"And I waited--I waited--for what? I do not know--For her!

"One night I woke up suddenly, feeling as though I were not alone in my
room.

"I was alone, nevertheless, but I could not go to sleep again, and, as I
was tossing about feverishly, I got up to look at the golden tress. It
seemed softer than usual, more life-like. Do the dead come back? I almost
lost consciousness as I kissed it. I took it back with me to bed and
pressed it to my lips as if it were my sweetheart.

"Do the dead come back? She came back. Yes, I saw her; I held her in my
arms, just as she was in life, tall, fair and round. She came back every
evening--the dead woman, the beautiful, adorable, mysterious
unknown.

"My happiness was so great that I could not conceal it. No lover ever
tasted such intense, terrible enjoyment. I loved her so well that I could
not be separated from her. I took her with me always and everywhere. I
walked about the town with her as if she were my wife, and took her to
the theatre, always to a private box. But they saw her--they
guessed--they arrested me. They put me in prison like a criminal.
They took her. Oh, misery!"

Here the manuscript stopped. And as I suddenly raised my astonished eyes
to the doctor a terrific cry, a howl of impotent rage and of exasperated
longing resounded through the asylum.

"Listen," said the doctor. "We have to douse the obscene madman with
water five times a day. Sergeant Bertrand was the only one who was in
love with the dead."

Filled with astonishment, horror and pity, I stammered out:

"But--that tress--did it really exist?"

The doctor rose, opened a cabinet full of phials and instruments and
tossed over a long tress of fair hair which flew toward me like a golden
bird.

I shivered at feeling its soft, light touch on my hands. And I sat there,
my heart beating with disgust and desire, disgust as at the contact of
anything accessory to a crime and desire as at the temptation of some
infamous and mysterious thing.

The doctor said as he shrugged his shoulders:

"The mind of man is capable of anything."

ON THE RIVER

I rented a little country house last summer on the banks of the Seine,
several leagues from Paris, and went out there to sleep every evening.
After a few days I made the acquaintance of one of my neighbors, a man
between thirty and forty, who certainly was the most curious specimen I
ever met. He was an old boating man, and crazy about boating. He w