_May 8._ What a beautiful day! I have spent all the morning lying in the
grass in front of my house, under the enormous plantain tree which
covers it, and shades and shelters the whole of it. I like this part of
the country and I am fond of living here because I am attached to it by
deep roots, profound and delicate roots which attach a man to the soil
on which his ancestors were born and died, which attach him to what
people think and what they eat, to the usages as well as to the food,
local expressions, the peculiar language of the peasants, to the smell
of the soil, of the villages and of the atmosphere itself.
I love my house in which I grew up. From my windows I can see the Seine
which flows by the side of my garden, on the other side of the road,
almost through my grounds, the great wide Seine, which goes to Rouen and
Havre, and which is covered with boats passing to and fro.
On the left, down yonder, lies Rouen, that large town with its blue
roofs, under its pointed, Gothic towers. They are innumerable, delicate
or broad, dominated by the spire of the cathedral, and full of bells
which sound through the blue air on fine mornings, sending their sweet
and distant iron clang, to me; their metallic sound which the breeze
wafts in my direction, now stronger and now weaker, according as the
wind is stronger or lighter.
What a delicious morning it was!
About eleven o'clock, a long line of boats drawn by a steam-tug, as big
as a fly, and which scarcely puffed while emitting its thick smoke,
passed my gate.
After two English schooners, whose red flag fluttered towards the sky,
there came a magnificent Brazilian three-master; it was perfectly white
and wonderfully clean and shining. I saluted it, I hardly know why,
except that the sight of the vessel gave me great pleasure.
_May 12._ I have had a slight feverish attack for the last few days, and
I feel ill, or rather I feel low-spirited.
Whence do these mysterious influences come, which change our happiness
into discouragement, and our self-confidence into diffidence? One might
almost say that the air, the invisible air, is full of unknowable
Forces, whose mysterious presence we have to endure. I wake up in the
best spirits, with an inclination to sing in my throat. Why? I go down
by the side of the water, and suddenly, after walking a short distance,
I return home wretched, as if some misfortune were awaiting me there.
Why? Is it a cold shiver which, passing over my skin, has upset my
nerves and given me low spirits? Is it the form of the clouds, or the
color of the sky, or the color of the surrounding objects which is so
changeable, which have troubled my thoughts as they passed before my
eyes? Who can tell? Everything that surrounds us, everything that we see
without looking at it, everything that we touch without knowing it,
everything that we handle without feeling it, all that we meet without
clearly distinguishing it, has a rapid, surprising and inexplicable
effect upon us and upon our organs, and through them on our ideas and on
our heart itself.
How profound that mystery of the Invisible is! We cannot fathom it with
our miserable senses, with our eyes which are unable to perceive what is
either too small or too great, too near to, or too far from us; neither
the inhabitants of a star nor of a drop of water ... with our ears that
deceive us, for they transmit to us the vibrations of the air in
sonorous notes. They are fairies who work the miracle of changing that
movement into noise, and by that metamorphosis give birth to music,
which makes the mute agitation of nature musical ... with our sense of
smell which is smaller than that of a dog ... with our sense of taste
which can scarcely distinguish the age of a wine!
Oh! If we only had other organs which would work other miracles in our
favor, what a number of fresh things we might discover around us!
_May 16._ I am ill, decidedly! I was so well last month! I am feverish,
horribly feverish, or rather I am in a state of feverish enervation,
which makes my mind suffer as much as my body. I have without ceasing
that horrible sensation of some danger threatening me, that apprehension
of some coming misfortune or of approaching death, that presentiment
which is, no doubt, an attack of some illness which is still unknown,
which germinates in the flesh and in the blood.
_May 18._ I have just come from consulting my medical man, for I could
no longer get any sleep. He found that my pulse was high, my eyes
dilated, my nerves highly strung, but no alarming symptoms. I must have
a course of shower baths and of bromide of potassium.
_May 25._ No change! My state is really very peculiar. As the evening
comes on, an incomprehensible feeling of disquietude seizes me, just as
if night concealed some terrible menace towards me. I dine quickly, and
then try to read, but I do not understand the words, and can scarcely
distinguish the letters. Then I walk up and down my drawing-room,
oppressed by a feeling of confused and irresistible fear, the fear of
sleep and fear of my bed.
About ten o'clock I go up to my room. As soon as I have got in I double
lock, and bolt it: I am frightened ... of what? Up till the present time
I have been frightened of nothing ... I open my cupboards, and look
under my bed; I listen ... I listen ... to what? How strange it is that
a simple feeling of discomfort, impeded or heightened circulation,
perhaps the irritation of a nervous thread, a slight congestion, a small
disturbance in the imperfect and delicate functions of our living
machinery, can turn the most light-hearted of men into a melancholy one,
and make a coward of the bravest? Then, I go to bed, and I wait for
sleep as a man might wait for the executioner. I wait for its coming
with dread, and my heart beats and my legs tremble, while my whole body
shivers beneath the warmth of the bedclothes, until the moment when I
suddenly fall asleep, as one would throw oneself into a pool of stagnant
water in order to drown oneself. I do not feel as I used to do formerly,
this perfidious sleep which is close to me and watching me, which is
going to seize me by the head, to close my eyes and annihilate me,
coming over me.
I sleep--a long time--two or three hours perhaps--then a dream--no--a
nightmare lays hold on me. I feel that I am in bed and asleep ... I feel
it and I know it ... and I feel also that somebody is coming close to
me, is looking at me, touching me, is getting on to my bed, is kneeling
on my chest, is taking my neck between his hands and squeezing it ...
squeezing it with all his might in order to strangle me.
I struggle, bound by that terrible powerlessness which paralyzes us in
our dreams; I try to cry out--but I cannot; I want to move--I cannot; I
try, with the most violent efforts and out of breath, to turn over and
throw off this being which is crushing and suffocating me--I cannot!
And then suddenly, I wake up, shaken and bathed in perspiration; I light
a candle and find that I am alone, and after that crisis, which occurs
every night, I at length fall asleep and slumber tranquilly till
morning.
_June 2._ My state has grown worse. What is the matter with me? The
bromide does me no good, and the shower baths have no effect whatever.
Sometimes, in order to tire myself out, though I am fatigued enough
already, I go for a walk in the forest of Roumare. I used to think at
first that the fresh light and soft air, impregnated with the odor of
herbs and leaves, would instill new blood into my veins and impart fresh
energy to my heart. I turned into a broad ride in the wood, and then I
turned towards La Bouille, through a narrow path, between two rows of
exceedingly tall trees, which placed a thick, green, almost black roof
between the sky and me.
A sudden shiver ran through me, not a cold shiver, but a shiver of
agony, and so I hastened my steps, uneasy at being alone in the wood,
frightened stupidly and without reason, at the profound solitude.
Suddenly it seemed to me as if I were being followed, that somebody was
walking at my heels, close, quite close to me, near enough to touch me.
I turned round suddenly, but I was alone. I saw nothing behind me except
the straight, broad ride, empty and bordered by high trees, horribly
empty; on the other side it also extended until it was lost in the
distance, and looked just the same, terrible.
I closed my eyes. Why? And then I began to turn round on one heel very
quickly, just like a top. I nearly fell down, and opened my eyes; the
trees were dancing round me and the earth heaved; I was obliged to sit
down. Then, ah! I no longer remembered how I had come! What a strange
idea! What a strange, strange idea! I did not the least know. I started
off to the right, and got back into the avenue which had led me into the
middle of the forest.
_June 3._ I have had a terrible night. I shall go away for a few weeks,
for no doubt a journey will set me up again.
_July 2._ I have come back, quite cured, and have had a most delightful
trip into the bargain. I have been to Mount Saint-Michel, which I had
not seen before.
What a sight, when one arrives as I did, at Avranches towards the end of
the day! The town stands on a hill, and I was taken into the public
garden at the extremity of the town. I uttered a cry of astonishment. An
extraordinarily large bay lay extended before me, as far as my eyes
could reach, between two hills which were lost to sight in the mist; and
in the middle of this immense yellow bay, under a clear, golden sky, a
peculiar hill rose up, somber and pointed in the midst of the sand. The
sun had just disappeared, and under the still flaming sky the outline
of that fantastic rock stood out, which bears on its summit a fantastic
monument.
At daybreak I went to it. The tide was low as it had been the night
before, and I saw that wonderful abbey rise up before me as I approached
it. After several hours walking, I reached the enormous mass of rocks
which supports the little town, dominated by the great church. Having
climbed the steep and narrow street, I entered the most wonderful Gothic
building that has ever been built to God on earth, as large as a town,
full of low rooms which seem buried beneath vaulted roofs, and lofty
galleries supported by delicate columns.
I entered this gigantic granite jewel which is as light as a bit of
lace, covered with towers, with slender belfries to which spiral
staircases ascend, and which raise their strange heads that bristle with
chimeras, with devils, with fantastic animals, with monstrous flowers,
and which are joined together by finely carved arches, to the blue sky
by day, and to the black sky by night.
When I had reached the summit, I said to the monk who accompanied me:
"Father, how happy you must be here!" And he replied: "It is very windy,
Monsieur;" and so we began to talk while watching the rising tide, which
ran over the sand and covered it with a steel cuirass.
And then the monk told me stories, all the old stories belonging to the
place, legends, nothing but legends.
One of them struck me forcibly. The country people, those belonging to
the Mornet, declare that at night one can hear talking going on in the
sand, and then that one hears two goats bleat, one with a strong, the
other with a weak voice. Incredulous people declare that it is nothing
but the cry of the sea birds, which occasionally resembles bleatings,
and occasionally human lamentations; but belated fishermen swear that
they have met an old shepherd, whose head, which is covered by his
cloak, they can never see, wandering on the downs, between two tides,
round the little town placed so far out of the world, and who is guiding
and walking before them, a he-goat with a man's face, and a she-goat
with a woman's face, and both of them with white hair; and talking
incessantly, quarreling in a strange language, and then suddenly ceasing
to talk in order to bleat with all their might.
"Do you believe it?" I asked the monk. "I scarcely know," he replied,
and I continued: "If there are other beings besides ourselves on this
earth, how comes it that we have not known it for so long a time, or why
have you not seen them? How is it that I have not seen them?" He
replied: "Do we see the hundred thousandth part of what exists? Look
here; there is the wind, which is the strongest force in nature, which
knocks down men, and blows down buildings, uproots trees, raises the sea
into mountains of water, destroys cliffs and casts great ships onto the
breakers; the wind which kills, which whistles, which sighs, which
roars,--have you ever seen it, and can you see it? It exists for all
that, however."
I was silent before this simple reasoning. That man was a philosopher,
or perhaps a fool; I could not say which exactly, so I held my tongue.
What he had said, had often been in my own thoughts.
_July 3._ I have slept badly; certainly there is some feverish influence
here, for my coachman is suffering in the same way as I am. When I went
back home yesterday, I noticed his singular paleness, and I asked him:
"What is the matter with you, Jean?" "The matter is that I never get any
rest, and my nights devour my days. Since your departure, Monsieur,
there has been a spell over me."
However, the other servants are all well, but I am very frightened of
having another attack, myself.
_July 4._ I am decidedly taken again; for my old nightmares have
returned. Last night I felt somebody leaning on me who was sucking my
life from between my lips with his mouth. Yes, he was sucking it out of
my neck, like a leech would have done. Then he got up, satiated, and I
woke up, so beaten, crushed and annihilated that I could not move. If
this continues for a few days, I shall certainly go away again.
_July 5._ Have I lost my reason? What has happened, what I saw last
night is so strange, that my head wanders when I think of it!
As I do now every evening, I had locked my door, and then, being
thirsty, I drank half a glass of water, and I accidentally noticed that
the water-bottle was full up to the cut-glass stopper.
Then I went to bed and fell into one of my terrible sleeps, from which I
was aroused in about two hours by a still more terrible shock.
Picture to yourself a sleeping man who is being murdered and who wakes
up with a knife in his chest, and who is rattling in his throat, covered
with blood, and who can no longer breathe and is going to die and does
not understand anything at all about it--there it is.
Having recovered my senses, I was thirsty again, so I lit a candle and
went to the table on which my water-bottle was. I lifted it up and
tilted it over my glass, but nothing came out. It was empty! It was
completely empty! At first I could not understand it at all, and then
suddenly I was seized by such a terrible feeling that I had to sit down,
or rather I fell into a chair! Then I sprang up with a bound to look
about me, and then I sat down again, overcome by astonishment and fear,
in front of the transparent crystal bottle! I looked at it with fixed
eyes, trying to conjecture, and my hands trembled! Somebody had drunk
the water, but who? I? I without any doubt. It could surely only be I?
In that case I was a somnambulist. I lived, without knowing it, that
double mysterious life which makes us doubt whether there are not two
beings in us, or whether a strange, unknowable and invisible being does
not at such moments, when our soul is in a state of torpor, animate our
captive body which obeys this other being, as it does us ourselves, and
more than it does ourselves.
Oh! Who will understand my horrible agony? Who will understand the
emotion of a man who is sound in mind, wide awake, full of sound sense,
and who looks in horror at the remains of a little water that has
disappeared while he was asleep, through the glass of a water-bottle!
And I remained there until it was daylight, without venturing to go to
bed again.
_July 6._ I am going mad. Again all the contents of my water-bottle have
been drunk during the night;--or rather, I have drunk it!
But is it I? Is it I? Who could it be? Who? Oh! God! Am I going mad? Who
will save me?
_July 10._ I have just been through some surprising ordeals. Decidedly I
am mad! And yet!...
On July 6, before going to bed, I put some wine, milk, water, bread and
strawberries on my table. Somebody drank--I drank--all the water and a
little of the milk, but neither the wine, bread nor the strawberries
were touched.
On the seventh of July I renewed the same experiment, with the same
results, and on July 8, I left out the water and the milk and nothing
was touched.
Lastly, on July 9 I put only water and milk on my table, taking care to
wrap up the bottles in white muslin and to tie down the stoppers. Then I
rubbed my lips, my beard and my hands with pencil lead, and went to bed.
Irresistible sleep seized me, which was soon followed by a terrible
awakening. I had not moved, and my sheets were not marked. I rushed to
the table. The muslin round the bottles remained intact; I undid the
string, trembling with fear. All the water had been drunk, and so had
the milk! Ah! Great God!...