"There is some one in the next room with the old woman. I hear a
man s voice and they are quarrelling. They are talking of me. He
wants her to do something which she will not do. He commands her
to go away, but she refuses. What does he mean to do? I do not
want her to leave me alone. I do not hate her any more; I know
that she is not bad. When I listened I heard her speaking of me as
of an insane person. She really believes that I am ill. When the
man went away he must have been angry. He stamped down the stairs
until the steps creaked under his tread: I know it is a wooden
staircase therefore.

"I am safe from him to-day, but I am really ill of fright. Am I
really insane? There is one thing that I have forgotten to write
down. When I first came to myself I found a bit of paper beside me
on which was written, 'Beware of calling in help from outside. One
scream will mean death to you.' It was written in French like the
letter. Why? Was it because the old woman could not read it? She
knew of the piece of paper, for she took it away from me. It
frightens me that I should have forgotten to write this down. Am
I really ill? If I am not yet ill, this terrible solitude will make
me so.

"What a gloomy room this is, this prison of mine. And such a strange
ugly wall-paper. I tore off a tiny bit of it and hid it in this
little book. Some one may find it some day and may discover from it
this place where I am suffering, and where I shall die, perhaps.
There cannot be many who would buy such a pattern, and it must be
possible to find the factory where it was made. And I will also
write down here what I can see from my barred window. Far down
below me there is a rusty tin roof, it looks like as if it might