Is the world coming to an end?

But who is he, this invisible being that rules me, this
unknowable being, this rover of a supernatural race?

Invisible beings exist, then! how is it, then, that since the
beginning of the world they have never manifested themselves in
such a manner as they do to me? I have never read anything that
resembles what goes on in my house. Oh! If I could only leave it,
if I could only go away and flee, and never return, I should be
saved; but I cannot.

August 16. I managed to escape to-day for two hours, like a
prisoner who finds the door of his dungeon accidentally open. I
suddenly felt that I was free and that He was far away, and so I
gave orders to put the horses in as quickly as possible, and I
drove to Rouen. Oh! how delightful to be able to say to my
coachman: "Go to Rouen!"

I made him pull up before the library, and I begged them to lend
me Dr. Herrmann Herestauss's treatise on the unknown inhabitants
of the ancient and modern world.

Then, as I was getting into my carriage, I intended to say: "To
the railway station!" but instead of this I shouted--I did not
speak; but I shouted--in such a loud voice that all the
passers-by turned round: "Home!" and I fell back on to the
cushion of my carriage, overcome by mental agony. He had found me
out and regained possession of me.