eat ships on
to the breakers; it kills, it whistles, it sighs, it roars. But have
you ever seen it, and can you see it? Yet it exists for all that."

I was silent before this simple reasoning. That man was a philosopher,
or perhaps a fool; I could not say which exactly, so I held my tongue.
What he had said had often been in my own thoughts.

July 3. I have slept badly; certainly there is some feverish influence
here, for my coachman is suffering in the same way as I am. When I went
back home yesterday, I noticed his singular paleness, and I asked him:
"What is the matter with you, Jean?"

"The matter is that I never get any rest, and my nights devour my days.
Since your departure, Monsieur, there has been a spell over me."

However, the other servants are all well, but I am very frightened of
having another attack, myself.

July 4. I am decidedly taken again; for my old nightmares have
returned. Last night I felt somebody leaning on me who was sucking my
life from between my lips with his mouth. Yes, he was sucking it out of
my neck like a leech would have done. Then he got up, satiated, and I
woke up, so beaten, crushed, and annihilated that I could not move. If
this continues for a few days, I shall certainly go away again.

July 5. Have I lost my reason? What has happened? What I saw last night
is so strange that my head wanders when I think of it!

As I do now every evening, I had locked my door; then, being thirsty, I
drank half a glass of water, and I accidentally noticed that the
water-bottle was full up to the cut-glass stopper.

Then I went to bed and fell into one of my terrible sleeps, from which
I was aroused in about two hours by a still more terrible shock.

Picture to yourself a sleeping man who is being murdered, who wakes up
with a knife in his chest, a gurgling in his throat, is covered with
blood, can no longer breathe, is going to die and does not understand
anything at all about it--there you have it.

Having recovered my senses, I was thirsty again, so I lighted a candle
and went to the table on which my water-bottle was. I lifted it up and
tilted it over my glass, but nothing came out. It was empty! It was
completely empty! At first I could not understand it at all; then
suddenly I was seized by such a terrible feeling that I had to sit
down, or rather fall into a chair! Then I sprang up with a bound to
look about me; then I sat down again, overcome by astonishment and
fear, in front o