comes on, an incomprehensible feeling of disquietude seizes me, just as
if night concealed some terrible menace toward 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 lighthearted 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 coming over me, 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.

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