possession of me. I got up softly, and I walked to the right and

left for some time, 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 quite, but putting my back to
the door, I half opened it, just enough to allow me to go out

backward, 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 into the drawing-room which was under my bedroom.

I took the two lamps and poured all the oil on to the carpet, the
furniture, everywhere; then I set 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 on to 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, heart-rending 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 the frantic waving

of their arms!
Then, overwhelmed with horror, I ran off to the village,

shouting: "Help! help! fire! fire!" Meeting some people who were
already coming on to the scene, I went back with them to see!

By this time the house was nothing but a horrible and magnificent
funeral pile, a monstrous pyre which lit up the whole country, a

pyre 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 on to that furnace, I saw the flames darting, and I
reflected 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 were 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, He who was only to die at
his own proper hour and minute, because He had touched the limits

of his existence!
No--no--there is no doubt about it--He is not dead. Then--then--I

suppose I must kill MYSELF!
MISS HARRIET

There were seven of us in a four-in-hand, four women and three
men, one of whom was on the box seat beside the coachman. We were

following, at a foot pace, broad highway which serpentines along
the coast.

Setting out from Etretat at break of day, in order to visit the
ruins of Tancarville, we were still asleep, chilled by the fresh

air of the morning. The women, especially, who were but little
accustomed to these early excursions, let their eyelids fall and

rise every moment, nodding their heads or yawning, quite
insensible to the glory of the dawn.

It was autumn. On both sides of the road the bare fields
stretched out, yellowed by the corn and wheat stubble which

covered the soil like a bristling growth of beard. The spongy
earth seemed to smoke. Larks were singing high up in the air,

while other birds piped in the bushes.
At length the sun rose in front of us, a bright red on the plane

of the horizon; and as it ascended, growing clearer from minute
to minute, the country seemed to awake, to smile, to shake and

stretch itself, like a young girl who is leaving her bed in her
white airy chemise. The Count d'Etraille, who was seated on the

box, cried:
"Look! look! a hare!" and he pointed toward the left, indicating

a piece of hedge. The leveret threaded its way along, almost
concealed by the field, only its large ears visible. Then it

swerved across a deep rut, stopped, again pursued its easy
course, changed its direction, stopped anew, disturbed, spying

out every danger, and undecided as to the route it should take.
Suddenly it began to run, with great bounds from its hind legs,

disappearing finally in a large patch of beet-root. All the men
had woke up to watch the course of the beast.

Rene Lemanoir then exclaimed
"We are not at all gallant this morning," and looking at his

neighbor, the little Baroness of Serennes, who was struggling
with drowsiness, he said to her in a subdued voice: "You are

thinking of your husband, Baroness. Reassure yourself; he will
not return before Saturday, so you have still four days."

She responded to him with a sleepy smile.
"How rude you are." Then, shaking off her torpor, she added:

"Now, let somebody say something that will make us all laugh.
You, Monsieur Chenal who have the reputation of possessing a

larger fortune than the Duke of Richelieu, tell us a love story
in which you have been mixed up, anything you like."

Leon Chenal, an old painter, who had once keen very handsome,
very strong, who was very proud of his physique and very amiable,

took his long white beard in his hand and smiled; then, after a
few moments' reflection, he became suddenly grave.

"Ladies, it will not be an amusing tale; for I am going to relate
to you the most lamentable love affair of my life, and I

sincerely hope that none of my friends has ever passed through a
similar experience.

I.
"At that time I was twenty-five years old, and was making daubs

along the coast of Normandy. I call 'making daubs' that wandering
about, with a bag on one's back, from mountain to mountain, under

the pretext of studying and of sketching nature. I know nothing
more enjoyable than that happy-go-lucky wandering life, in which

you are perfectly free; without shackles of any kind, without
care, without preoccupation, without thought even of to-morrow.

You go in any direction you please, without any guide save your
fancy, without any counselor save your eyes. You pull up, because

a running brook seduces you, or because you are attracted, in
front of an inn, by the smell of potatoes frying. Sometimes it is

the perfume of clematis which decides you in your choice, or the
naive glance of the servant at an inn. Do not despise me for my

affection for these rustics. These girls have soul as well as
feeling, not to mention firm cheeks and fresh lips; while their