ed my sixteenth year. An excessive timidity had arisen from this
abnormal sensitiveness. Feeling myself unprotected from all the attacks
of chance or fate, I feared every contact, every approach, every current.
I lived as though I were threatened by an unknown and always expected
misfortune. I did not venture either to speak or do anything in public. I
had, indeed, the feeling that life, is a battle, a dreadful conflict in
which one receives terrible blows, grievous, mortal wounds. In place of
cherishing, like all men, a cheerful anticipation of the morrow, I had
only a confused fear of it, and felt in my own mind a desire to conceal
myself to avoid that combat in which I would be vanquished and slain.

"As soon as my studies were finished, they gave me six months' time to
choose a career. A very simple occurrence showed me clearly, all of a
sudden, the diseased condition of my mind, made me understand the danger,
and determined me to flee from it.

"Verdiers is a little town surrounded with plains and woods. In the
central street stands my parents' house. I now passed my days far from
this dwelling which I had so much regretted, so much desired. Dreams had
reawakened in me, and I walked alone in the fields in order to let them
escape and fly away. My father and mother, quite occupied with business,
and anxious about my future, talked to me only about their profits or
about my possible plans. They were fond of me after the manner of
hardheaded, practical people; they had more reason than heart in their
affection for me. I lived imprisoned in my thoughts, and vibrating with
my eternal sensitiveness.

"Now, one evening, after a long walk, as I was making my way home with
great strides so as not to be late, I saw a dog trotting toward me. He
was a species of red spaniel, very lean, with long curly ears.

"When he was ten paces away from me he stopped. I did the same. Then he
began wagging his tail, and came over to me with short steps and nervous
movements of his whole body, bending down on his paws as if appealing to
me, and softly shaking his head. I spoke to him. He then began to crawl
along in such a sad, humble, suppliant manner that I felt the tears
coming into my eyes. I approached him; he ran away, then he came back
again; and I bent down on one knee trying to coax him to approach me,
with soft words. At last, he was within reach of my hands, and I gently
and very carefully stroked him.

"He gained courage, gra