y bold when I had spectators; but left
to myself, in the middle of the night, exhausted by toil and hunger,
though with no longing for food, unhinged by the emotions I had just
experienced, certain that my uncles would beat me when I returned, yet
as anxious to return as if I were going to find paradise on earth at
Roche-Mauprat, I wandered about until daybreak, suffering indescribable
agonies. The howls of wolves, happily far off, more than once reached
my ears and froze the blood in my veins; and, as if my position had not
been perilous enough in reality, my overwrought imagination must needs
add to it a thousand extravagant fantasies. Patience had the reputation
of being a wolf-rearer. This, as you know, is a cabalistic speciality
accredited in all countries. I kept on fancying, therefore, that I saw
this devilish little gray-beard, escorted by his ravening pack, and
himself in the form of a demi-wolf, pursing me through the woods.
Several times when rabbits got up at my feet I almost fell backwards
from the shock. And now, as I was certain that nobody could see, I made
many a sign of the cross; for, while affecting incredulity, I was, of
course, at heart filled with all the superstitions born of fear.

At last, at daybreak, I reached Roche-Mauprat. I waited in a moat until
the gates were opened, and then slipped up to my room without being
seen by anybody. As it was not altogether an unfailing tenderness that
watched over me at Roche-Mauprat, my absence had not been noticed during
the night. Meeting my Uncle John on the stairs, I led him to believe
that I had just got up; and, as the artifice proved successful, I went
off to the hayloft and slept for the rest of the day.

V

As I had nothing further to fear for myself, it would have been easy to
take vengeance on my enemy. Everything was favourable. The words he had
uttered against my family would have been sufficient without any mention
of the outrage done to my own person, which, in truth, I hardly cared to
make known. I had only to say a word, and in a quarter of an hour seven
Mauprats would have been in the saddle, delighted at the opportunity of
making an example of a man who paid them no dues. Such a man would have
seemed to them good for nothing but hanging as a warning to others.

But even if things had not been likely to reach this pitch, I somehow
felt an unconquerable aversion to asking eight men to avenge me on a
single one. Just as I was about