About ten o'clock I go up to my room. As soon as I have entered I
lock and bolt the door. 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, of impeded
or heightened circulation, perhaps the irritation of a nervous
center, a slight congestion, a small disturbance in the imperfect
and delicate functions of our living machinery, can turn the most
light-hearted 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 a man throws himself into a pool
of stagnant water in order to drown. I do not feel this
perfidious sleep coming over me as I used to, but a 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 it--squeezing it with all his
might in order to strangle me.

I struggle, bound by that terrible powerlessness which paralyzes
us in our dreams; I try to cry out--but I cannot; I want to
move--I cannot; I try, with the most violent efforts and out of