ferns for a long time. I thought I
had seen it move, and I heard a sound come out of it as though a bit of
stick had broken under a footstep. I felt frightened. I thought there
was somebody there. Then I heard the same sound again much nearer, but
without seeing anything move. I tried to reassure myself by saying to
myself that it was a hare, or some other little animal which was
looking for food; but in spite of all I could try to think, I felt
there was somebody there. I felt so nervous that I made up my mind to
go nearer the farm. I had taken two steps towards my sheep when they
huddled together and moved away from the wood. I was looking about to
see what had frightened them, when quite close to me, in the very
middle of the flock, I saw a yellow dog carrying off one of the sheep
in his mouth. My first idea was that Castille had gone mad; but at the
same moment Castille tumbled up against my dress and howled
plaintively. Then I guessed that it was a wolf. It was carrying off a
sheep which it held by the middle of its body. It climbed up a hillock
without any difficulty, and as it jumped the broad ditch which
separated the field from the forest its hind legs made me think of
wings. At that moment I should not have thought it at all
extraordinary if it had flown away over the trees. I stood there for a
few moments, without knowing whether I was frightened. Then I felt
that I could not take my eyes away from the ditch. My eyelids had
become so stiff that I thought I should never be able to close them
again. I wanted to call out, so that they should hear me at the farm,
but I could not get my voice out of my throat. I wanted to run, but my
legs were trembling so that I was obliged to sit down on the wet grass.
Castille went on howling as though she were in pain, and the sheep
remained huddled together.

When I got them back to the farm at last, I ran to look for Master
Silvain. As soon as he saw me he guessed what had happened. He called
his brother and took down their two guns, and I tried to show him which
way the wolf had gone. They both came back at nightfall without having
found him. We talked of nothing else all the evening. Eugиne wanted
to know what the wolf looked like; and old Bibiche got angry when I
said that he had a long yellow coat like Castille, but that he was much
handsomer than she was.




A few days afterwards it was Martine's turn. She had just taken her
sheep out, and she had hardly reached the end of the avenue of chestnut
trees when we heard her shouting. Everybody rushed out of the house.
I got to Martine first. She was stooping down and pulling as hard as
she could at a sheep which a wolf had just killed, and was trying to
carry off. The wolf had the sheep by the throat, and was pulling as
hard as Martine was. Martine's dog bit the wolf's legs, but he didn't
seem to feel it, and when Master Silvain fired full at him he rolled
over with a piece of the sheep's throat between his teeth. Martine's
eyes were staring and her mouth had become quite white. Her cap had
slipped off her head, and the parting which divided her hair into two
made me think of a broad path on which one could walk without any
danger. The usual strong expression of her face had changed into a sad
little grimace, and her hands kept opening and closing, the two of them
keeping time. She had been leaning against the chestnut tree, and she
went up to Eugиne, who was looking at the wolf. She stood by him for a
moment looking at the dead wolf too, and said aloud: "Poor brute! How
hungry he must have been!" The farmer put the wolf and the sheep on
the same wheelbarrow, and wheeled them back to the farm. The dogs
followed, sniffing at the barrow, and looking frightened.

For several days the farmer and his brother went out shooting in the
neighbourhood. Whenever Eugиne came anywhere near me he would stop and
say a kind word. He told me that the