(Edited for length… Mr Oufle, hosting a party at carnival time, and quite drunk, decides to wear his son’s masquerade costume, which was a combination of a suit of green and gold, intended as a foresters dress; a costume of the time of Francois L, covered with spangles; and last, but not least, a bear-skin suit, so contrived that the wearer of it was covered with fur from head to foot, and looked precisely like a black-bear escaped from a traveling caravan.)
[…]
“Now.” mused M. Oufle, “is a chance for me to eradicate these baneful superstitions from her (Madame Oufle’s) mind. If she sees me in this dress, and takes me to be a were-wolf, when I show her the deception she will never believe in the supernatural again.”
Accordingly he walked to his wife’s door and listened. The servant was still with her mistress, so M. Oufle retreated down-stairs to the dining room, intending to wait till his good lady was alone; and that he might know when the maid was dismissed, he left the door ajar. Then, taking up a book, he seated himself before the fire. The book happened to be Bodin’s “Demonomania,” and M. Oule opened it at the chapter on Lycanthropy. He read on, and the tales of were-wolves floated in strange colors through his brain, till he fell asleep with his head on the table, and the book on his lap. And as he slumbered he dreamed of sorcerers being provided by the evil one with wolf-skins which they were condemned to wear for seven years, and of Lycoan sentenced by Jove to run about in bestial form, till a piercing shriek and a crash brought him with a start to his feet.
The ladies’ maid, after haring pinning her mistress’ back hair in a heap. and fitted over it the night-cap, had left the chamber, and had come down-stairs. As she passed the dining-room, she saw that there was still a light in it, and thinking that the candles had not been extinguished, she entered precipitately to put them out. There in the dead of night she stood, and saw before her a monstrous black bear fast asleep before the fire, snoring loudly, with its head on the table and its snout up in the air, its hind paws upon the fender, a silk pocket-handkerchief over one knee, and a book on its lap. No wonder that she dropped her candle and screamed.
But the shriek which testified to her fear frightened M. Oufle out of the few senses he did possess. He sprang up, bewildered with his dreams, confused with the fumes of wine, and alarmed at the suddenness of his reviel. Opposite him was a mirror. He forgot entirely all the circumstances connected with the assumption of the bear-skin, and with the last impression produced by Bodin and by his dream stamped upon his brain, he jumped to the conclusion that ‘he was bewitched, and that he had been transformed into a were-wolf. Full of this idea, he dashed past the terror-stricken maid; and his wife, who had rushed to the landing, saw a frightful monster bounding down-stairs, uttering howls sufficiently loud to awake the dead, heard it unlock the front door and burst into the street. There upon she fainted away.
M. Oufle, impelled by terror, ran along the street yelling for assistance. He was naturally provided with a deep but sonorous bass voice, but his voice sounded hollow and fearful through his hideous visor. A few terrified people appeared in their night-caps at the windows, only to run back to their beds and bury themselves beneath the clothes.
[…]
On the night in question four valiant collegians were engaged on the hazardous undertaking of screwing up the door of a worthy citizen, an act of consummate ingenuity and sublime originality. Suddenly a wild and unearthly yell ringing through the hushed night, broke upon their ears. Instantly the four students paused and turned pale. In another moment they saw a diabolical object moving rapidly down the street towards them. The young men shrank against the wall, each endeavoring to get behind the other, and reversing the proverb of the weakest going to the wall, for in their struggle the ablest-bodied secured that position, whilst the feeblest was the most exposed, and served as a screen to the other three. The approaching monster stood still for an instant, and they were able to observe him by the wan light of the crescent new moon, and the flickering oil lamp slung across the head of the street. A fearful object! In their terror the screwdrivers dropped from their fingers. The noise attracted the creature’s attention, and it ran up the steps towards them, articulating words m a hoarse tone, which they, in their alarm, were unable to catch. Suffice it to say that the sight of this monster coming within arm’s length was too much for their courage. With a shriek they burste past it, tumbling over each other, and rolling down the doorsteps, picked themselves up again and fled, palpitating, in four separate directions, calling for the police, imploring the aid of that august body which they had so long set at defiance.
What tales they related on the a following morning to all the old ladies of their acquaintance, it is not for me a to record. One of the students broke his sword, and vowed that he had snapped it in his fight with the demon; another exhibited the bruises he had received in his fall, as evidence of the desperate character of the conflict; a third wore his arm in a sling as though it had been broken in the encounter,
and all agreed that the monster had fled from them, and not they from the monster.
The police! “O, horrors!” thought M. Oufle, “they have summoned the aid of the police. I shall be captured, be tried and sentenced, and burned at the stake as a were-wolf.”
The fear of this urged him to retreat stealthily homewards, least any of the agents of justice should get sight of him and carry him away to trial. If he could but reach home he would implore his wife to stab him with a knife between the eyes, and draw some drops of blood, a sovereign cure for lycanthropy. But poor M. Oufle’s head was never very clear, and now it was in a thorough condition of bewilderment, so that he completely lost himself, and slunk about the streets in a disconsolate manner, vainly searching for his own domicile. His bewilderment became greater with every step he took and his confusion and alarm were not a little heightened by his stumbling over an elderly gentleman, and leaving him apparently dead of fright on the pavement. It did not mend matters when, hearing a fiacre driving by, he suddenly stepped towards it and asked the way of the driver-for the coachman jumped off his seat in a paroxysm of terror, and the horses, equally in frightened, ran away with the carriage. whilst the people inside screamed through the windows.
[…]
If it had been within the limits of physical possibility, he would have sunk into his shoes. When he heard his own name articulated in hollow tones from the muzzle, he turned heel, and fled like the wind. In vain did M. Oufle call after him; the louder he called, the faster fled the youth, and the distracted father was obliged to pursue his son. The race was run with the utmost speed by both parties.
The young man was urged on by terror lest the skin should overtake him and M. Oufle dreaded losing sight of his son, lest he should at the same time lose all chance of regaining his home. When M. Oufle, le jeune (junior), turned his white face over his shoulders, he saw the creature gaining on him, and heard its hollow calls. lie dodged from street to street, but he invariably saw the bear-skin double the corner and rush after him, turn where he would. It was in vain for him to hope to throw it out, and at last he ran straight for home. This he had left by the garden. It was his custom to leave the house by the back door, and clamber over the garden rails, whenever he went out on his night expeditions, and now he made for the garden, hoping to climb the rails and escape through the door and lock it before the skin could overtake him. He reached the railings. It was a difficult and delicate matter to surmount them with the time at his disposal; but now that it was to be accomplished in no time at all, it was hazardous in the extreme. M. Onfle, junior, had reached the top, and was preparing to jump down, when a furry paw grasped his ankle and held him as though in a vice, for the monster proceeded to climb the railings, holding on to his leg. The poor youth endeavored to break away; he writhed and strained to be free. Holding the iron bars with his hands, he vociferated loudly for help. The creature reached the top and clasped him round the waist, whilst the hideous snout was poked close to his ear over his shoulder.
Both leaped together, and were brought up with a jerk. The rails were topped with sharp dart-heads, and one of these caught in the hide, so that M. Oufle and his son were suspended from it in mid air, the latter in the arms of his father. Roth crie4 together for assistance; the young man louder than ever when he heard the sonorous howls of his captor in his ear.
Lights appeared in the lower apartments at the back of the house, and presently the garden door was opened by a troop of terrified male and female servants, provided with blunderbusses, swords, and pistols. In the rear appeared Madame Oufle, half dressed, but with her night-cap on her head. The young man called to his mother, and the moment she saw the hope of the family dangling in the grasp of the monster, she fainted away again.
There was an old man, a servant of the house, who claimed and exercised supreme authority in the household. He came forward with a pistol in each hand, and the youth cried out to him to shoot the creature through the head. In vain did M. Outle shout to him to desist. His words were lost in the mask, and he would undoubtedly have received a couple of bullets through his head, had not the buttons of the dress just then given way with a burst, and slipped M. Oufle in a heap upon the ground, leaving the habit torn and dangling on the spike of the rails.
“Thank goodness!” exclaimed M. Oufle, sitting up; “‘the spell is off me!”