it is you!'

"As she said this, and as I looked at her, not knowing yet exactly what to
answer, I was harassed by the thought: Where on earth have I already seen
this face, this look, this very gesture? Little by little, however, I
found my tongue, and after saying a few more words in apology for my
unpardonable curiosity, and getting brief but not offended answers, I took
leave of her, and, retiring through the window by which I had come, went
back to my own room. Arriving there, I sat a long time by the window in
the darkness, charmed by the face that I had seen, and yet singularly
disquieted. This woman so beautiful, so amiable, living so near to me, who
said to me, 'It is you,' exactly as though she had already known me, who
spoke so little, who answered all my questions with evasion, excited in me
a feeling of fear. She had, indeed, told me her name--Linda--and that was
all. I tried in vain to drive away the remembrance of her greenish eyes,
which in the darkness seemed still to gleam upon me, and of those glints
which, like electric sparks, shone in her long hair whenever she stroked
it with her hand. Finally, however, I retired for the night; but scarcely
was my head upon the pillow when I felt some moving body descend upon my
feet. The cat had appeared again. I tried to chase her away, but she kept
returning again and again, until I ended by resigning myself to her
presence; and, just as before, I went to sleep with this strange companion
near me. Yet my rest was this time a troubled one, and broken by strange
and fitful dreams.

"Have you ever experienced the sort of mental obsession which gradually
causes the brain to be mastered by some single absurd idea--an idea almost
insane, and one which your reason and your will alike repel, but which
nevertheless gradually blends itself with your thought, fastens itself
upon your mind, and grows and grows? I suffered cruelly in this way on the
days that followed my strange adventure. Nothing new occurred, but in the
evening, going out upon the balcony, I found Linda standing upon her side
of the iron fan. We chatted together for a while in the half darkness,
and, as before, I returned to my room to find that in a few moments the
golden cat appeared, leaped upon my bed, made a nest for herself there,
and remained until the morning. I knew now to whom the cat belonged, for
Linda had answered that very same evening, on my speaking of it, 'Oh, yes,
my cat; doesn't she look