My God! My God! I am going to write down at last what has happened to
me. But how can I? How dare I? The thing is so bizarre, so
inexplicable, so incomprehensible, so silly!
If I were not perfectly sure of what I have seen, sure that there was
not in my reasoning any defect, any error in my declarations, any
lacuna in the inflexible sequence of my observations, I should believe
myself to be the dupe of a simple hallucination, the sport of a
singular vision. After all, who knows?
Yesterday I was in a private asylum, but I went there voluntarily, out
of prudence and fear. Only one single human being knows my history, and
that is the doctor of the said asylum. I am going to write to him. I
really do not know why? To disembarrass myself? Yea, I feel as though
weighed down by an intolerable nightmare.
Let me explain.
I have always been a recluse, a dreamer, a kind of isolated
philosopher, easy-going, content with but little, harboring ill-feeling
against no man, and without even a grudge against heaven. I have
constantly lived alone; consequently, a kind of torture takes hold of
me when I find myself in the presence of others. How is this to be
explained? I do not know. I am not averse to going out into the world,
to conversation, to dining with friends, but when they are near me for
any length of time, even the most intimate of them, they bore me,
fatigue me, enervate me, and I experience an overwhelming, torturing
desire to see them get up and go, to take themselves away, and to leave
me by myself.
That desire is more than a craving; it is an irresistible necessity.
And if the presence of people with whom I find myself were to be
continued; if I were compelled, not only to listen, but also to follow,
for any length of time, their conversation, a serious accident would
assuredly take place. What kind of accident? Ah! who knows? Perhaps a
slight paralytic stroke? Probably!
I like solitude so much that I cannot even endure the vicinage of other
beings sleeping under the same roof. I cannot live in Paris, because
there I suffer the most acute agony. I lead a moral life, and am
therefore tortured in body and in nerves by that immense crowd which
swarms and lives even when it sleeps. Ah! the sleeping of others is
more painful still than their conversation. And I can never find repose
when I know and feel that on the other side of a wall several
existences are undergoing these regular eclipses of reason.
Why am I thus? Who knows? The cause of it is very simple perhaps. I get
tired very soon of everything that does not emanate from me. And there
are many people in similar case.
We are, on earth, two distinct races. Those who have need of others,
whom others amuse, engage soothe, whom solitude harasses, pains,
stupefies, like the movement of a terrible glacier or the traversing of
the desert; and those, on the contrary, whom others weary, tire, bore,
silently torture, whom isolation calms and bathes in the repose of
independency, and plunges into the humors of their own thoughts. In
fine, there is here a normal, physical phenomenon. Some are constituted
to live a life outside of themselves, others, to live a life within
themselves. As for me, my exterior associations are abruptly and
painfully short-lived, and, as they reach their limits, I experience in
my whole body and in my whole intelligence an intolerable uneasiness.
As a result of this, I became attached, or rather had become much
attached, to inanimate objects, which have for me the importance of
beings, and my house has or had become a world in which I lived an
active and solitary life, surrounded by all manner of things,
furniture, familiar knickknacks, as sympathetic in my eyes as the
visages of human beings. I had filled my mansion with them; little by
little, I had adorned it with them, and I felt an inward content and
satisfaction, was more happy than if I had been in the arms of a
beloved girl, whose wonted caresses had become a soothing and
delightful necessity.
I had had this house constructed in the center of a beautiful garden,
which hid it from the public high-ways, and which was near the entrance
to a city where I could find, on occasion, the resources of society,
for which, at moments, I had a longing. All my domestics slept in a
separate building, which was situated at some considerable distance
from my house, at the far end of the kitchen garden, which in turn was
surrounded by a high wall. The obscure envelopment of night, in the
silence of my concealed habitation, buried under the leaves of great
trees, was so reposeful and so delicious, that before retiring to my
couch I lingered every evening for several hours in order to enjoy the
solitude a little longer.
One day "Signad" had been played at one of the city theaters. It was
the first time that I had listened to that beautiful, musical, and
fairy-like drama, and I had derived from it the liveliest pleasures.
I returned home on foot with a light step, my head full of sonorous
phrases, and my mind haunted by delightful visions. It was night, the
dead of night, and so dark that I could hardly distinguish the broad
highway, and consequently I stumbled into the ditch more than once.
From the custom-house, at the barriers, to my house, was about a mile,
perhaps a little more--a leisurely walk of about twenty minutes. It was
one o'clock in the morning, one o'clock or maybe half-past one; the sky
had by this time cleared somewhat and the crescent appeared, the gloomy
crescent of the last quarter of the moon. The crescent of the first
quarter is that which rises about five or six o'clock in the evening
and is clear, gay, and fretted with silver; but the one which rises
after midnight is reddish, sad, and desolating--it is the true Sabbath
crescent. Every prowler by night has made the same observation. The
first, though slender as a thread, throws a faint, joyous light which
rejoices the heart and lines the ground with distinct shadows; the last
sheds hardly a dying glimmer, and is so wan that it occasions hardly
any shadows.
In the distance, I perceived the somber mass of my garden, and, I know
not why, was seized with a feeling of uneasiness at the idea of going
inside. I slackened my pace, and walked very softly, the thick cluster
of trees having the appearance of a tomb in which my house was buried.
I opened my outer gate and entered the long avenue of sycamores which
ran in the direction of the house, arranged vault-wise like a high
tunnel, traversing opaque masses, and winding round the turf lawns, on
which baskets of flowers, in the pale darkness, could be indistinctly
discerned.
While approaching the house, I was seized by a strange feeling. I could
hear nothing, I stood still. Through the trees there was not even a
breath of air stirring. "What is the matter with me?" I said to myself.
For ten years I had entered and re-entered in the same way, without
ever experiencing the least inquietude. I never had any fear at nights.
The sight of a man, a marauder, or a thief would have thrown me into a
fit of anger, and I would have rushed at him without any hesitation.
Moreover, I was armed--I had my revolver. But I did not touch it, for I
was anxious to resist that feeling of dread with which I was seized.
What was it? Was it a presentiment--that mysterious presentiment which
takes hold of the senses of men who have witnessed something which, to
them, is inexplicable? Perhaps? Who knows?
In proportion as I advanced, I felt my skin quiver more and more, and
when I was close to the wall, near the outhouses of my large residence,
I felt that it would be necessary for me to wait a few minutes before
opening the door and going inside. I sat down, then, on a bench, under
the windows of my drawing-room. I rested there, a little disturbed,
with my head leaning against the wall, my eyes wide open, under the
shade of the foliage. For the first few minutes, I did not observe
anything unusual around me; I had a humming noise in my ears, but that
has happened often to me. Sometimes it seemed to me that I heard trains
passing, that I heard clocks striking, that I heard a multitude on the
march.
Very soon, those humming noises became more distinct, more
concentrated, more determinable, I was deceiving myself. It was not the
ordinary tingling of my arteries which transmitted to my ears these
rumbling sounds, but it was a very distinct, though confused, noise
which came, without any doubt whatever, from the interior of my house.
Through the walls I distinguished this continued noise,--I should
rather say agitation than noise,--an indistinct moving about of a pile
of things, as if people were tossing about, displacing, and carrying
away surreptitiously all my furniture.
I doubted, however, for some considerable time yet, the evidence of my
ears. But having placed my ear against one of the outhouses, the better
to discover what this strange disturbance was, inside my house, I
became convinced, certain, that something was taking place in my
residence which was altogether abnormal and incomprehensible. I had no
fear, but I was--how shall I express it--paralyzed by astonishment. I
did not draw my revolver, knowing very well that there was no need of
my doing so.
I listened a long time, but could come to no resolution, my mind being
quite clear, though in myself I was naturally anxious. I got up and
waited, listening always to the noise, which gradually increased, and
at intervals grew very loud, and which seemed to become an impatient,
angry disturbance, a mysterious commotion.
Then, suddenly, ashamed of my timidity, I seized my bunch of keys. I
selected the one I wanted, guided it into the lock, turned it twice,
and pushing the door with all my might, sent it banging against the
partition.
The collision sounded like the report of a gun, and there responded to
that explosive noise, from roof to basement of my residence, a
formidable tumult. It was so sudden, so terrible, so deafening, that I
recoiled a few steps, and though I knew it to be wholly useless, I
pulled my revolver out of its case.
I continued to listen for some time longer. I could distinguish now an
extraordinary pattering upon the steps of my grand staircase, on the
waxed floors, on the carpets, not of boots, or of naked feet, but of
iron and wooden crutches, which resounded like cymbals. Then I suddenly
discerned, on the threshold of my door, an armchair, my large reading
easy-chair, which set off waddling. It went away through my garden.
Others followed it, those of my drawing-room, then my sofas, dragging
themselves along like crocodiles on their short paws; then all my
chairs, bounding like goats, and the little foot-stools, hopping like
rabbits.
Oh! what a sensation! I slunk back into a clump of bushes where I
remained crouched up, watching, meanwhile, my furniture defile
past--for everything walked away, the one behind the other, briskly or
slowly, according to its weight or size. My piano, my grand piano,
bounded past with the gallop of a horse and a murmur of music in its
sides; the smaller articles slid along the gravel like snails, my
brushes, crystal, cups and saucers, which glistened in the moonlight. I
saw my writing desk appear, a rare curiosity of the last century, which
contained all the letters I had ever received, all the history of my
heart, an old history from which I have suffered so much! Besides,
there were inside of it a great many cherished photographs.
Suddenly--I no longer had any fear--I threw myself on it, seized it as
one would seize a thief, as one would seize a wife about to run away;
but it pursued its irresistible course, and despite my efforts and
despite my anger, I could not even retard its pace. As I was resisting
in desperation that insuperable force, I was thrown to the ground. It
then rolled me over, trailed me along the gravel, and the rest of my
furniture, which followed it, began to march over me, tramping on my
legs and injuring them. When I loosed my hold, other articles had
passed over my body, just as a charge of cavalry does over the body of
a dismounted soldier.
Seized at last with terror, I succeeded in dragging myself out of the
main avenue, and in concealing myself again among the shrubbery, so as
to watch the disappearance of the most cherished objects, the smallest,
the least striking, the least unknown which had once belonged to me.
I then heard, in the distance, noises which came from my apartments,
which sounded now as if the house were empty, a loud noise of shutting
of doors. They were being slammed from top to bottom of my dwelling,
even the door which I had just opened myself unconsciously, and which
had closed of itself, when the last thing had taken its departure. I
took flight also, running toward the city, and only regained my
self-composure, on reaching the boulevards, where I met belated people.
I rang the bell of a hotel were I was known. I had knocked the dust off
my clothes with my hands, and I told the porter that I had lost my
bunch of keys, which included also that to the kitchen garden, where my
servants slept in a house standing by itself, on the other side of the
wall of the inclosure which protected my fruits and vegetables from the
raids of marauders.
I covered myself up to the eyes in the bed which was assigned to me,
but could not sleep; and I waited for the dawn listening to the
throbbing of my heart. I had given orders that my servants were to be
summoned to the hotel at daybreak, and my valet de chambre knocked at
my door at seven o'clock in the morning.
His countenance bore a woeful look.
"A great misfortune has happened during the night, Monsieur," said he.
"What is it?"
"Somebody has stolen the whole of Monsieur's furniture, all,
everything, even to the smallest articles."
This news pleased me. Why? Who knows? I was complete master of myself,
bent on dissimulating, on telling no one of anything I had seen;
determined on concealing and in burying in my heart of hearts a
terrible secret. I responded:
"They must then be the same people who have stolen my keys. The police
must be informed immediately. I am going to get up, and I will join you
in a few moments."
The investigation into the circumstances under which the robbery might
have been committed lasted for five months. Nothing was found, not even
the smallest of my knickknacks, nor the least trace of the thieves.
Good gracious! If I had only told them what I knew--If I had said--I
should have been locked up--I, not the thieves--for I was the only
person who had seen everything from the first.
Yes! but I knew how to keep silence. I shall never refurnish my house.
That were indeed useless. The same thing would happen again. I had no
desire even to re-enter the house, and I did not re-enter it; I never
visited it again. I moved to Paris, to the hotel, and consulted doctors
in regard to the condition of my nerves, which had disquieted me a good
deal ever since that awful night.
They advised me to travel, and I followed their counsel.