Was this strange state of torpor, this immobility of the flesh, really death, although the functions of the intellect were not arrested?  Was my soul only lingering for a brief space before it soared away forever?  From my childhood upward I had been subject to hysterical attacks, and twice in early youth I had nearly succumbed to nervous fevers.  By degrees all those who surrounded me had got accustomed to consider me an invalid and to see me sickly.  So much so that I myself had forbidden my wife to call in a doctor when I had taken to my bed on the day of our arrival at the cheap lodginghouse of the Rue Dauphine in Paris.  A little rest would soon set me right again; it was only the fatigue of the journey which had caused my intolerable weariness.  And yet I was conscious of having felt singularly uneasy.  We had left our province somewhat abruptly; we were very poor and had barely enough money to support ourselves till I drew my first month’s salary in the office where I had obtained a situation.  And now a sudden seizure was carrying me off!

Was it really death?  I had pictured to myself a darker night, a deeper silence.  As a little child I had already felt afraid to die.  Being weak and compassionately petted by everyone, I had concluded that I had not long to live, that I should soon be buried, and the thought of the cold earth filled me with a dread I could not master—­a dread which haunted me day and night.  As I grew older the same terror pursued me.  Sometimes, after long hours spent in reasoning with myself, I thought that I had conquered my fear.  I reflected, “After all, what does it matter?  One dies and all is over.  It is the common fate; nothing could be better or easier.”

I then prided myself on being able to look death boldly in the face, but suddenly a shiver froze my blood, and my dizzy anguish returned, as if a giant hand had swung me over a dark abyss.  It was some vision of the earth returning and setting reason at naught.  How often at night did I start up in bed, not knowing what cold breath had swept over my slumbers but clasping my despairing hands and moaning, “Must I die?” In those moments an icy horror would stop my pulses while an appalling vision of dissolution rose before me.  It was with difficulty that I could get to sleep again.  Indeed, sleep alarmed me; it so closely resembled death.  If I closed my eyes they might never open again—­I might slumber on forever.

I cannot tell if others have endured the same torture; I only know that my own life was made a torment by it.  Death ever rose between me and all I loved; I can remember how the thought of it poisoned the happiest moments I spent with Marguerite.  During the first months of our married life, when she lay sleeping by my side and I dreamed of a fair future for her and with her, the foreboding of some fatal separation dashed my hopes aside and embittered my delights.  Perhaps we should be parted on the morrow—­nay, perhaps in an hour’s time.  Then utter discouragement assailed me; I wondered what the bliss of being united availed me if it were to end in so cruel a disruption.