The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 2

happened to me. But how can I? How dare I? The thing is

no error in my declarations, no lacune in the inflexible sequence of my observations, I should believe

man being knows my history, and that is the doctor of the said asylum. I am going to write to him. I really do

e exp

y, a kind of torture takes hold of me when I find myself in the presence of others. How is this to be explained? I for one cannot. I am not averse from going out into the world, from conversation, from dining with friends, but when they ar

e to be continued; if I were compelled, not only to listen, but also to follow, for any length of time, their conversation, a se

ad a moral life, and am therefore tortured in my body and in my nerves by that immense crowd which swarms, which lives around even when it sleeps. Ah! the sleeping of others is more painful

imple. I get tired very soon with everything that does not

hom others weary, tire, bore, silently torture, while isolation calms them, bathes them in the repose of independency, and plunges them into the humors of their own thoughts. In fine, there is here a normal, physical phenomenon. Some are constituted to live a

active and solitary life, surrounded by all manner of things, furniture, familiar knick-knacks, as sympathetic in my eyes as the visages of human beings. I had filled my mansion with them, little by little, I

. All my domestics slept in a separate building which was situated at some considerable distance from my house, at the far end of the kitchen garden, which was surrounded by a high wall. The obscure envelopment of the nights, in the silence of my i

the first time that I had listened to that beautiful, musical, and

rely walk of about twenty minutes. It was one o'clock in the morning, one o'clock or maybe half-past one; the sky had by this time cleared somewhat and the crescent appeared, the gloomy crescent of the last quarter of the moon. The crescent of the first quarter is, that which rises about five or six o'clock in the evening; is clear, gay and fretted with silver; but the one

th a feeling of uneasiness at the idea of going inside. I slowed my pace, and walked very sof

the house, arranged vault-wise like a high tunnel, traversing opaque masses, and winding round t

years I had entered and re-entered in the same way, without ever experiencing the least inquietude. I never had any fear at nights. The sight of a man, a marauder, or a thief, would have thrown me into a fit

ent which takes hold of the senses of men who have witnessed

going inside. I sat down, then, on a bench, under the windows of my drawing room. I rested there, a little fearful, with my head leaning against the wall, my eyes wide open under the shade of the foliage. For the first few minutes,

ese rumbling sounds, but it was a very distinct, though very confused, noise which came, without any doubt whatever, from the interior of my house. I distinguished through the walls this continue

disturbance was that was inside my house, I became convinced, certain, that something was taking place in my residence, which was altogether abnormal and incomprehensible.

naturally anxious. I got up and waited, listening always to the noise, which gradually increased, and at in

cted the one I wanted, I guided it into the lock, turned it twice, and, p

to basement of my residence, a formidable tumult. It was so sudden, so terrible, so deafening, that I

ron, and wooden crutches, which resounded like cymbals. Then I suddenly discerned, on the threshold of my door, an arm chair, my large reading easy chair, which set off waddling. It went away through my garden.

ano, my grand piano, bounded past with the gallop of a horse and a murmur of music in its sides; the smaller articles slid along the gravel like snails, my brushes, crystal, cups and saucers, which glistened in the moonlight. I saw my writing des

er, I could not even retard its pace. As I was resisting in desperation that insuperable force, I was thrown to the ground in my struggle with it. It then rolled me over, trailed me along the gravel, and the rest of my f

cealing myself again among the shrubbery, so as to watch the disappearance of the most cheris

d of itself, when the last thing had taken its departure. I took flight also, running towards the city, and I only regained my self-composure on reaching the boulevards, where I met belated people. I rang the bell of a hotel where I was known. I had knocked the dust off my clothes with m

or the dawn in listening to the throbbing of my heart. I had given orders that my servants were to be summ

ance bore a

happened during the ni

t is

monsieur's furniture, all, everyth

on dissimulating, on telling no one of anything I had seen; determined on co

keys. The police must be informed immediately. I am go

d, not even the smallest of my knick-knacks, nor the least trace of the thieves. Good gracious! If I had only told them what I knew

n. I had no desire even to re-enter the house, and I did not re-enter it; I never visited it again. I went to Paris, to the hotel,

travel, and I fol