“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 exactly as though she were made of gold?’ As I said, nothing new had occurred, yet nevertheless a vague sort of terror began little by little to master me and to develop itself in my mind, at first merely as a bit of foolish fancy, and then as a haunting belief that dominated my entire thought, so that I perpetually seemed to see a thing which it was in reality quite impossible to see.”

“Why, it’s easy enough to guess,” interrupted the young lady who had spoken at the beginning of his story.

“Linda and the cat were the same thing.”

Tribourdeaux smiled.

“I should not have been quite so positive as that,” he said, “even then; but I cannot deny that this ridiculous fancy haunted me for many hours when I was endeavoring to snatch a little sleep amid the insomnia that a too active brain produced.  Yes, there were moments when these two beings with greenish eyes, sinuous movements, golden hair, and mysterious ways, seemed to me to be blended into one, and to be merely the double manifestation of a single entity.  As I said, I saw Linda again and again, but in spite of all my efforts to come upon her unexpectedly, I never was able to see them both at the same time.  I tried to reason with myself, to convince myself that there was nothing really inexplicable in all of this, and I ridiculed myself for being afraid both of a woman and of a harmless cat.  In truth, at the end of all my reasoning, I found that I was not so much afraid of the animal alone or of the woman alone, but rather of a sort of quality which existed in my fancy and inspired me with a fear of something that was incorporeal—­fear of a manifestation of my own spirit, fear of a vague thought, which is, indeed, the very worst of fears.

“I began to be mentally disturbed.  After long evenings spent in confidential and very unconventional chats with Linda, in which little by little my feelings took on the color of love, I passed long days of secret torment, such as incipient maniacs must experience.  Gradually a resolve began to grow up in my mind, a desire that became more and more importunate in demanding a solution of this unceasing and tormenting doubt; and the more I cared for Linda, the more it seemed absolutely necessary to push this resolve to its fulfilment.  I decided to kill the cat.