_July 12._ Paris. I must have lost my head during the last few days! I
must be the plaything of my enervated imagination, unless I am really a
somnambulist, or that I have been brought under the power of one of
those influences which have been proved to exist, but which have
hitherto been inexplicable, which are called suggestions. In any case,
my mental state bordered on madness, and twenty-four hours of Paris
sufficed to restore me to my equilibrium.
Yesterday after doing some business and paying some visits which
instilled fresh and invigorating mental air into me, I wound up my
evening at the _Théâtre-Français_. A play by Alexandre Dumas the
Younger was being acted, and his active and powerful mind completed my
cure. Certainly solitude is dangerous for active minds. We require men
who can think and can talk, around us. When we are alone for a long
time, we people space with phantoms.
I returned along the boulevards to my hotel in excellent spirits. Amid
the jostling of the crowd I thought, not without irony, of my terrors
and surmises of the previous week, because I believed, yes, I believed,
that an invisible being lived beneath my roof. How weak our head is, and
how quickly it is terrified and goes astray, as soon as we are struck by
a small, incomprehensible fact.
Instead of concluding with these simple words: "I do not understand
because the cause escapes me," we immediately imagine terrible mysteries
and supernatural powers.
_July 14._ _Fête_ of the Republic. I walked through the streets, and the
crackers and flags amused me like a child. Still it is very foolish to
be merry on a fixed date, by a Government decree. The populace, an
imbecile flock of sheep, now steadily patient, and now in ferocious
revolt. Say to it: "Amuse yourself," and it amuses itself. Say to it:
"Go and fight with your neighbor," and it goes and fights. Say to it:
"Vote for the Emperor," and it votes for the Emperor, and then say to
it: "Vote for the Republic," and it votes for the Republic.
Those who direct it are also stupid; but instead of obeying men, they
obey principles, which can only be stupid, sterile and false, for the
very reason that they are principles, that is to say, ideas which are
considered as certain and unchangeable, in this world where one is
certain of nothing, since light is an illusion and noise is an illusion.
_July 16._ I saw some things yesterday that troubled me very much.
I was dining with my cousin Madame Sablé, whose husband is colonel of
the 76th Chasseurs at Limoges. There were two young women there, one of
whom had married a medical man, Dr. Parent, who devotes himself a great
deal to nervous diseases and the extraordinary manifestations to which
at this moment experiments in hypnotism and suggestion give rise.
He related to us at some length the remarkable results obtained by
English scientists and the doctors of the medical school at Nancy, and
the facts which he adduced, appeared to me so strange, that I declared
that I was altogether incredulous.
"We are," he declared, "on the point of discovering one of the most
important secrets of nature, I mean to say, one of its most important
secrets on this earth, for there are certainly some which are of a
different kind of importance up in the stars, yonder. Ever since man has
thought, since he has been able to express and write down his thoughts,
he has felt himself close to a mystery which is impenetrable to his
coarse and imperfect senses, and he endeavors to supplement the want of
power of his organs, by the efforts of his intellect. As long as that
intellect still remained in its elementary stage, this intercourse with
invisible spirits, assumed forms which were commonplace though
terrifying. Thence sprang the popular belief in the supernatural, the
legends of wandering spirits, of fairies, of gnomes, ghosts, I might
even say the legend of God, for our conceptions of the workman-creator,
from whatever religion they may have come down to us, are certainly the
most mediocre, the stupidest and the most unacceptable inventions that
ever sprang from the frightened brain of any human creatures. Nothing is
truer than what Voltaire says: 'God made man in His own image, but man
has certainly paid Him back again.'"
"But for rather more than a century, men seem to have had a presentiment
of something new. Mesmer and some others have put us on an unexpected
track, and especially within the last two or three years, we have
arrived at really surprising results."
My cousin, who is also very incredulous, smiled, and Doctor Parent said
to her: "Would you like me to try and send you to sleep, Madame?" "Yes,
certainly."
She sat down in an easy-chair, and he began to look at her fixedly, so
as to fascinate her. I suddenly felt myself somewhat uncomfortable, with
a beating heart and a choking feeling in my throat. I saw that Madame
Sablé's eyes were growing heavy, her mouth twitched and her bosom
heaved, and at the end of ten minutes she was asleep.
"Stand behind her," the doctor said to me, and so I took a seat behind
her. He put a visiting-card into her hands, and said to her: "This is a
looking-glass; what do you see in it?" And she replied: "I see my
cousin." "What is he doing?" "He is twisting his moustache." "And now?"
"He is taking a photograph out of his pocket." "Whose photograph is it?"
"His own."
That was true, and that photograph had been given me that same evening
at the hotel.
"What is his attitude in this portrait?" "He is standing up with his hat
in his hand."
So she saw on that card, on that piece of white paste-board, as if she
had seen it in a looking-glass.
The young women were frightened, and exclaimed: "That is quite enough!
Quite, quite enough!"
But the doctor said to her authoritatively: "You will get up at eight
o'clock to-morrow morning; then you will go and call on your cousin at
his hotel and ask him to lend you five thousands francs which your
husband demands of you, and which he will ask for when he sets out on
his coming journey."
Then he woke her up.
On returning to my hotel, I thought over this curious _séance_ and I was
assailed by doubts, not as to my cousin's absolute and undoubted good
faith, for I had known her as well as if she had been my own sister ever
since she was a child, but as to a possible trick on the doctor's part.
Had not he, perhaps, kept a glass hidden in his hand, which he showed to
the young woman in her sleep, at the same time as he did the card?
Professional conjurors do things which are just as singular.
So I went home and to bed, and this morning, at about half past eight, I
was awakened by my footman, who said to me: "Madame Sablé has asked to
see you immediately, Monsieur," so I dressed hastily and went to her.
She sat down in some agitation, with her eyes on the floor, and without
raising her veil she said to me: "My dear cousin, I am going to ask a
great favor of you." "What is it, cousin?" "I do not like to tell you,
and yet I must. I am in absolute want of five thousand francs." "What,
you?" "Yes, I, or rather my husband, who has asked me to procure the
money for him."
I was so stupefied that I stammered out my answers. I asked myself
whether she had not really been making fun of me with Doctor Parent, if
it were not merely a very well-acted farce which had been got up
beforehand. On looking at her attentively, however, my doubts
disappeared. She was trembling with grief, so painful was this step to
her, and I was sure that her throat was full of sobs.
I knew that she was very rich and so I continued: "What! Has not your
husband five thousand francs at his disposal! Come, think. Are you sure
that he commissioned you to ask me for them?"
She hesitated for a few seconds, as if she were making a great effort to
search her memory, and then she replied: "Yes ... yes, I am quite sure
of it." "He has written to you?"
She hesitated again and reflected, and I guessed the torture of her
thoughts. She did not know. She only knew that she was to borrow five
thousand francs of me for her husband. So she told a lie. "Yes, he has
written to me." "When pray? You did not mention it to me yesterday." "I
received his letter this morning." "Can you show it me?" "No; no ... no
... it contained private matters ... things too personal to ourselves
... I burnt it." "So your husband runs into debt?"
She hesitated again, and then murmured: "I do not know." Thereupon I
said bluntly: "I have not five thousand francs at my disposal at this
moment, my dear cousin."
She uttered a kind of a cry as if she were in pain and said: "Oh! oh I
beseech you, I beseech you to get them for me...."
She got excited and clasped her hands as if she were praying to me! I
heard her voice change its tone; she wept and stammered, harassed and
dominated by the irresistible order that she had received.
"Oh! oh! I beg you to ... if you knew what I am suffering.... I want
them to-day."
I had pity on her: "You shall have them by and by, I swear to you." "Oh!
thank you! thank you! How kind you are."
I continued: "Do you remember what took place at your house last night?"
"Yes." "Do you remember that Doctor Parent sent you to sleep?" "Yes."
"Oh! Very well then; he ordered you to come to me this morning to borrow
five thousand francs, and at this moment you are obeying that
suggestion."
She considered for a few moments, and then replied: "But as it is my
husband who wants them...."
For a whole hour I tried to convince her, but could not succeed, and
when she had gone I went to the doctor. He was just going out, and he
listened to me with a smile, and said: "Do you believe now?" "Yes, I
cannot help it." "Let us go to your cousin's."
She was already dozing on a couch, overcome with fatigue. The doctor
felt her pulse, looked at her for some time with one hand raised towards
her eyes which she closed by degrees under the irresistible power of
this magnetic influence, and when she was asleep, he said:
"Your husband does not require the five thousand francs any longer! You
must, therefore, forget that you asked your cousin to lend them to you,
and, if he speaks to you about it, you will not understand him."
Then he woke her up, and I took out a pocketbook and said: "Here is what
you asked me for this morning, my dear cousin." But she was so
surprised, that I did not venture to persist; nevertheless, I tried to
recall the circumstance to her, but she denied it vigorously, thought
that I was making fun of her, and in the end, very nearly lost her
temper.
* * * * *
There! I have just come back, and I have not been able to eat any lunch,
for this experiment has altogether upset me.
_July 19._ Many people to whom I have told the adventure, have laughed
at me. I no longer know what to think. The wise man says: Perhaps?
_July 21._ I dined at Bougival, and then I spent the evening at a
boatmen's ball. Decidedly everything depends on place and surroundings.
It would be the height of folly to believe in the supernatural on the
_île de la Grenouillière_[15] ... but on the top of Mont
Saint-Michel?... and in India? We are terribly under the influence of
our surroundings. I shall return home next week.
_July 30._ I came back to my own house yesterday. Everything is going on
well.
_August 2._ Nothing new. It is splendid weather, and I spent my days in
watching the Seine flow past.
_August 4._ Quarrels among my servants. They declare that the glasses
are broken in the cupboards at night. The footman accuses the cook, who
accuses the needle woman, who accuses the other two. Who is the culprit?
A clever person, to be able to tell.
_August 6._ This time, I am not mad. I have seen ... I have seen ... I
have seen!... I can doubt no longer ... I have seen it!...
I was walking at two o'clock among my rose trees, in the full sunlight
... in the walk bordered by autumn roses which are beginning to fall. As
I stopped to look at a _Géant de Bataille_, which had three splendid
blooms, I distinctly saw the stalk of one of the roses bend, close to
me, as if an invisible hand had bent it, and then break, as if that hand
had picked it! Then the flower raised itself, following the curve which
a hand would have described in carrying it towards a mouth, and it
remained suspended in the transparent air, all alone and motionless, a
terrible red spot, three yards from my eyes. In desperation I rushed at
it to take it! I found nothing; it had disappeared. Then I was seized
with furious rage against myself, for it is not allowable for a
reasonable and serious man to have such hallucinations.
But was it a hallucination? I turned round to look for the stalk, and I
found it immediately under the bush, freshly broken, between two other
roses which remained on the branch, and I returned home then, with a
much disturbed mind; for I am certain now, as certain as I am of the
alternation of day and night, that there exists close to me an invisible
being that lives on milk and on water, which can touch objects, take
them and change their places; which is, consequently, endowed with a
material nature, although it is imperceptible to our senses, and which
lives as I do, under my roof....
_August 7._ I slept tranquilly. He drank the water out of my decanter,
but did not disturb my sleep.
I ask myself whether I am mad. As I was walking just now in the sun by
the river side, doubts as to my own sanity arose in me; not vague doubts
such as I have had hitherto, but precise and absolute doubts. I have
seen mad people, and I have known some who have been quite intelligent,
lucid, even clear-sighted in every concern of life, except on one point.
They spoke clearly, readily, profoundly on everything, when suddenly
their thoughts struck upon the breakers of their madness and broke to
pieces there, and were dispersed and foundered in that furious and
terrible sea, full of bounding waves, fogs and squalls, which is called
_madness_.
I certainly should think that I was mad, absolutely mad, if I were not
conscious, did not perfectly know my state, if I did not fathom it by
analyzing it with the most complete lucidity. I should, in fact, be a
reasonable man who was laboring under a hallucination. Some unknown
disturbance must have been excited in my brain, one of those
disturbances which physiologists of the present day try to note and to
fix precisely, and that disturbance must have caused a profound gulf in
my mind and in the order and logic of my ideas. Similar phenomena occur
in the dreams which lead us through the most unlikely phantasmagoria,
without causing us any surprise, because our verifying apparatus and our
sense of control has gone to sleep, while our imaginative faculty wakes
and works. Is it not possible that one of the imperceptible keys of the
cerebral finger-board has been paralyzed in me? Some men lose the
recollection of proper names, or of verbs or of numbers or merely of
dates, in consequence of an accident. The localization of all the
particles of thought has been proved nowadays; what then would there be
surprising in the fact that my faculty of controlling the unreality of
certain hallucinations should be destroyed for the time being!
I thought of all this as I walked by the side of the water. The sun was
shining brightly on the river and made earth delightful, while it filled
my looks with love for life, for the swallows, whose agility is always
delightful in my eyes, for the plants by the riverside, whose rustling
is a pleasure to my ears.
By degrees, however, an inexplicable feeling of discomfort seized me. It
seemed to me as if some unknown force were numbing and stopping me, were
preventing me from going further and were calling me back. I felt that
painful wish to return which oppresses you when you have left a beloved
invalid at home, and when you are seized by a presentiment that he is
worse.
I, therefore, returned in spite of myself, feeling certain that I should
find some bad news awaiting me, a letter or a telegram. There was
nothing, however, and I was more surprised and uneasy than if I had had
another fantastic vision.
_August 8._ I spent a terrible evening, yesterday. He does not show
himself any more, but I feel that he is near me, watching me, looking at
me, penetrating me, dominating me and more redoubtable when he hides
himself thus, than if he were to manifest his constant and invisible
presence by supernatural phenomena. However, I slept.
_August 9._ Nothing, but I am afraid.
_August 10._ Nothing; what will happen to-morrow?
_August 11._ Still nothing; I cannot stop at home with this fear hanging
over me and these thoughts in my mind; I shall go away.
_August 12._ Ten o'clock at night. All day long I have been trying to
get away, and have not been able. I wished to accomplish this simple and
easy act of liberty--go out--get into my carriage in order to go to
Rouen--and I have not been able to do it. What is the reason?
_August 13._ When one is attacked by certain maladies, all the springs
of our physical being appear to be broken, all our energies destroyed,
all our muscles relaxed, our bones to have become as soft as our flesh,
and our blood as liquid as water. I am experiencing that condition in my
moral being in a strange and distressing manner. I have no longer any
strength, any courage, any self-control, nor even any power to set my
own will in motion. I have no power left to _will_ anything, but some
one does it for me and I obey.
_August 14._ I am lost! Somebody possesses my soul and governs it!
Somebody orders all my acts, all my movements, all my thoughts. I am no
longer anything in myself, nothing except an enslaved and terrified
spectator of all the things which I do. I wish to go out; I cannot. He
does not wish to, and so I remain, trembling and distracted in the
armchair in which he keeps me sitting. I merely wish to get up and to
rouse myself, so as to think that I am still master of myself: I cannot!
I am riveted to my chair, and my chair adheres to the ground in such a
manner that no force could move us.
Then suddenly, I must, I must go to the bottom of my garden to pick some
strawberries and eat them, and I go there. I pick the strawberries and I
eat them! Oh! my God! my God! Is there a God? If there be one, deliver
me! save me! succor me! Pardon! Pity! Mercy! Save me! Oh! what
sufferings! what torture! what horror!
_August 15._ Certainly this is the way in which my poor cousin was
possessed and swayed, when she came to borrow five thousand francs of
me. She was under the power of a strange will which had entered into
her, like another soul, like another parasitic and ruling soul. Is the
world coming to an end?
But who is he, this invisible being that rules me. This unknowable
being, this rover of a supernatural race?
Invisible beings exist, then! How is it then that since the beginning of
the world they have never manifested themselves in such a manner
precisely as they do to me? I have never read anything which resembles
what goes on in my house. Oh! If I could only leave it, if I could only
go away and flee, so as never to return. I should be saved, but I
cannot.
_August 16._ I managed to escape to-day for two hours, like a prisoner
who finds the door of his dungeon accidentally open. I suddenly felt
that I was free and that he was far away, and so I gave orders to put
the horses in as quickly as possible, and I drove to Rouen. Oh! How
delightful to be able to say to a man who obeyed you: "Go to Rouen!"
I made him pull up before the library, and I begged them to lend me Dr.
Herrmann Herestauss's treatise on the unknown inhabitants of the ancient
and modern world.
Then, as I was getting into my carriage, I intended to say: "To the
railway station!" but instead of this I shouted,--I did not say, but I
shouted--in such a loud voice that all the passers-by turned round:
"Home!" and I fell back onto the cushion of my carriage, overcome by
mental agony. He had found me out and regained possession of me.
_August 17._ Oh! What a night! what a night! And yet it seems to me that
I ought to rejoice. I read until one o'clock in the morning! Herestauss,
Doctor of Philosophy and Theogony, wrote the history and the
manifestations of all those invisible beings which hover around man, or
of whom he dreams. He describes their origin, their domains, their
power; but none of them resembles the one which haunts me. One might say
that man, ever since he has thought, has had a foreboding of, and feared
a new being, stronger than himself, his successor in this world, and
that, feeling him near, and not being able to foretell the nature of
that master, he has, in his terror, created the whole race of hidden
beings, of vague phantoms born of fear.
Having, therefore, read until one o'clock in the morning, I went and sat
down at the open window, in order to cool my forehead and my thoughts,
in the calm night air. It was very pleasant and warm! How I should have
enjoyed such a night formerly!
There was no moon, but the stars darted out their rays in the dark
heavens. Who inhabits those worlds? What forms, what living beings, what
animals are there yonder? What do those who are thinkers in those
distant worlds, know more than we do? What can they do more than we can?
What do they see which we do not know? Will not one of them, some day or
other, traversing space, appear on our earth to conquer it, just as the
Norsemen formerly crossed the sea in order to subjugate nations more
feeble than themselves?
We are so weak, so unarmed, so ignorant, so small, we who live on this
particle of mud which turns round in a drop of water.
I fell asleep, dreaming thus in the cool night air, and then, having
slept for about three quarters of an hour, I opened my eyes without
moving, awakened by I know not what confused and strange sensation. At
first I saw nothing, and then suddenly it appeared to me as if a page of
a book which had remained open on my table, turned over of its own
accord. Not a breath of air had come in at my window, and I was
surprised and waited. In about four minutes, I saw, I saw, yes I saw
with my own eyes another page lift itself up and fall down on the
others, as if a finger had turned it over. My armchair was empty,
appeared empty, but I knew that he was there, he, and sitting in my
place, and that he was reading. With a furious bound, the bound of an
enraged wild beast that wishes to disembowel its tamer, I crossed my
room to seize him, to strangle him, to kill him!... But before I could
reach it, my chair fell over as if somebody had ran away from me ... my
table rocked, my lamp fell and went out, and my window closed as if some
thief had been surprised and had fled out into the night, shutting it
behind him.
So he had run away: he had been afraid: he, afraid of me!
So ... so ... to-morrow ... or later ... some day or other ... I should
be able to hold him in my clutches and crush him against the ground! Do
not dogs occasionally bite and strangle their masters?
_August 18._ I have been thinking the whole day long. Oh! yes, I will
obey him, follow his impulses, fulfill all his wishes, show myself
humble, submissive, a coward. He is the stronger; but an hour will
come....
_August 19._ I know, ... I know ... I know all! I have just read the
following in the _Revue du Monde Scientifique_: "A curious piece of news
comes to us from Rio de Janeiro. Madness, an epidemic of madness, which
may be compared to that contagious madness which attacked the people of
Europe in the Middle Ages, is at this moment raging in the Province of
San-Paulo. The frightened inhabitants are leaving their houses,
deserting their villages, abandoning their land, saying that they are
pursued, possessed, governed like human cattle by invisible, though
tangible beings, a species of vampire, which feed on their life while
they are asleep, and who, besides, drink water and milk without
appearing to touch any other nourishment.
"Professor Don Pedro Henriques, accompanied by several medical savants,
has gone to the Province of San-Paulo, in order to study the origin and
the manifestations of this surprising madness on the spot, and to
propose such measures to the Emperor as may appear to him to be most
fitted to restore the mad population to reason."
Ah! Ah! I remember now that fine Brazilian three-master which passed in
front of my windows as it was going up the Seine, on the 8th of last
May! I thought it looked so pretty, so white and bright! That Being was
on board of her, coming from there, where its race sprang from. And it
saw me! It saw my house which was also white, and he sprang from the
ship onto the land. Oh! Good heavens!
Now I know, I can divine. The reign of man is over, and he has come. He
whom disquieted priests exorcised, whom sorcerers evoked on dark nights,
without yet seeing him appear, to whom the presentiments of the
transient masters of the world lent all the monstrous or graceful forms
of gnomes, spirits, genii, fairies and familiar spirits. After the
coarse conceptions of primitive fear, more clear-sighted men foresaw it
more clearly. Mesmer divined him, and ten years ago physicians
accurately discovered the nature of his power, even before he exercised
it himself. They played with that weapon of their new Lord, the sway of
a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved. They
called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion ... what do I know? I have
seen them amusing themselves like impudent children with this horrible
power! Woe to us! Woe to man! He has come, the ... the ... what does he
call himself ... the ... I fancy that he is shouting out his name to me
and I do not hear him ... the ... yes ... he is shouting it out ... I am
listening ... I cannot ... repeat ... it ... Horla ... I have heard ...
the Horla, ... it is he ... the Horla ... he has come!
Ah! the vulture has eaten the pigeon, the wolf has eaten the lamb; the
lion has devoured the buffalo with sharp horns; man has killed the lion
with an arrow, with a sword, with gunpowder; but the Horla will make of
man what we have made of the horse and of the ox: his chattel, his slave
and his food, by the mere of his will. Woe to us!
But, nevertheless, the animal sometimes revolts and kills the man who
has subjugated it.... I should also like ... I shall be able to ... but
I must know him, touch him, see him! Learned men say that beasts' eyes,
as they differ from ours, do not distinguish like ours do.... And my eye
cannot distinguish this newcomer who is oppressing me.
Why? Oh! Now I remember the words of the monk at Mont Saint-Michel: "Can
we see the hundred-thousandth part of what exists? Look here; there is
the wind which is the strongest force in nature, which knocks 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!"
And I went on thinking: my eyes are so weak, so imperfect, that they do
not even distinguish hard bodies, if they are as transparent as
glass!... If a glass without tinfoil behind it were to bar my way, I
should run into it, just like a bird which has flown into a room breaks
its head against the windowpanes. A thousand things, moreover, deceive
him and lead him astray. How should it then be surprising that he cannot
perceive a fresh body which is traversed by the light.
A new being! Why not? It was assuredly bound to come! Why should we be
the last? We do not distinguish it, like all the others created before
us? The reason is, that its nature is more perfect, its body finer and
more finished than ours, that ours is so weak, so awkwardly conceived,
encumbered with organs that are always tired, always on the strain like
locks that are too complicated, which lives like a plant and like a
beast, nourishing itself with difficulty on air, herbs and flesh, an
animal machine, which is a prey to maladies, to malformations, to decay;
broken-winded, badly regulated, simple and eccentric, ingeniously badly
made, a coarse and a delicate work, the outline of a being which might
become intelligent and grand.
We are only a few, so few in this world, from the oyster up to man. Why
should there not be one more, when once that period is accomplished
which separates the successive apparitions from all the different
species?
Why not one more? Why not, also, other trees with immense, splendid
flowers, perfuming whole regions? Why not other elements besides fire,
air, earth and water? There are four, only four, those nursing fathers
of various beings! What a pity! Why are they not forty, four hundred,
four thousand! How poor everything is, how mean and wretched! grudgingly
given, dryly invented, clumsily made! Ah! the elephant and the
hippopotamus, what grace! And the camel, what elegance!
But, the butterfly you will say, a flying flower! I dream of one that
should be as large as a hundred worlds, with wings whose shape, beauty,
colors and motion I cannot even express. But I see it ... it flutters
from star to star, refreshing them and perfuming them with the light and
harmonious breath of its flight!... And the people up there look at it
as it passes in an ecstacy of delight!...
* * * * *
What is the matter with me? It is he, the Horla, who haunts me, and who
makes me think of these foolish things! He is within me, he is becoming
my soul; I shall kill him!
_August 19._ I shall kill him. I have seen him! Yesterday I sat down at
my table and pretended to write very assiduously. I knew quite well that
he would come prowling round me, quite close to me, so close that I
might perhaps be able to touch him, to seize him. And then!... then I
should have the strength of desperation; I should have my hands, my
knees, my chest, my forehead, my teeth to strangle him, to crush him, to
bite him, to tear him to pieces. And I watched for him with all my
overexcited organs.
I had lighted my two lamps and the eight wax candles on my mantelpiece,
as if, by this light, I could have discovered him.
My bed, my old oak bed with its columns was opposite to me; on my right
was the fireplace; on my left the door, which was carefully closed,
after I had left it open for some time, in order to attract him; behind
me was a very high wardrobe with a looking-glass in it, which served me
to dress by every day, and in which I was in the habit of looking at
myself from head to foot every time I passed it.
So I pretended to be writing in order to deceive him, for he also was
watching me, and suddenly I felt, I was certain that he was reading over
my shoulder, that he was there, almost touching my ear.
I got up so quickly, with my hands extended, that I almost fell. Eh!
well?... It was as bright as at midday, but I did not see myself in the
glass!... It was empty, clear, profound, full of light! But my figure
was not reflected in it ... and I, I was opposite to it! I saw the
large, clear glass from top to bottom, and I looked at it with unsteady
eyes; and I did not dare to advance; I did not venture to make a
movement, nevertheless, feeling perfectly that he was there, but that he
would escape me again, he whose imperceptible body had absorbed my
reflection.
How frightened I was! And then suddenly I began to see myself through a
mist in the depths of the looking-glass, in a mist as it were through a
sheet of water; and it seemed to me as if this water were flowing slowly
from left to right, and making my figure clearer every moment. It was
like the end of an eclipse. Whatever it was that hid me, did not appear
to possess any clearly defined outlines, but a sort of opaque
transparency, which gradually grew clearer.
At last I was able to distinguish myself completely, as I do every day
when I look at myself.
I had seen it! And the horror of it remained with me, and makes me
shudder even now.
_August 20._ How could I kill it, as I could not get hold of it? Poison?
But it would see me mix it with the water; and then, would our poisons
have any effect on its impalpable body? No ... no ... no doubt about the
matter ... Then? ... then?...
_August 21._ I sent for a blacksmith from Rouen, and ordered iron
shutters of him for my room, such as some private hotels in Paris have
on the ground floor, for fear of thieves, and he is going to make me a
similar door as well. I have made myself out as a coward, but I do not
care about that!...
_September 10._ Rouen, Hotel Continental. It is done; ... it is
done.... But is he dead? My mind is thoroughly upset by what I have
seen.
Well, then, yesterday, the locksmith having put on the iron shutters and
door, I left everything open until midnight, although it was getting
cold.
Suddenly I felt that he was there, and joy, mad joy took possession of
me. I got up softly, and I walked to the right and left for sometime, so
that he might not guess anything; then I took off my boots and put on my
slippers carelessly; then I fastened the iron shutters and going back to
the door quickly I double-locked it with a padlock, putting the key into
my pocket.
Suddenly I noticed that he was moving restlessly round me, that in his
turn he was frightened and was ordering me to let him out. I nearly
yielded, though I did not yet, but putting my back to the door, I half
opened, just enough to allow me to go out backwards, and as I am very
tall, my head touched the lintel. I was sure that he had not been able
to escape, and I shut him up quite alone, quite alone. What happiness! I
had him fast. Then I ran downstairs; in the drawing-room, which was
under my bedroom, I took the two lamps and I poured all the oil onto the
carpet, the furniture, everywhere; then I set the fire to it and made my
escape, after having carefully double-locked the door.
I went and hid myself at the bottom of the garden, in a clump of laurel
bushes. How long it was! how long it was! Everything was dark, silent,
motionless, not a breath of air and not a star, but heavy banks of
clouds which one could not see, but which weighed, oh! so heavily on my
soul.
I looked at my house and waited. How long it was! I already began to
think that the fire had gone out of its own accord, or that he had
extinguished it, when one of the lower windows gave way under the
violence of the flames, and a long, soft, caressing sheet of red flame
mounted up the white wall, and kissed it as high as the roof. The light
fell onto the trees, the branches, and the leaves, and a shiver of fear
pervaded them also! The birds awoke; a dog began to howl, and it seemed
to me as if the day were breaking! Almost immediately two other windows
flew into fragments, and I saw that the whole of the lower part of my
house was nothing but a terrible furnace. But a cry, a horrible, shrill,
heartrending cry, a woman's cry, sounded through the night, and two
garret windows were opened! I had forgotten the servants! I saw the
terror-struck faces, and their frantically waving arms!...
Then, overwhelmed with horror, I set off to run to the village,
shouting: "Help! help! fire! fire!" I met some people who were already
coming onto the scene, and I went back with them to see!
By this time the house was nothing but a horrible and a magnificent
funeral pile, a monstrous funeral pile which lit up the whole country, a
funeral pile where men were burning, and where he was burning also, He,
He, my prisoner, that new Being, the new master, the Horla!
Suddenly the whole roof fell in between the walls, and a volcano of
flames darted up to the sky. Through all the windows which opened onto
that furnace, I saw the flames darting, and I thought that he was there,
in that kiln, dead.
Dead? perhaps?... His body? Was not his body, which was transparent,
indestructible by such means as would kill ours?
If he was not dead?... Perhaps time alone has power over that Invisible
and Redoubtable Being. Why this transparent, unrecognizable body, this
body belonging to a spirit, if it also had to fear ills, infirmities and
premature destruction?
Premature destruction? All human terror springs from that! After man the
Horla. After him who can die every day, at any hour, at any moment, by
any accident, he came who was only to die at his own proper hour and
minute, because he had touched the limits of his existence!
No ... no ... without any doubt ... he is not dead.... Then ... then ...
I suppose I must kill myself!...