The morning came, its clear blue bringing an assurance that it was
March to those desolate places lying in lonely grandeur beneath a
smiling sky. It whispered that the winter was passed and that spring
had come. Soon the snow would melt and the sodden earth would throb
and pulse with vernal activity, and it would be impossible not to
rejoice with Nature.
The snow thickened into a grey shining crust under the warm rays of
the sun, to deepen into blue where the shadows fell. The fir-trees,
shaggy and formidable, seemed especially verdant and welcoming to the
tide of sunlight that flowed to their feet, and lay there collected
in the little hollows about their roots. The woodpecker could be
heard amidst the pines, and daws, tomtits and bullfinches carolled
merrily as they spread their wings and preened their plumage in the
sun. The pines exhaled their pungent, resinous, exhilarating odour.
The wolf lay under cover all day. His bed was bestrewn with decaying
foliage and overgrown with moss. He rested his head on his paws,
gazing solemnly before him with small tear-stained eyes; he lay there
motionless, feeling a great weariness and melancholy. Around him was
a thick cluster of firs overspread with snow.
Twice the old wolf raised his head, opened his jaws wide and gave a
bitter plaintive whine; then his eyes grew dim, their ferocity died
down, and he wagged his tail like a cub, striking a thick branch a
sharp blow with it. Then again he relapsed into melancholy
immobility.
At last, as the day declined, as the naming splendour of the dying
sun sailed majestically towards the west and sank beneath the horizon
in a glory of spilled violets and purples, and as the moon uprose, a
huge, glowing lantern of light, the old wolf for the first time
showed himself angry and restless. He emerged from his cover and
commenced a loud howling, fiercely bristling his hair; then he sat on
his hind-legs and whined as though in great pain, again, as if driven
wild by this agony, he began to scatter and gnaw at the snow. Finally
at a swift pace, and crouching, he fled into the fields, to the
neighbourhood of the farm near which the wolf-traps were laid.
Here it was dark and cold, the snow-wind rose afresh, harsh and
violent, and the crusted snow cut the animal's feet. The last scent
of the she-wolf, which he had sniffed only the previous day, had
completely disappeared. In some remote part of the valley the pack
were howling in rage and hunger for their leader.
Tossing himself about and howling, the old wolf rushed madly over
hill and hollow. The night passed; he dashed about the fields and
valleys, went down to the river, ran into the deep fastness of the
forest and whined ferociously, for there was nothing left for him to
do. He had lived to eat and to breed. Man, by an iron trap, had
severed him from the law; now he knew only death awaited him.
* * * * * * *