st silence reigns, he notices a sullen, distant, continuous
roar in his ears, which is like what he would experience if he had
sea-shells pressed against them--he cannot account for it; he is drowsy
and absent-minded; there is no tenacity to his mind, he cannot keep hold
of a thought and follow it out; if he sits down to write, his vocabulary
is empty, no suitable words will come, he forgets what he started to do,
and remains there, pen in hand, head tilted up, eyes closed, listening
painfully to the muffled roar of a distant train in his ears; in his
soundest sleep the strain continues, he goes on listening, always
listening intently, anxiously, and wakes at last, harassed, irritable,
unrefreshed. He cannot manage to account for these things.

Day after day he feels as if he had spent his nights in a sleeping-car.
It actually takes him weeks to find out that it is those persecuting
torrents that have been making all the mischief. It is time for him
to get out of Switzerland, then, for as soon as he has discovered the
cause, the misery is magnified several fold. The roar of the torrent is
maddening, then, for his imagination is assisting; the physical pain
it inflicts is exquisite. When he finds he is approaching one of those
streams, his dread is so lively that he is disposed to fly the track and
avoid the implacable foe.

Eight or nine months after the distress of the torrents had departed
from me, the roar and thunder of the streets of Paris brought it all
back again. I moved to the sixth story of the hotel to hunt for peace.
About midnight the noises dulled away, and I was sinking to sleep,
when I heard a new and curious sound; I listened: evidently some joyous
lunatic was softly dancing a "double shuffle" in the room over my head.
I had to wait for him to get through, of course. Five long, long minutes
he smoothly shuffled away--a pause followed, then something fell with
a thump on the floor. I said to myself "There--he is pulling off his
boots--thank heavens he is done." Another slight pause--he went to
shuffling again! I said to myself, "Is he trying to see what he can do
with only one boot on?" Presently came another pause and another thump
on the floor. I said "Good, he has pulled off his other boot--NOW he is
done." But he wasn't. The next moment he was shuffling again. I said,
"Confound him, he is at it in his slippers!" After a little came that
same old pause, and right after it that thump on the flo