Late in 2018 Delos Journal at Florida University published “The Wolf”, my translation of Marcel Aymé’s short story, “Le Loup”. Enough time has passed since the publication that I can now give everyone access to a copy of the story, or at least a copy of the uncorrected proofs… Click here to download a pdf of the story in English: Delos_proofs_The_Wolf
It includes an eye-catching illustration by Alma Elaine Shoaf.
“Le Loup” was first published in the journal Candide in 1932, and again in 1934 in a collection, Les Contes du chat perché, one of the best-selling children’s books in France where it is still in print. The stories are set on a farm where two little girls live with their parents and a range of talking animals. When the parents go out, the animals unwittingly get the girls into mischief.
The girls question the constraints of childhood: they must not cross the road, talk to strange dogs, ask for beautiful clothes, plead for the lives of animals about to be butchered for food, or trust a wolf. Getting themselves in deep trouble, they seem to be heading for an unhappy ending but in every story things return to normal for the girls, and also for the animals who might live or die in the end, as they would on an ordinary farm.
But as for whether the wolf lives or dies, I’ll let you read it in my translation to find out. (An earlier translation by Norman Denny has a much-altered resolution to the story, not what Aymé wrote.)
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