iven 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 that 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 become 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 in despair, and remain
thus for an indefinite time, remembering that my candle is alight 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 calm, and went up
and down my apartment without anything disturbing my peace of mind. Had
any one 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 laughed outright. I was certainly
never afraid of opening the door in the dark. I went 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 even without energy
to read. A fine rain was falling, and I felt unhappy, a prey to one of
those fits of despondency, without any apparent cause, 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 my rooms seemed to me to be more empty than
they had ever been before. I was in the midst of infinite and
overwhelming solitude. What was I to do? I sat down, but a kind of
nervous impatience seemed to affect my legs, so I got up and began to
walk about again.