Volume I Part 35 (1/2)

Soued enough already, I go for a walk in the forest of Rouht and soft air, inated with the odor of herbs and leaves, would instill new blood into y to my heart I turned into a broad ride in the wood, and then I turned towards La Bouille, through a narrow path, between ts of exceedingly tall trees, which placed a thick, green, almost black roof between the sky and h ony, and so I hastened htened stupidly and without reason, at the profound solitude

Suddenly it see followed, that so at h to touch me

I turned round suddenly, but I was alone I saw nothing behind h trees, horribly empty; on the other side it also extended until it was lost in the distance, and looked just the saan to turn round on one heel very quickly, just like a top I nearly fell down, and openedround ed to sit down Then, ah! I no longer ree, strange idea! I did not the least know I started off to the right, and got back into the avenue which had led me into the middle of the forest

_June 3_ I have had a terrible night I shall go away for a feeeks, for no doubt a journey will set ain

_July 2_ I have cohtful trip into the bargain I have been to Mount Saint-Michel, which I had not seen before

What a sight, when one arrives as I did, at Avranches towards the end of the day! The town stands on a hill, and I was taken into the public garden at the extremity of the town I uttered a cry of astonishe bay lay extended before me, as far as ht in the mist; and in the olden sky, a peculiar hill rose up, somber and pointed in the midst of the sand The sun had just disappeared, and under the still fla sky the outline of that fantastic rock stood out, which bears on its summit a fantastic monument

At daybreak I went to it The tide was low as it had been the night before, and I saw that wonderful abbey rise up before , I reached the enormous mass of rocks which supports the little town, do climbed the steep and narrow street, I entered thethat has ever been built to God on earth, as large as a town, full of low rooalleries supported by delicate coluranite jehich is as light as a bit of lace, covered with towers, with slender belfries to which spiral staircases ascend, and which raise their strange heads that bristle with chimeras, with devils, with fantastic aniether by finely carved arches, to the blue sky by day, and to the black sky by night

When I had reached the summit, I said to the monk who accompanied me: ”Father, how happy you must be here!” And he replied: ”It is very windy, Monsieur;” and so we began to talk while watching the rising tide, which ran over the sand and covered it with a steel cuirass

And then theto the place, legends, nothing but legends

One of the to the Mornet, declare that at night one can hear talking going on in the sand, and then that one hears two goats bleat, one with a strong, the other with a weak voice Incredulous people declare that it is nothing but the cry of the sea birds, which occasionally reses, and occasionally human lamentations; but belated fishermen swear that they have met an old shepherd, whose head, which is covered by his cloak, they can never see, wandering on the downs, between two tides, round the little town placed so far out of the world, and who is guiding and walking before theoat with a wo incessantly, quarreling in a strange language, and then suddenly ceasing to talk in order to bleat with all their ht

”Do you believe it?” I asked the monk ”I scarcely know,” he replied, and I continued: ”If there are other beings besides ourselves on this earth, how co a time, or why have you not seen them? How is it that I have not seen them?” He replied: ”Do we see the hundred thousandth part of what exists? Look here; there is the wind, which is the strongest force in nature, which knocks down s, uproots trees, raises the sea into reat shi+ps onto the breakers; the hich kills, which whistles, which sighs, which roars,--have you ever seen it, and can you see it? It exists for all that, however”

I was silent before this si That man was a philosopher, or perhaps a fool; I could not say which exactly, so I held ue

What he had said, had often been in hts

_July 3_ I have slept badly; certainly there is so in the same way as I aular paleness, and I asked him: ”What is the et any rest, and hts devour my days Since your departure, Monsieur, there has been a spell over me”

However, the other servants are all well, but I a another attack, ain; for ht I felt so my life fro it out of ot up, satiated, and I woke up, so beaten, crushed and annihilated that I could not o away again

_July 5_ Have I lost ht is so strange, that my head wanders when I think of it!

As I do now every evening, I had locked lass of water, and I accidentally noticed that the water-bottle was full up to the cut-glass stopper

Then I went to bed and fell into one of my terrible sleeps, from which I was aroused in about two hours by a stillmurdered and akes up with a knife in his chest, and who is rattling in his throat, covered with blood, and who can no longer breathe and is going to die and does not understand anything at all about it--there it is

Having recovered ain, so I lit a candle and went to the table on which lass, but nothing came out It was empty! It was completely empty! At first I could not understand it at all, and then suddenly I was seized by such a terrible feeling that I had to sit down, or rather I fell into a chair! Then I sprang up with a bound to look about ain, overcome by astonishment and fear, in front of the transparent crystal bottle! I looked at it with fixed eyes, trying to conjecture, and my hands trembled! Somebody had drunk the water, but who? I? I without any doubt It could surely only be I?

In that case I was a so it, that double mysterious life which s in us, or whether a strange, unknowable and invisible being does not at such moments, when our soul is in a state of torpor, ani, as it does us ourselves, and more than it does ourselves

Oh! Who will understand ony? Who will understand the emotion of a man who is sound in mind, wide awake, full of sound sense, and who looks in horror at the remains of a little water that has disappeared while he was asleep, through the glass of a water-bottle!