By the time the whole of the first partridge was finished, and half the second bottle had been drunk, Thibault knew that Madame Magloire was the host’s fourth wife, a fact which seemed in his own eyes to add a good foot or two to his height.
He had also ascertained that he had married her not for her fortune, but for her beauty, having always had as great a predilection for pretty faces and beautiful statues, as for good wines and appetising victuals, and Monsieur Magloire further stated, with no sign of faltering, that, old as he was, if his wife were to die, he should have no fear in entering on a fifth marriage.
As he now passed from the Chambertin to the Hermitage, which he alternated with the Sillery, Monsieur Magloire began to speak of his wife’s qualities. She was not the personification of docility, no, quite the reverse; she was somewhat opposed to her husband’s admiration for the various wines of France, and did every thing she could, even using physical force, to prevent his too frequent visits to the cellar; while, for one who believed in living without ceremony, she on her part was too fond of dress, too much given to elaborate head-gears, English laces, and such like gewgaws, which women make part of their arsenal; she would gladly have turned the twelve hogsheads of wine, which formed the staple of her husband’s cellar, into lace for her arms, and ribands for her throat, if Monsieur Magloire had been the man to allow this metamorphosis. But, with this exception, there was not a virtue which Suzanne did not possess, and these virtues of hers, if the Bailiff was to be believed, were carried on so perfectly shaped a pair of legs, that, if by any misfortune she were to lose one, it would be quite impossible through out the district to find another that would match the leg that remained. The good man was like a regular whale, blowing out self-satisfaction from all his air-holes, as the former does sea-water. But even before all these hidden perfections of his wife had been revealed to him by the Bailiff, like a modern King Candaules ready to confide in a modern Gyges, her beauty had already made such a deep impression on the shoe-maker, that, as we have seen, he could do nothing but think of it in silence as he walked beside her, and since he had been at tale, he had continued to dream about it, listening to his host, eating the while of course, without answering, as Monsieur Magloire, delighted to have such an accommodating audience, poured forth his tales, linked one to another like a necklace of beads.
But the worthy Bailiff, having made a second excursion to the cellar, and this second excursion having produced, as the saying is, a little knot at the tip of his tongue, he began to be rather less appreciative of the rare quality which was required in his disciples by Pythagons. He, therefore, gave Thibault to understand that he had now said all that he wished to tell him concerning himself and his wife, and that it was Thibault’s turn to give him some information as regards his own circumstances, the amiable little man adding that wishing often to visit him, he wished to know more about him. Thibault felt that it was very necessary to disguise the truth; and accordingly gave himself out as a man living at ease in the country, on the revenues of two farms and of a hundred acres of land, situated near Vertefeuille.
There was, he continued, a splendid warren on these hundred acres, with a wonderful supply of red and fallow deer, boars, partridges, pheasants and hares, of which the bailiff should have some to taste. The bailiff was astonished and delighted. As we have seen, by the menu for his table, he was fond of venison, and he was carried away with joy at the thought of obtaining his game without having recourse to the poachers, and through the channel of this new friendship.
And now, the last drop of the seventh bottle having been scrupulously divided between the two glasses, they decided that it was time to stop.
The rosy champagne prime vintage of Ai, and the last bottle emptied had brought Nepomucene Magloire’s habitual good nature to the level of tender affection. He was charmed with his new friend, who tossed off his bottle in almost as good style as he did himself; he addressed him as his bosom friend, he embraced him, he made him promise that there should be a morrow to their pleasant entertainment; he stood a second time on tiptoe to give him a parting hug as he accompanied him to the door, which Thibault on his part, bending down, received with the best grace in the world.
The church clock of Erneville was striking midnight as the door closed behind the shoemaker. The fumes of the heady wine he had been drinking had begun to give him a feeling of oppression before leaving the house, but it was worse when he got into the open air. He staggered, overcome with giddiness, and went and leant with his back against a wall. What followed next was as vague and mysterious to him as the phantasmagoria of a dream. Above his head, about six or eight feet from the ground, was a window, which, as he moved to lean against the wall, had appeared to him to be lighted, although the light was shaded by double curtains. He had hardly taken up his position against the wall when he thought he heard it open. It was, he imagined, the worthy bailiff, unwilling to part with him without sending him a last farewell, and he tried to step forward so as to do honour to this gracious intention, but his attempt was unavailing. At first he thought he was stuck to the wall like a branch of ivy, but he was soon disabused of this idea. He felt a heavy weight planted first on the right shoulder and then on the left, which made his knees give way so that he slid down the wall as if to seat himself. This manoeuvre on Thibault’s part appeared to be just what the individual who was making use of him as a ladder wished him to do, for we can no longer hide the fact that the weight so felt was that of a man. As Thibault made his forced genuflexion, the man was also lowered; “That’s right, I’Eveilli! that’s right!” he said, “So!” and with this last word, he jumped to the ground, while overhead was heard the sound of a window being shut.
Thibault had sense enough to understand two things: first, that he was mistaken for someone called L’Eveille, who was probably asleep somewhere about the premises; secondly, that his shoulders had just served some lover as a climbing ladder; both of which things caused Thibault an undefined sense of humiliation.
Accordingly, he seized hold mechanically of some floating piece of stuff which he took to be the lover’s cloak, and, with the persistency of a drunken man, continued to hang on to it.
“What are you doing that for, you scoundrel?” asked a voice, which did not seem altogether unfamiliar to the shoe-maker. “One would think you were afraid of losing me.”
“Most certainly I am afraid of losing you,” replied Thibault, “because I wish to know who it is has the impertinence to use my shoulders for a ladder.”
“Phew!” said the unknown, “it’s not you then, l’Eveille?”
“No, it is not,” replied Thibault.
“Well, whether it is you or not you, I thank you.”
“How, thank you? Ah! I dare say! thank you, indeed! You think the matter is going to rest like that, do you?”
“I had counted upon it being so, certainly.”
“Then you counted without your host.”
“Now, you blackguard, leave go of me! you are drunk!”
“Drunk! What do you mean? We only drank seven bottles between us, and the Bailiff had a good four to his share.”
“Leave go of me, you drunkard, do you hear!”
“Drunkard! you call me a drunkard, a drunkard for having drunk three bottles of wine!”
“I don’t call you a drunkard because you drank three bottles of wine, but because you let yourself get tipsy over those three unfortunate bottles.”
And, with a gesture of commiseration, and trying for the third time to release his cloak, the unknown continued:
“Now then, are you going to let go my cloak or not, you idiot?”
Thibault was at all times touchy as to the way people addressed him, but in his present state of mind his susceptibility amounted to extreme irritation.
“By the devil!” he exclaimed, “let me tell you, my fine sir, that the only idiot here is the man who gives insults in return for the services of which he has made use, and seeing that is so, I do not know what
prevents me planting my fist in the middle of your face.”
This menace was scarcely out of his mouth, when, as instantly as a cannon goes off once the flame of the match has touched the powder, the blow with which Thibault had threatened his unknown adversary, came full against his own cheek.
“Take that, you beast” said the voice, which brought back to Thibault certain recollections in connection with the blow he received. “I am a good Jew, you see, and pay you back your money before weighing your coin.”
Thibault’s answer was a blow in the chest; it was well directed, and Thibault felt inwardly pleased with it himself. But it had no more effect on his antagonist than the fillip from a child’s finger would have on an oak tree. It was returned by a second blow of the fist which so far exceeded the former in the force with which it was delivered, that Thibault felt certain if the giant’s strength went on increasing in the same ratio, that a third of the kind would level him with the ground.
But the very violence of his blow brought disaster on Thibault’s unknown assailant. The latter had fallen on to one knee, and so doing, his hand, touching the ground, came in contact with a stone. Rising in fury to his feet again, with the stone in his hand, he flung it at his enemy’s head. The colossal figure uttered a sound like the bellowing of an ox, turned round on himself, and then, like an oak tree cut off by the roots, fell his whole length on the ground, and lay there in sensible.
Not knowing whether he had killed, or only wounded his adversary, Thibault took to his heels and fled, not even turning to look behind him.
CHAPTER XII
WOLVES IN THE SHEEP FOLD
The forest was not far from the Bailiff’s house, and in two bounds Thibault found himself on the further side of Les Fosses, and in the wooded path leading to the brickyard. He had no sooner entered the forest than his usual escort surrounded him, fawning and blinking with their eyes and wagging their tails to show their pleasure. Thibault, who had been so alarmed the first time he found himself in company with this strange body guard, took no more notice of them now than if they had been a pack of poodles. He gave them a word or two of caress, softly scratched the head of the one that was nearest him, and continued on his way, thinking over his double triumph.
He had beaten his host at the bottle, he had vanquished his adversary at fisticuffs, and in this joyous frame of mind, he walked along, saying aloud to himself:
“You must acknowledge, friend Thibault, that you are a lucky rascal! Madame Suzanne is in every possible respect just what you want! A Bailiff’s wife! my word! that’s a conquest worth making! and if he dies first, what a wife to get! But in either case, when she is walking beside me, and taking my arm, whether as wife or mistress, the devil take it, if I am mistaken for anything but a gentleman! And to think that unless I am fool enough to play my cards badly, all this will be mine! For she did not deceive me by the way she went off: those who have nothing to fear have no need to take flight. She was afraid to show her feelings too plainly at first meeting; but how kind she was after she got home! Well, well, it is all working itself out, as I can see; I have only got to push matters a bit; and some fine morning she will find herself rid of her fat little old man, and then the thing is done. Not that I do, or can, wish for the death of poor Monsieur Magloire. If I take his place after he is no more, well and good; but to kill a man who has given you such good wine to drink! to kill him with his good wine still hot in your mouth! why, even my friend the wolf would blush for me if I were guilty of such a deed.”
Then with one of his most roguish smiles, he went on:
“And besides, would it not be as well to have already acquired some rights over Madame Suzanne, by the time Monsieur Magloire passes, in the course of nature, into the other world, which, considering the way in which the old scamp eats and drinks, cannot be a matter of long delay?”
And then, no doubt because the good qualities of the Bailiff’s wife which had been so highly extolled to him came back to his mind:
“No, no,” he continued, “no illness, no death! but just those ordinary disagreeables which happen to everybody; only, as it is to be to my advantage, I should like rather more than the usual share to fall to him; one cannot at his age set up for a smart young buck; no, every one according to their dues…and when these things come to pass, I will give you more than a thank you, Cousin Wolf.”
My readers will doubtless not be of the same way of thinking as Thibault, who saw nothing offensive in this pleasantry of his, but on the contrary, rubbed his hands together smiling at his own thoughts, and indeed so pleased with them that he had reached the town, and found himself at the end of the Rue de Largny before he was aware that he had left the Bailiff’s house more than a few hundred paces behind him.
He now made a sign to his wolves, for it was not quite prudent to traverse the whole town of Villers-Cotterets with a dozen wolves walking alongside as a guard of honour; not only might they meet dogs by the way, but the dogs might wake up the inhabitants.
Six of his wolves, therefore, went off to the right, and six to the left, and although the paths they took were not exactly of the same length, and although some of them went more quickly than the others, the whole dozen nevertheless managed to meet, without one missing, at the end of the Rue de Lormet. As soon as Thibault had reached the door of his hut, they took leave of him and disappeared; but, before they dispersed, Thibault requested them to be at the same spot on the morrow, as soon as night fell.
Although it was two o’clock before Thibault got home, he was up with the dawn; it is true, however, that the day does not rise very early in the month of January.
He was hatching a plot. He had not forgotten the promise he had made to the Bailiff to send him some game from his warren; his warren being, in fact, the whole of the forest-land which belonged to his most serene Highness the Duke of Orleans. This was why he had got up in such good time. It had snowed for two hours before day-break; and he now went and explored the forest in all directions, with the skill and cunning of a bloodhound.
He tracked the deer to its lair, the wild boar to its soil, the hare to its form; and followed their traces to discover where they went at night.
And then, when darkness again fell on the Forest, he gave a howl, a regular wolfs howl, in answer to which came crowding to him the wolves that he had invited the night before, followed by old and young recruits, even to the very cubs of a year old.
Thibault then explained that he expected a more than usually fine night’s hunting from his friends, and as an encouragement to them, announced his intention of going with them himself and giving his help in the chase.
It was in very truth a hunt beyond the power of words to describe. The whole night through did the sombre glades of the forest resound with hideous cries.
Here, a roebuck pursued by a wolf, fell, caught by the throat by another wolf hidden in ambush; there, Thibault, knife in hand like a butcher, was running to the assistance of three or four of his ferocious companions, that had already fastened on a fine young boar of four years old, which he now finished off.
An old she-wolf came along bringing with her half-a-dozen hares which she had surprised in their love frolics, and she had great difficulty in preventing her cubs from swallowing a whole covey of young partridges which the young marauders had come across with their heads under their wings, without first waiting for the wolf-master to levy his dues,
Madame Suzanne Magloire little thought what was taking place at this moment in the forest of Villers-Cotterets, and on her account.
In a couple of hours’ time the wolves had heaped up a perfect cart-load of game in front of Thibault’s hut.
Thibault selected what he wanted for his own purposes, and left over sufficient to provide them a sumptuous repast. Borrowing a mule from a charcoal-burner, on the pretext that he wanted to convey his shoes to town, he loaded it up with the game and started for Villers-Cotterets. There he sold a part of this booty to the gamedealer, reserving the best pieces
and those which had been least mutilated by the wolves’ claws, to present to Madame Magloire.
His first intention had been to go in person with his gift to the Bailiff; but Thibault was beginning to have a smattering of the ways of the world, and thought it would, therefore, be more be coming to allow his offering of game to precede him. To this end he employed a peasant on payment of a few coppers, to carry the game to the Bailiff of Erneville, merely accompanying it with a slip of paper, on which he wrote: “From Monsieur Thibault.” He, himself, was to follow closely on the message; and, indeed, so closely did he do so, that he arrived just as Maitre Magloire was having the game he had received spread out on a table.
The Bailiff, in the warmth of his gratitude, extended his arms towards his friend of the previous night, and tried to embrace him, uttering loud cries of joy. I say tried, for two things prevented him from carrying out his wish; one, the shortness of his arms, the other, the rotundity of his person.
But thinking that where his capacities were insufficient, Madame Magloire might be of assistance, he ran to the door, calling at the top of his voice: “Suzanne, Suzanne!”
There was so unusual a tone in the Bailiff’s voice that his wife felt sure some thing extraordinary had happened, but whether for good or ill she was unable to make sure: and downstairs she came, therefore, in great haste, to see for herself what was taking place.
She found her husband, wild with delight, trotting round to look on all sides at the game spread on the table, and it must be confessed, that no sight could have more greatly rejoiced a gourmand’s eye. As soon as he caught sight of Suzanne, “Look, look, Madame!” he cried, clapping his hands together. “See what our friend Thibault has brought us, and thank him for it. Praise be to God! there is one person who knows how to keep his promises! He tells us he will send a hamper of game, and he sends us a cart-load. Shake hands with him, embrace him at once, and just look here at this.”
The Werewolf Megapack Page 48