The Thing in the Forest - Bernard Capes

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Thing in the Forest by Bernard Capes. Raven speaks
into the snow locked forests of Upper Hungary steel wolves
in winter, but there is a footfall worse than theirs,

(00:21):
to knock upon the heart of the lonely traveler. One
December evening, Elsbett, the young newly wedded wife of the
woodman Stefan, came hurrying over the lower slopes of the
White Mountains from the town, where she had been all

(00:41):
day marketing. She carried a basket with provisions on her arm.
Her plump cheeks were like a couple of cold apples.
Her breath spoke short, but more from nervousness than exhaustion.
It was nearing dusk, and she was glad to see

(01:04):
the little lonely church in the hollow below the hub,
as it were of many radiating paths through the trees,
one of which was the road to her own warm cottage,
yet a half mile away. She paused a moment at

(01:26):
the foot of the slope, undecided about entering the little, chill,
silent building and making her plea for protection to the
great battered stone image of our Lady of Succor, which
stood within by the confessional box. But the stillness and

(01:49):
the growing darkness decided her, and she went on. A
spark of fire glowing through the presbytery window seemed to
repel rather than attract her, and she was glad when
the convolutions of the path hid it from her sight.

(02:11):
Being new to the district, she had seen very little
of father rule as yet, and somehow the penetrating knowledge
and burning eyes of the pastor made her feel uncomfortable.
The soft drift, the lane of tall, motionless pines stretched

(02:35):
on in a quiet like death. Somewhere, the sun, like
a dead fire, had fallen into opalescent embers. Faintly luminous,
they were enough only to touch the shadows with a
ghastlier pallor. It was so still that the light crunch

(03:01):
in the snow of the girl's own footfalls trod on
her heart like a desecration. Suddenly there was something near
her that had not been before. It had come like
a shadow, without more sound or warning. It was here

(03:24):
there behind her. She turned in mortal panic and saw
a wolf with a strangled cry and trembling limbs. She
strove to hurry on her way, and always she knew,
though there was no whisper of pursuit that the gliding

(03:47):
shadow followed in her wake. Desperate in her terror, she
stopped once more and faced it. A wolf? Was it
a wolf? Oh? Who could doubt it? Yet the wild
expression in those famished eyes, so lost, so pitiful, so

(04:14):
mingled of insatiable hunger and human need, condemned for its
unspeakable sins to take this form with sunset and so
howl and snuffle about the doors of men until the
blessed day released it. A werewolf, not a wolf. That

(04:41):
terrific realization of the truth smote the girl, as with
a knife out of darkness. For an instant she came
near fainting, And then a low moan broke into her
heart and flood it with pity, so lost, so infinitely hopeless,

(05:08):
and so pitiful. Yes, in spite of all, so pitiful,
it had sinned, beyond any sinning that her innocence knew
or her experience could gauge. But she was a woman,

(05:30):
very blessed, very happy in her store of comforts and
her surety of love. She knew that it was forbidden
to succor these damned and nameless outcasts, to help or
sympathize with them, in any way, But there was a

(05:53):
good store of meat in her basket, and who need
ever know tell? With shaking hands she found and threw
a sop to the desolate brute, then, turning, sped upon
her way. But at home her secret sin stood up

(06:20):
before her, and, interposing between her husband and herself, threw
its shadow upon both their faces. What had she dared?
What done by her own act, forfeited her birthright of innocence,

(06:41):
by her own act, placed herself in the power of
the evil to which she had ministered. All that night
she lay in shame and horror, and all the next
day until Evan had come about his dinner and gone again.

(07:03):
She moved in a dumb agony, then driven unendurably by
the memory of his troubled, bewildered face. As twilight threatened,
she put on her cloak and went down to the
little church in the hollow to confess her sin. Mother,

(07:28):
forgive and save me, she whispered as she passed the statue.
After ringing the bell for the confessor. She had not
knelt long at the confessional box in the dim chapel,
cold and empty as a waiting vault. When the chancel

(07:49):
rail clicked, and the footsteps of Father Rule were heard,
rustling over the stones. He came. He took his seat
behind the grating, and with many sighs and falterings, elspet
avowed her guilt, and as with bowed head she ended.

(08:16):
A strange sound answered her. It was like a little laugh,
and yet not so much like a laugh as a snarl,
with a shock, as of death. She raised her face.

(08:37):
It was Father Rule who sat there, And yet it
was not Father Rule. In that time of twilight. His
face was already changing, narrowing, becoming wolfish, the eyes rounded

(08:58):
and the jaw slavered. She gasped and shrunk back, and
at that, barking and snapping at the grating with a
wicked look, he dropped, and she heard him coming. Sheer horror,

(09:18):
lent her wings with a scream. She sprang to her
feet and fled, her cloak caught in something. There was
a wrench and crash, and like a flood, oblivion overswept her.
It was the old, deaf and near senile Sacristan who

(09:42):
found them lying there, the woman unhurt but insensible, the
priest crushed out of life by the fall of the
ancient statue. Long tottering to its collapse. She recovered for
her part. For his no one knows where he lies buried,

(10:10):
but there were dark stories of a baying pack that night,
and of an empty, blood stained pavement when they came
to seek it for the body, and of the thing
in the forest.