculously answered, he still could not bring himself to believe that there was any diabolic intervention [diabolique intervention] in the matter.
As the idea, however, of being under the protection of the spirit of darkness [l’esprit des ténèbres] filled him with an instinctive fear, he tried to pray; but when he wished to raise his hand to make the sign of the cross on his forehead, his arm refused to bend, and although up to that time he had never missed a day saying his Ave Maria, he could not remember a single word of it.
These fruitless efforts were accompanied by a terrible turmoil in poor Thibault’s brain; evil thoughts [mauvaises pensées] came rushing in upon him, and he seemed to hear them whispering all around him, as one hears the murmur of the rising tide, or the laughing of the winter wind through the leafless branches of the trees.
“After all,” he muttered to himself, as he sat pale, and staring before him, “the buck is a fine windfall, whether it comes from God or the Devil, and I should be a fool not to profit by it. If I am afraid of it as being food sent from the nether regions [viande d’enfer], I am in no way forced to eat it, and what is more, I could not eat it alone, and if I asked anyone to partake of it with me, I should be betrayed; the best thing I can do is to take the live beast over to the Nunnery of Saint-Rémy, where it will serve as a pet for the Nuns and where the Abbess will give me a good round sum for it. The atmosphere of that holy place will drive the evil out of it [la purifiera], and I shall run no risk to my soul in taking a handful of consecrated crown pieces.
“What days of sweating over my work, and turning my auger, it would take, to earn even the quarter of what I shall get by just leading the beast to its new fold! The devil [diable] who helps one is certainly better worth than the angel who forsakes one. If my lord Satan [messire Satan] wants to go too far with me, it will then be time enough to free myself from his claws: bless me! I am not a child, nor a young lamb like Georgine, and I am able to walk straight in front of me and go where I like.” He had forgotten, unhappy man, as he boasted of being able to go where and how he liked, that only five minutes before he had tried in vain to lift his hand to his head.
Thibault had such convincing and excellent reasons ready to hand, that he quite made up his mind to keep the buck, come whence it might, and even went so far as to decide that the money he received for it should be devoted to buying a wedding dress for his betrothed. For, strange to say, by some freak of memory, his thoughts would keep returning towards Agnelette; and he seemed to see her clad in a long white dress with a crown of white lilies on her head and a long veil. If, he said to himself, he could have such a charming guardian angel in his house, no devil [diable], however strong and cunning he might be, would ever dare to cross the threshold. “So,” he went on, “there is always that remedy at hand, and if my lord Satan [messire Satan] begins to be too troublesome, I shall be off to the grandmother to ask for Agnelette; I shall marry her, and if I cannot remember my prayers or am unable to make the sign of the cross, there will be a dear pretty little woman, who has had no traffic with Satan [Satan] who will do all that sort of thing for me.”
Having more or less re-assured himself with the idea of this compromise, Thibault, in order that the buck should not run down in value, and might be as fine an animal as possible to offer to the holy ladies, to whom he calculated to sell it, went and filled the rack with fodder and looked to see that the litter was soft and thick enough for the buck to rest fully at its ease. The remainder of the night passed without further incident, and without even a bad dream.
(27-28)
[The Wolf Devil’s Introduction to Thibault]
[The next day, Vez was hunting for the wolf that they tracked the day before (see section 1.2). It is a “genuine wolf,” and although “it must have seen many and many a year,” “it was black all over. Black or grey, however, it was a bold and enterprising beast, and promised some rough work to the Baron and his huntsmen.” It leads the hunting party on a long, complicated chase, eventually leading back to Thibault’s hut. Thibault hears the hunting horn and dogs, and so he piles heather in front of the shed door so that the party will not be able to learn of the buck inside. He then goes back inside to get intently to work, “applying to it an energy unknown even to himself before, bending over the shoe he was making with an intentness which prevented him from even lifting his eyes. All at once he thought he detected a sound like something scratching at the door; he was just going through from his lean-to to open it when the door fell back, and to Thibault’s great astonishment an immense black wolf entered the room, walking on its hind legs. On reaching the middle of the floor, it sat down after the fashion of wolves, and looked hard and fixedly at the sabot-maker.” Alarmed, Thibault brandishes a hatchet, but “A curious mocking expression passed over the face of the wolf, and then it began to laugh. [...] And what a laugh it was! If a man had laughed such a laugh, Thibault would verily and indeed have been scared out of his wits.” After Thibault lowers the hatchet, the wolf speaks to him in a human voice, saying “I send you the finest buck from His Royal Highness’s forests, and in return, you want to split my head open with your hatchet. [...] let us be sensible and talk together like two good friends. Yesterday you wanted the Baron’s buck, and I led it myself into your shed, and for fear it should escape, I tied it up myself to the rack. And for all this you take your hatchet to me! [...] what I want to know is, are you willing to make me some return for the service I have done you?” Thibault agrees but wants to know the price. The Wolf asks for water, and Thibault eagerly gets some from a nearby brook. The Wolf then asks Thibault to help him get the hounds off his trail. They then negotiate what the Wolf will do in return, and Thibault asks for endless granting of wishes: “yesterday I wanted the buck, and you gave it me, it is true; to-morrow, I shall want something else. For some time past I have been possessed by a kind of mania, and I do nothing but wish first for one thing and then for another, and you will not always be able to spare time to listen to my demands. So what I ask for is, that, as you are the devil [le diable] in person or someone very like it, you will grant me the fulfilment of every wish I may have from this day forth.” The Wolf says this is too much and that Thibault must assume that he the Wolf depends on Thibault’s help. To demonstrate otherwise, the Wolf then suddenly disappears. Thibault asks, “ ‘Where the devil [Où diable] are you?’ ‘If you put a question to me in my real name,’ said the wolf with a sneer in his voice, ‘I shall be obliged to answer you. I am still in the same place’.” The Wolf then explains that in fact the dogs will be led to Thibault, and Vez will whip him even more this time. The Wolf says that Thibault should instead let the buck free in hopes that the dogs will give up on the Wolf and chase the buck instead. Thibault runs off to the shed, “unfastened the buck, which, as if propelled by some hidden force, leapt from the house, ran round it, crossing the track of the wolf, and plunged into the Baisemont coppice.” The dogs then come to be “on the scent of the buck, and had abandoned that of the wolf.” Relieved, Thibault returns to his hut. “He found the wolf lying composedly on the same spot as before, but how it had found its way in again was quite as impossible to discover as how it had found its way out.”]
[ditto]
Le lendemain, le seigneur Jean chassait encore.
Seulement, cette fois, ce n’était point un daim timide qui conduisait les chiens ; c’était le loup dont Marcotte avait eu connaissance la veille et qu’il était parvenu à rembucher le matin même.
C’était un vrai loup que celui-là.
Il devait compter de nombreuses années, quoiqu’on l’eût entrevu au lancer, et que l’on se fût aperçu avec étonnement qu’il était tout noir.
Mais, noir ou gris, il était hardi, entreprenant, et promettait rude besogne à l’équipage du baron Jean.
Attaqué près de Vertefeuille, dans le fond Dargent, il avait traversé le champ Meutard, laissé Fleury et Dampleux à sa gauche, traverse la route de la Ferté-Milon, et était allé se faire battre dans les fonds d’Ivors.
Là, renonçant, à poursuivre la pointe commencée, il avait fait un hourvari, était rentré dans ses voies et revenu sur ses pas en suivant si exactement le chemin qu’il avait déjà parcouru, que le baron Jean retrouvait, tout en galopant, les empreintes que le sabot de son cheval avait laissées le matin.
Rentré dans le canton de Bourg-Fontaine, le loup l’avait battu dans tous les sens ; puis il avait amené les chasseurs juste à l’endroit où avaient commencé leurs mésaventures de la veille, précisément aux environs de la hutte du sabotier.
Thibault, qui, d’après les résolutions que nous avons dites, comptait dans la soirée aller rendre visite à l’Agnelette, s’était mis à la besogne de grand matin.
Vous me demanderez pourquoi, au lieu de se mettre à une besogne qui rapportait si peu à l’ouvrier, de son propre aveu, Thibault n’allait pas conduire son daim aux dames de Saint-Rémy.
Thibault s’en serait bien gardé !
Ce n’était point pendant le jour qu’il pouvait traverser la forêt de Villers-Cotterêts avec un daim en laisse.
Qu’eût-il dit au premier garde qui l’eût rencontré ?
Non, Thibault comptait partir un soir de chez lui à la brune, suivre la route de droite, puis la laie de la Sablonnière, puis déboucher par la route du Pendu dans la plaine de Saint-Rémy, à deux cents pas du couvent.
Lorsque Thibault, pour la première fois, entendit les sons du cor et l’aboi des chiens, il se hâta d’amonceler devant la porte de l’étable, où était enfermé son prisonnier, un énorme tas de bruyère sèche, de façon à dissimuler cette porte aux regards des piqueurs et de leur seigneur, si, par hasard, ce jour-là, comme la veille, ils venaient à s’arrêter devant la hutte.
Puis il avait repris sa besogne, et il travaillait avec une ardeur que lui-même ne s’était jamais vue, ne levant pas même les yeux de dessus la paire de sabots qu’il façonnait.
Tout à coup, il lui sembla entendre gratter à la porte de la hutte. Il s’apprêtait à quitter son appentis pour aller ouvrir, lorsque la porte céda, et, au grand étonnement de Thibault, un énorme loup noir entra dans la chambre, marchant sur ses deux pattes de derrière.
Arrivé au milieu de l’appartement, il s’assit à la manière des loups et regarda fixement le sabotier.
Thibault saisit une hache qui se trouvait à sa portée, afin de recevoir dignement l’étrange visiteur, et, pour l’effrayer, il brandit la hache au-dessus de sa tête.
Mais la physionomie du loup prit une singulière expression de raillerie.
Il se mit à rire.
C’était la première fois que Thibault entendait rire un loup.
Il avait entendu dire souvent que les loups aboyaient comme des chiens.
Mais il n’avait jamais entendu dire que les loups riaient comme des hommes.
Et de quel rire encore !
Un homme qui eût ri comme ce loup eût fort effrayé Thibault.
Il laissa retomber son bras déjà levé.
– Par le seigneur au pied fourchu, dit le loup d’une voix pleine et sonore, voilà un gaillard auquel, sur sa demande, j’envoie le plus beau daim des forêts de Son Altesse Royale, et qui, pour ma récompense, veut me fendre la tête d’un coup de hache ; reconnaissance humaine bien digne de hurler avec la reconnaissance des loups.
En entendant une voix pareille à la sienne sortir du corps de l’animal, les genoux de Thibault commencèrent à flageoler, et la hache lui tomba des mains.
– Voyons, continua le loup, soyons raisonnables et causons comme deux bons amis. Tu as désiré hier le daim du baron Jean, et je l’ai conduit moi-même dans ton étable ; et, de peur qu’il ne t’échappât, je l’ai attaché moi-même au râtelier ; cela vaut mieux qu’un coup de hache, il me semble.
– Sais-je qui vous êtes ? répondit Thibault.
– Ah ! tu ne m’avais pas reconnu ! voilà une raison.
– J’en appelle à vous-même : pouvais-je soupçonner un ami sous cette vilaine peau ?
– Vilaine ! dit le loup en lustrant son poil avec une langue rouge comme du sang ; peste ! tu es difficile. Mais il n’est point question de ma peau. Voyons, es-tu disposé à reconnaître le service que je t’ai rendu ?
– Certainement, dit le sabotier avec un certain embarras ; mais encore faudrait-il connaître vos exigences. De quoi s’agit-il ? que désirez-vous ? Parlez.
– D’abord, et avant tout, je désire un verre d’eau, car ces maudits chiens m’ont mis tout hors d’haleine.
– À l’instant, seigneur loup.
Et Thibault courut chercher une écuelle d’eau fraîche et limpide à la source qui coulait à dix pas de la hutte. Thibault prouvait, par cet empressement, combien il était heureux d’en être quitte à si bon marché. Il déposa l’écuelle devant le loup en lui faisant une profonde révérence. Le loup lapa le contenu de l’écuelle avec délices, puis s’étendit sur le sol, les pattes allongées à la manière des sphinx.
– Maintenant, dit-il, écoute-moi.
– Il y a donc autre chose ? demanda Thibault tout frissonnant.
– Pardieu ! et une chose très urgente, répondit le loup noir. Entends-tu les abois des chiens ?
– Par ma foi ! oui, je les entends, et, comme ils vont se rapprochant, dans cinq minutes ils seront ici.
– Eh bien, il s’agit de m’en débarrasser.
– De vous en débarrasser ! et comment ? s’écria Thibault, qui se rappelait ce qu’il lui en avait coûté pour s’être mêlé, la veille, de la chasse du baron Jean.
– Dame ! vois, cherche, ingénie-toi !
– C’est qu’en effet ce sont de rudes chiens que les chiens du baron Jean, et ce que vous me demandez là, seigneur loup, c’est tout simplement de vous sauver la vie ; car, je vous en préviens, s’ils vous rejoignent, et ils vous rejoindront selon toute probabilité, ils vous mettront de la première goulée en charpie. Or, si je vous épargne ce désagrément, ajouta Thibault croyant sentir qu’il prenait le dessus, quelle sera ma récompense ?
– Comment, ta récompense ? Et le daim ? dit le loup.
– Et la jatte d’eau ? dit Thibault. Nous sommes quittes, mon brave loup. Maintenant, faisons de nouvelles affaires, si vous voulez, je ne demande pas mieux.
– Soit ! Que veux-tu de moi ? Parle vite.
– Il y a, dit Thibault, des gens qui abuseraient de leur position et de la vôtre, et qui demanderaient des choses par-dessus les maisons : de les faire riches, puissants, nobles, que sais-je, moi ! Je ne les imiterai pas : hier, j’ai souhaité le daim, et vous me l’avez donné, c’est vrai ; mais, demain, je souhaiterai autre chose. Depuis quelque temps, c’est une folie qui s’est emparée de moi, je ne fais que souhaiter, et vous, vous n’aurez pas toujours du temps à perdre à m’écouter. Faites donc une chose : accordez-moi, puisque vous êtes le diable en personne ou quelque chose d’approchant, accordez-moi le don de voir se réaliser tout ce que je désirerai.
Le loup fit une grimace moqueuse.
– Rien que cela ? dit-il. La péroraison cadre mal avec l’exorde.
– Oh ! reprit Thibault, soyez tranquille, mes vœux sont honnêtes et mesurés, et tels qu’ils conviennent à un pauvre paysan comme moi : quelques misérables coins de terre, quelques méchants brins de bois, voilà tout ce que peut vouloir un homme de mon espèce.
– Je ferais avec grand plaisir ce que tu me demandes, dit le loup ; mais la chose m’est tout simplement impossible.
– Alors, il faut vous résigner à passer par ces terribles dogues.
– Tu crois cela, et tu fais l’exigeant parce que tu penses que j’ai besoin de toi ?
– Je ne crois pas, j’en suis sûr.
– Eh bien, regarde.
– Où ? demanda Thibault.
– À la place où j’étais, dit le loup.
Thibault recula de deux pas. À la place où était le loup, il n’y avait plus rien. Le loup avait disparu, on ne savait ni par où ni comment. La place où il était demeurait parfaitement intacte. Il n’y avait pas au plafond un trou où passer une aiguille ; il n’y avait pas au plancher une fente à laisser filtrer une goutte d’eau.
– Eh bien, crois-tu que je ne puisse pas me tirer d’affaire sans toi ? dit le loup.
– Où diable êtes-vous donc ?
– Ah ! si tu m’interpelles par mon vrai nom, dit en ricanant la voix du loup, je vais être obligé de te répondre. Je suis toujours au même endroit.
– Mais je ne vous vois plus !
– Tout simplement parce que je suis invisible.
– Mais les chiens, mais le piqueur, mais le seigneur Jean vont venir vous chercher ici ?
– Sans doute ; seulement, ils ne m’y trouveront pas.
– Mais, s’ils ne vous y trouvent pas, ils vont s’en prendre à moi.
– Comme hier. Seulement, hier, tu étais condamné, pour avoir soustrait le daim, à trente-six coups de ceinturon ; aujourd’hui, pour avoir caché le loup, tu seras condamné à soixante et douze, et Agnelette ne sera plus là pour te tirer d’affaire avec un baiser.
– Ouf ! que dois-je faire ?
– Lâche le daim vivement ; les chiens se tromperont à la piste, et ce sont eux qui recevront les coups à ta place.
– Mais comment de si fins courants se tromperaient-ils au point de prendre les fumées d’un daim pour celles d’un loup ?
– Cela me regarde, répondit la voix ; seulement, ne perds pas de temps, ou les chiens seront ici avant que tu sois à l’étable ; ce qui serait désagréable, non pas pour moi, qu’ils ne trouveraient pas, mais pour toi, qu’ils trouveraient.
Thibault ne se le fit pas dire deux fois.
Il courut à l’étable.
Il détacha aussitôt le daim, qui, poussé comme par un ressort, s’élança hors de la maison, en fit le tour, croisant la voie du loup, et s’enfonça dans les taillis de Baisemont.
Les chiens n’étaient plus qu’à cent pas de la cabane.
Thibault écouta leurs abois avec anxiété.
Toute la meute vint rabâcher à la porte.
Puis, tout à coup, deux ou trois voix retentirent, s’éloignant du côté de Baisemont, et enlevèrent toute la meute.
Les chiens avaient pris le change.
Ils étaient partis sur la piste du daim.
Ils avaient abandonné celle du loup.
Thibault respira à pleine poitrine.
Voyant la meute s’éloigner de plus en plus, il rentra dans sa chambre au bruit d’un joyeux bien-aller que sonnait le baron à pleine trompe.
Le loup noir était tranquillement couché à la même place, et l’on ne voyait pas plus par où il était rentré que l’on n’avait pu voir par où il était sorti.
(73-80)
The next morning, my lord Baron again went hunting, but this time it was not a timid deer that headed the hounds, but the wolf which Marcotte had tracked the day before and had again that morning traced to his lair.
And this wolf was a genuine wolf, and no mistake; it must have seen many and many a year, although those who had that morning caught sight of it while on its track, had noted with astonishment that it was black all over. Black or grey, however, it was a bold and enterprising beast, and promised some rough work to the Baron and his huntsmen. First started near Vertefeuille, in the Dargent covert, it had made over the plain of Meutard, leaving Fleury and Dampleux to the left, crossed the road to Ferté-Milou, and finally begun to run cunning in the Ivors coppices. Then, instead of continuing in the same direction, it doubled, returning along the same track it had come, and so exactly retracing its own steps, that the Baron, as he galloped along, could actually distinguish the prints left by his horse’s hoofs that same morning.
Back again in the district of Bourg-Fontaine, he ranged the country, leading the hunt right to the very spot where the mis-adventures of the previous day had had their start, the vicinity of the shoe-maker’s hut.
Thibault, we know, had made up his mind what to do in regard to certain matters, and as he intended going over to see Agnelette in the evening, he had started work early.
You will naturally ask why, instead of sitting down to a work which brought in so little, as he himself acknowledged, Thibault did not start off at once to take his buck to the ladies of Saint-Rémy. Thibault took very good care to do nothing of the sort; the day was not the time to be leading a buck through the forest of Villers-Cotterets; the first keeper he met would have stopped him, and what explanation could he have given? No, Thibault had arranged in his own mind to leave home one evening about dusk, to follow the road to the right, then go down the sandpit lane which led into the Chemin du Pendu, and he would then be on the common of Saint-Rémy, only a hundred paces or so from the Convent.
Thibault no sooner caught the first sound of the horn and the dogs, than he immediately gathered together a huge bundle of dried heather, which he hastily piled up in front of the shed, where his prisoner was confined, so as to hide the door, in case the huntsmen and their master should halt in front of his hut, as they had the day before. He then sat down again to his work, applying to it an energy unknown even to himself before, bending over the shoe he was making with an intentness which prevented him from even lifting his eyes. All at once he thought he detected a sound like something scratching at the door; he was just going through from his lean-to to open it when the door fell back, and to Thibault’s great astonishment an immense black wolf entered the room, walking on its hind legs. On reaching the middle of the floor, it sat down after the fashion of wolves, and looked hard and fixedly at the sabot-maker.
Thibault seized a hatchet which was within reach, and in order to give a fit reception to his strange visitor, and to terrify him, he flourished the weapon above his head.
A curious mocking expression passed over the face of the wolf, and then it began to laugh.
It was the first time that Thibault had ever heard a wolf laugh. He had often heard tell that wolves barked like dogs, but never that they laughed like human beings. And what a laugh it was! If a man had laughed such a laugh, Thibault would verily and indeed have been scared out of his wits.
He brought his lifted arm down again.
“By my lord of the cloven foot,” said the wolf, in a full and sonorous voice, “you are a fine fellow! At your request, I send you the finest buck from His Royal Highness’s forests, and in return, you want to split my head open with your hatchet; human gratitude is worthy to rank with that of wolves.” On hearing a voice exactly like his own coming forth from a beast’s mouth, Thibault’s knees began to shake under him, and the hatchet fell out of his hand.
“Now then,” continued the wolf, “let us be sensible and talk together like two good friends. Yesterday you wanted the Baron’s buck, and I led it myself into your shed, and for fear it should escape, I tied it up myself to the rack. And for all this you take your hatchet to me!”
“How should I know who you were?” asked Thibault.
“I see, you did not recognise me! A nice sort of excuse to give.”
“Well, I ask you, was it likely I should take you for a friend under that ugly coat?”
“Ugly coat, indeed!” said the wolf, licking his fur with a long tongue as red as blood. “Confound you! You are hard to please. However, it’s not a matter of my coat; what I want to know is, are you willing to make me some return for the service I have done you?”
“Certainly,” said the shoe-maker, feeling rather uncomfortable! “but I ought to know what your demands are. What is it? What do you want? Speak!”
“First of all, and above all things, I should like a glass of water, for those confounded dogs have run me until I am out of breath.”
“You shall have it in a moment, my lord wolf.”
And Thibault ran and fetched a bowl of fresh, clear water from a brook which ran some ten paces from the hut. The eager readiness with which he complied with the wolf’s request betrayed his feeling of relief at getting out of the bargain so cheaply.
As he placed the bowl in front of the wolf, he made the animal a low bow. The wolf lapped up the contents with evident delight, and then stretched himself on the floor with his paws straight out in front of him, looking like a sphinx.
“Now,” he said, “listen to me.”
“There is something else you wish me to do,” asked Thibault, inwardly quaking.
“Yes, a very urgent something,” replied the wolf. “Do you hear the baying of the dogs?”
“Indeed I do, they are coming nearer and nearer, and in five minutes they will be here.”
“And what I want you to do is to get me out of their way.”
“Get you out of their way! and how?” cried Thibault, who but too well remembered what it had cost him to meddle with the Baron’s hunting the day before.
“Look about you, think, invent some way of delivering me!”
“The Baron’s dogs are rough customers to deal with, and you are asking neither more nor less than that I should save your life; for I warn you, if they once get hold of you, and they will probably scent you out, they will make short work of pulling you to pieces. And now supposing I spare you this disagreeable business,” continued Thibault, who imagined that he had now got the upper hand, “what will you do for me in return?”
“Do for you in return?” said the wolf, “and how about the buck?”
“And how about the bowl of water?” said Thibault.
“We are quits there, my good sir. Let us start a fresh business altogether; if you are agreeable to it, I am quite willing.”
“Let it be so then; tell me quickly what you want of me.”
“There are folks,” proceeded Thibault, “who might take advantage of the position you are now in, and ask for all kinds of extravagant things, riches, power, titles, and what not, but I am not going to do anything of the kind; yesterday I wanted the buck, and you gave it me, it is true; to-morrow, I shall want something else. For some time past I have been possessed by a kind of mania, and I do nothing but wish first for one thing and then for another, and you will not always be able to spare time to listen to my demands. So what I ask for is, that, as you are the devil [le diable] in person or someone very like it, you will grant me the fulfilment of every wish I may have from this day forth.”
The wolf put on a mocking expression of countenance. “Is that all?” he said, “Your peroration does not accord very well with your exordium.”
“Oh!” continued Thibault, “my wishes are honest and moderate ones, and such as become a poor peasant like myself. I want just a little corner of ground, and a few timbers, and planks; that’s all that a man of my sort can possibly desire.”
“I should have the greatest pleasure in doing what you ask,” said the wolf, “but it is simply impossible, you know.”
“Then I am afraid you must make up your mind to put up with what the dogs may do to you.”
“You think so, and you suppose I have need of your help, and so you can ask what you please?”
“I do not suppose it, I am sure of it.”
“Indeed! well then, look.”
“Look where,” asked Thibault.
“Look at the spot where I was,” said the wolf. Thibault drew back in horror. The place where the wolf had been lying was empty; the wolf had disappeared, where or how it was impossible to say. The room was intact, there was not a hole in the roof large enough to let a needle through, nor a crack in the floor through which a drop of water could have filtered.
“Well, do you still think that I require your assistance to get out of trouble,” said the wolf.
“Where the devil [Où diable] are you?”
“If you put a question to me in my real name,” said the wolf with a sneer in his voice, “I shall be obliged to answer you. I am still in the same place.”
“But I can no longer see you!”
“Simply because I am invisible.”
“But the dogs, the huntsmen, the Baron, will come in here after you?”
“No doubt they will, but they will not find me.”
“But if they do not find you, they will set upon me.”
“As they did yesterday; only yesterday you were sentenced to thirty-six strokes of the strap, for having carried off the buck; to-day, you will be sentenced to seventy-two, for having hidden the wolf, and Agnelette will not be on the spot to buy you off with a kiss.”
“Phew! what am I to do?”
“Let the buck loose; the dogs will mistake the scent, and they will get the blows instead of you.”
“But is it likely such trained hounds will follow the scent of a deer in mistake for that of a wolf?”
“You can leave that to me,” replied the voice, “only do not lose any time, or the dogs will be here before you have reached the shed, and that would make matters unpleasant, not for me, whom they would not find, but for you, whom they would.”
Thibault did not wait to be warned a second time, but was off like a shot to the shed. He unfastened the buck, which, as if propelled by some hidden force, leapt from the house, ran round it, crossing the track of the wolf, and plunged into the Baisemont coppice. The dogs were within a hundred paces of the hut; Thibault heard them with trepidation; the whole pack came full force against the door, one hound after the other.
Then, all at once, two or three gave cry and went off in the direction of Baisemont, the rest of the hounds after them.
The dogs were on the wrong scent; they were on the scent of the buck, and had abandoned that of the wolf.
Thibault gave a deep sigh of relief; he watched the hunt gradually disappearing in the distance, and went back to his room to the full and joyous notes of the Baron’s horn.
He found the wolf lying composedly on the same spot as before, but how it had found its way in again was quite as impossible to discover as how it had found its way out.
(28-31)
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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