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? Do those who are thinkers
in those distant worlds know more than we do? What can they do

more than we? What do they see which we do not? Will not one of
them, some day or other, traversing space, appear on our earth to

conquer it, just as formerly the Norsemen crossed the sea in
order to subjugate nations feebler than themselves?

We are so weak, so powerless, so ignorant, so small--we who live
on this particle of mud which revolves in liquid air.

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 an indescribably confused and
strange sensation. At first I saw nothing, and then suddenly it

appeared to me as if a page of the 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 run 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 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 contagiousmadness 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,
by a species of vampire, which feeds on their life while they are

asleep, and which, besides, drinks 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 surprisingmadness 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 eighth 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 on to 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 seeing him appear, He to whom the

imaginations 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, men more enlightened gave him a truer form. 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 mesmerism, hypnotism, suggestion, I know not what?
I have seen them diverting themselves like rash 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 sharp-horned buffalo; man has

killed the lion with an arrow, with a spear, with gunpowder; but
the Horla will make of man what man has made of the horse and of

the ox: his chattel, his slave, and his food, by the mere power
of his will. Woe to us!

But, nevertheless, sometimes the animal rebels 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
eyes of animals, as they differ from ours, do not distinguish as

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? Listen; there is the wind which is the strongest force in
nature; it knocks men down, blows down buildings, uproots trees,

raises the sea into mountains of water, destroys cliffs, and
casts great ships on to the breakers; it kills, it whistles, it

sighs, it 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 quicksilver 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 a man and lead him astray. How

then is it surprising that he cannot perceive a new body which is
penetrated and pervaded 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
delicate, its body finer and more finished than ours. Our makeup

is so weak, so awkwardly conceived; our body is encumbered with
organs that are always tired, always being strained like locks

that are too complicated; it lives like a plant and like an
animal nourishing itself with difficulty on air, herbs, and

flesh; it is a brute machine which is a prey to maladies, to
malformations, to decay; it is broken-winded, badly regulated,

simple and eccentric, ingeniously yet badly made, a coarse and
yet a delicatemechanism, in brief, the outline of a being which

might become intelligent and great.
There are only a few--so few--stages of development 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 products one from the other?
Why not one more? Why not, also, other trees with immense,

splendid flowers, perfuming whole regions? Why not other elements
beside fire, air, earth, and water? There are four, only four,

nursing fathers of various beings! What a pity! Why should not
there be forty, four hundred, four thousand! How poor everything