He? - Guy de Maupassant

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G by Guy de Moposant.

My dear friend, you cannot understand it by any possible means you say, and I perfectly

believe you.

You think I'm going mad?

It may be so, but not for the reasons which you suppose.

Yes, I am going to get married, and I will tell you what has led me to take that step.

My ideas and my convictions have not changed at all.

I look upon all legalized cohabitation as utterly stupid.

For I am certain that nine husbands out of ten are cuckolds, and they get no more than

their desserts for having been idiotic enough to fatter their lives and renounce their

freedom in love.

The only happy and good thing in the world.

And for having clipped the wings of fancy, which continually drives us on toward all women.

You know what I mean.

More than ever, I feel that I am incapable of loving one woman alone, because I shall

always adore all the others too much.

I should like to have a thousand arms, a thousand mouths, and a thousand temperaments.

To be able to strain an army of these charming creatures in my embrace at the same moment.

And yet, I am going to get married.

I may add that I know very little of the girl who is going to become my wife tomorrow.

I have only seen her four or five times.

I know that there is nothing unpleasant about her, and that is enough for my purpose.

She is small, fair, and stout.

So of course, the day after tomorrow, I shall ardently wish for a tall, dark, thin woman.

She is not rich and belongs to the middle classes.

She is a girl, such as you may find by the gross, well adapted for matrimony, without

any apparent faults, and with no particularly striking qualities.

People say of her, madame wasa le joie is a very nice girl.

And tomorrow they will say, what a very nice woman madame Raymond is.

She belongs, in a word, to that immense number of girls who make very good wives for us

till the moment comes when we discover that we happen to prefer all other women to that

particular woman we married.

Well, you will say to me, what on earth did you get married for?

I hardly like to tell you the strange and seemingly improbable reason that urged me on to

this senseless act.

The fact, however, is that I am frightened of being alone.

I don't know how to tell you or to make you understand me, but my state of mind is so

wretched that you will pity and despise me.

I do not want to be alone any longer at night.

I want to feel that there is someone close to me touching me, a being who can speak and

say something no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side so that I may be able to ask some sudden

question even if I feel inclined so that I may hear a human voice and feel that there

is some waking soul close to me, someone whose reason is at work so that when I hastily

liked the candle I may see some human face by my side because I am ashamed to confess

it because I am afraid of being alone.

Oh, you don't understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger.

If a man were to come into the room, I should kill him without trembling.

I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I believe in the supernatural.

I am not afraid of dead people, for I believe in the total annihilation of every being that

disappears from the face of this earth.

Well, yes, well, it must be told, I am afraid of myself, afraid of that horrible sensation

of incomprehensible fear.

You may laugh if you like, it is terrible, and I cannot get over it.

I am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects which are animated,

as far as I am concerned by a kind of animal life.

Above all, I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems as if it

were about to leave me, driven away by a mysterious and invisible agony.

At first I feel a vague uneasiness in my mind, which causes a cold shiver to run all over

me.

I look round, and of course nothing is to be seen, and I wish there were something there,

no matter what, as long as it were something tangible.

I am frightened merely because I cannot understand my own terror.

If I speak, I am afraid of my own voice.

If I walk, I am afraid of I know not what behind the door, behind the curtains, in the

cupboard, or under my bed.

And yet, all the time I know there is nothing anywhere, and I turn round suddenly because

I am afraid of what is behind me, although there is nothing there, and I know it.

I get agitated.

I feel that my fear increases, and so I shut myself up in my own room, get into bed,

and hide under the clothes.

And there, cowering down, rolled into a ball, I close my eyes into spare, and remain thus

for an indefinite time, remembering that my candle is a light on the table by my bedside,

and that I ought to put it out, and yet I dare not do it.

It is very terrible, is it not, to be like that?

Formerly I felt nothing of all that.

I came home quite comfortably, and went up and down in my rooms without anything disturbing

my calmness of mind.

And anyone told me that I should be attacked by a malady, for I can call it nothing else,

of most improbable fear, such a stupid and terrible malady as it is, I should have left outright.

I was certainly never afraid of opening the door in the dark.

I used to go to bed slowly, without locking it, and never got up in the middle of the

night to make sure that everything was firmly closed.

It began last year, in a very strange manner, on a damp autumn evening, when my servant

had left the room, after I had dined, I asked myself what I was going to do.

I walked up and down my room for some time, feeling tired without any reason for it, unable

to work, and without enough energy to read.

A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy.

A prey to one of those fits of casual despondency, which make us feel inclined to cry, or

to talk, no matter to whom, so as to shake off our depressing thoughts.

I felt that I was alone, and that my rooms seemed to me to be more empty than they had

ever been before.

I was surrounded by a sensation of infinite and overwhelming solitude.

What was I to do?

I sat down, but then a kind of nervous impatience agitated my legs, so that I got up and began

to walk about again.

I was feverish.

For my hands, which I had clasped before me, as one often does when walking slowly, almost

seemed to burn one another.

Then suddenly a cold shiver ran down my back, and I thought the damp air might have penetrated

into my room, so I lit the fire for the first time that year, and sat down again and looked

at the flames.

But soon it felt that I could not possibly remain quiet, so I got up again, and determined

to go out, to pull myself together, and to seek a friend to bear me company.

I could not find anyone, so I went on to the boulevards to try and meet some acquaintance

or other there.

I was wretched everywhere, and the wet pavement glistened in the gaslight, while the oppressive

mist of the almost impalpable rain lay heavily over the streets, and seemed to obscure the

lights from the lamps.

I went on slowly, saying to myself, I shall not find a soldier to talk to.

I glanced into several cafes, from the Madeleine, as far as the Thoberg Poissonier,

and saw many unhappy looking individuals sitting at the tables, who did not seem even to

have enough energy left to finish the refreshments they had ordered.

For a long time I wandered aimlessly up and down, and about midnight I started off

for home.

I was very calm and very tired.

My concierge opened the door at once, which was quite unusual for him, and I thought that

another larger had no doubt just come in.

When I go out, I always double lock the door of my room.

Now, I found merely closed, which surprised me, but I supposed that some letters had been

brought up for me in the course of the evening.

I went in, and found my fire still burning, so that it lighted up the room a little.

In the act of taking up a candle, I noticed somebody sitting in my armchair by the fire,

bombing his feet, with his neck toward me.

I was not in the slightest degree frightened.

I thought very naturally that some friend or other had come to see me.

No doubt the porter, whom I had told when I went out, had lent him his own key.

In a moment I remembered all the circumstances of my return.

Now the street door had been opened immediately, and that my own door was only latched and

not locked.

I could see nothing of my friend, but his head.

He had evidently gone to sleep while waiting for me, so I went up to him to rouse him.

I saw him quite clearly.

His right arm was hanging down, and his legs were crossed, while his head, which was somewhat

inclined to the left of the armchair, seemed to indicate that he was asleep.

Who can it be, I asked myself?

I could not see clearly as the room was rather dark, so I put out my hand to touch him

on the shoulder, and it came in contact with the back of the chair.

There was nobody there.

The seat was empty.

I fairly jumped with fright.

For a moment I drew back as if some terrible danger had suddenly appeared in my way.

Then I turned round again, impaled by some imperious desire to look at the armchair again.

I remained standing upright, panting with fear, so upset that I could not collect my

thoughts and ready to drop.

But I am naturally a cool man, and soon recovered myself.

I thought, it is a mere hallucination that is all, and I immediately began to reflect

about this phenomenon.

Thoughts fly very quickly at such moments.

I had been suffering from hallucination.

That was an incontestable fact.

My mind had been perfectly lucid and had acted regularly and logically, so there was nothing

that mattered with the brain.

It was only my eyes that had been deceived.

They had had a vision.

One of those visions which lead simple folk to believe in miracles.

It was a nervous accident to the optical apparatus, nothing more.

The eyes were rather overwrought, perhaps.

I lit my candle, and when I stooped down to the fire in doing so, I noticed that I was

trembling, and I raised myself up with a jump as if somebody had touched me from behind.

I was certainly not by any means reassured.

I walked up and down a little and hummed a tune or two.

Then I double locked my door and felt rather reassured.

Now at any rate nobody could come in.

I sat down again and thought over my adventure for a long time.

Then I went to bed and put out my light.

For some minutes all went well.

I lay quietly on my back.

Then an irresistible desire seized me to look round the room, and I turned onto my side.

My fire was nearly out, and the few glowing embers through a faint light onto the floor

by the chair, where I fancied I saw the man sitting again.

I quickly struck a match, but I had been mistaken, for there was nothing there.

I got up, however, and hid the chair behind my bed, and tried to get to sleep as the room

was now dark.

But I had not forgotten myself for more than five minutes, when in my dream I saw all

the scene which I had witnessed as clearly as if it were reality.

I woke up with a start, and having lit the candle sat up in bed without venturing even

to try and go to sleep again.

Twice however, sleep overcame me, for a few moments in spite of myself, and twice I saw

the same thing again, till I fancied I was going mad.

When day broke, however, I thought that I was cured, and slept peacefully till noon.

It was all past and over.

I had been feverish, had had the nightmare, I don't know what, I had been ill in a word,

but yet I thought that I was a great fool.

I enjoyed myself thoroughly that evening.

I went and dined at a restaurant, afterward I went to the theatre and then started home.

But as I got near the house, I was seized by a strange feeling of uneasiness once more.

I was afraid of seeing him again.

I was not afraid of him, not afraid of his presence, in which I did not believe, but

I was afraid of being deceived again.

I was afraid of some fresh hallucination, afraid less fear should take possession of

me.

For more than an hour, I wandered up and down the pavement.

Then I thought that I was really too foolish and returned home.

I panted so that I could scarcely get upstairs, and remained standing outside my door for

more than ten minutes.

Then suddenly I took courage and pulled myself together.

I inserted my key into the lock, and went in with a candle in my hand.

I kicked open my half-open bedroom door and gave a frightened look toward the fireplace.

There was nothing there.

What a relief and what a delight!

What deliverance!

I walked up and down briskly and boldly, but I was not altogether reassured.

One kept turning round with a jump.

The very shadows in the corners disquieted me.

I slept badly and was constantly disturbed by imaginary noises, but I did not see him.

No, that was all over.

Since that time I have been afraid of being alone at night.

I feel that the spectre is there, close to me, around me.

But it has not appeared to me again.

And supposing it did, what would it matter, since I do not believe in it, and know that

it is nothing?

It still worries me, however, because I am constantly thinking of it.

His right arm hanging down, and his head inclined to the left, like a man who was asleep.

Enough of that, in heaven's name, I don't want to think about it.

Why, however, am I so persistently possessed with this idea?

His feet were close to the fire.

He haunts me.

It is very stupid.

So it is, who and what is he?

I know that he does not exist except in my cowardly imagination, in my fears and in my agony.

There, enough of that.

Yes, it is all very well for me to reason with myself, to stiffen myself, so to say.

But I cannot remain at home, because I know he is there.

I know I shall not see him again.

He will not show himself again.

That is all over.

But he is there all the same, in my thoughts.

He remains invisible.

But that does not prevent his being there.

He is behind the doors, in the closed cupboards, in the wardrobe, under the bed, in every dark

corner.

If I open the door, or the cupboard, if I take the candle to look under the bed and throw

a light onto the dark places, he is there no longer.

But I feel that he is behind me.

I turn round.

Certain that I shall not see him, that I shall never see him again.

But he is nonetheless behind me.

It is very stupid.

It is dreadful.

But what am I to do?

I cannot help it.

But if there were two of us in the place, I feel certain that he would not be there any

longer.

For he is there just because I am alone, simply and solely because I am alone.

And of he.