e hours of
bewilderment and hallucination when a man is neither conscious of
his actions nor able to guide his will.

I gently raised the coverings from the body of the child; I turned
them down to the foot of the crib, and he lay there uncovered and
naked.

He did not wake. Then I went toward the window, softly, quite
softly, and I opened it.

A breath of icy air glided in like an assassin; it was so cold that
I drew aside, and the two candles flickered. I remained standing
near the window, not daring to turn round, as if for fear of seeing
what was doing on behind me, and feeling the icy air continually
across my forehead, my cheeks, my hands, the deadly air which kept
streaming in. I stood there a long time.

I was not thinking, I was not reflecting. All at once a little
cough caused me to shudder frightfully from head to foot, a shudder
that I feel still to the roots of my hair. And with a frantic
movement I abruptly closed both sides of the window and, turning
round, ran over to the crib.

He was still asleep, his mouth open, quite naked. I touched his
legs; they were icy cold and I covered them up.

My heart was suddenly touched, grieved, filled with pity,
tenderness, love for this poor innocent being that I had wished to
kill. I kissed his fine, soft hair long and tenderly; then I went
and sat down before the fire.

I reflected with amazement with horror on what I had done, asking
myself whence come those tempests of the soul in which a man loses
all perspective of things, all command over himself and acts as in a
condition of mad intoxication, not knowing whither he is
going--like a vessel in a hurricane.

The child coughed again, and it gave my heart a wrench. Suppose it
should die! O God! O God! What would become of me?

I rose from my chair to go and look at him, and with a candle in my
hand I leaned over him. Seeing him breathing quietly I felt
reassured, when he coughed a third time. It gave me such a shock
tat I started backward, just as one does at sight of something
horrible, and let my candle fall.

As I stood erect after picking it up, I noticed that my temples were
bathed in perspiration, that cold sweat which is the result of
anguish of soul. And I remained until daylight bending over my son,
becoming calm when he remained quiet for some time, and filled with
atroci