ant to feel that there
is someone close to me, touching me, a being who can speak and say
something, no matter what it be.

I wish to be able to awaken somebody by my side, so that I may be able
to ask some sudden question, a stupid question even if I feel inclined,
so that I may hear a human voice, and feel that there is some waking
soul close to me, someone whose reason is at work; so that when I
hastily light the candle I may see some human face by my
side--because--because--I am ashamed to confess it--because I am afraid
of being alone.

Oh! you don't understand me yet.

I am not afraid of any danger; if a man were to come into the room I
should kill him without trembling. I am not afraid of ghosts, nor do I
believe in the supernatural. I am not afraid of dead people, for I
believe in the total annihilation of every being that disappears from
the face of this earth.

Well,--yes, well, it must be told; I am afraid of myself, afraid of that
horrible sensation of incomprehensible fear.

You may laugh, if you like. It is terrible, and I cannot get over it. I
am afraid of the walls, of the furniture, of the familiar objects, which
are animated, as far as I am concerned, by a kind of animal life. Above
all, I am afraid of my own dreadful thoughts, of my reason, which seems
as if it were about to leave me, driven 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 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 get 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