"Do you remember that Dr. 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 resting on a couch, overcome with fatigue. The
doctor felt her pulse, looked at her for some time with one hand

raised toward her eyes, which she closed by degrees under the
irresistible power of this magnetic influence. 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 pocket-book 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 Ile de la Grenouilliere.[1] But on the top of

Mont Saint-Michel or in India, we are terribly under the
influence of our surroundings. I shall return home next week.

[1] Frog-island.
July 30. I came back to my own house yesterday. Everything is

going on well.
August 2. Nothing fresh; it is splendid weather, and I spend 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, she accuses the needlewoman, and the latter accuses the

other two. Who is the culprit? It would take a clever person 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 Geant 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 toward a mouth, and remained suspended

in the transparent air, alone and motionless" target="_blank" title="a.静止的；固定的">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 wholesome for a

reasonable and serious man to have such hallucinations.
But was it a hallucination? I turned to look for the stalk, and I

found it immediately under the bush, freshly broken, between the
two other roses which remained on the branch. I returned home,

then, with a much disturbed mind; for I am certain now, certain
as I am of the alternation of day and night, that there exists

close to me an invisible being who lives on milk and on water,
who can touch objects, take them and change their places; who is,

consequently, endowed with a material nature, although
imperceptible to sense, and who 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 riverside, 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 were quite intelligent, lucid, even clear-sighted in every
concern of life, except on one point. They could speak clearly,

readily, profoundly" target="_blank" title="ad.深深地">profoundly on everything; till their thoughts were
caught in the breakers of their delusions and went to pieces

there, were dispersed and swamped in that furious and terrible
sea of fogs and squalls which is called MADNESS.

I certainly should think that I was mad, absolutely mad, if I
were not conscious that I knew my state, if I could not fathom it

and analyze it with the most complete lucidity. I should, in
fact, be a reasonable man 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 dreams, and lead us through the
most unlikely phantasmagoria, without causing us any surprise,

because our verifying apparatus and our sense of control have
gone to sleep, while our imaginativefaculty wakes and works. Was

it not possible that one of the imperceptible keys of the
cerebral finger-board had 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 avenues of thought has been accomplished 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 me with love for life, for the swallows, whose
swift 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 comes
on you when you have left a belovedinvalid at home, and are

seized by a presentiment that he is worse.
I, therefore, returned despite 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 surprised and uneasy, more

so 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 terrible

to me when He hides himself thus than if He were to manifest his
constant and invisible presence by supernatural phenomena.

However, I slept.