So he had run away:  he had been afraid; he, afraid of me!

So ... so ... to-morrow ... or later ... some day or other ...  I should be able to hold him in my clutches and crush him against the ground!  Do not dogs occasionally bite and strangle their masters?

August 18th. I have been thinking the whole day long.  Oh! yes, I will obey him, follow his impulses, fulfill all his wishes, show myself humble, submissive, a coward.  He is the stronger; but an hour will come....

August 19th.  I know, ...  I know ...  I know all!  I have just read the following in the Revue du Monde Scientifique:  “A curious piece of news comes to us from Rio de Janeiro.  Madness, an epidemic of madness, which may be compared to that contagious madness which attacked the people of Europe in the Middle Ages, is at this moment raging in the Province of San-Paulo.  The frightened inhabitants are leaving their houses, deserting their villages, abandoning their land, saying that they are pursued, possessed, governed like human cattle by invisible, though tangible beings, a species of vampire, which feed on their life while they are asleep, and who, besides, drink water and milk without appearing to touch any other nourishment.

“Professor Dom Pedro Henriques, accompanied by several medical savants, has gone to the Province of San-Paulo, in order to study the origin and the manifestations of this surprising madness on the spot, and to propose such measures to the Emperor as may appear to him to be most fitted to restore the mad population to reason.”

Ah!  Ah!  I remember now that fine Brazilian three-master which passed in front of my windows as it was going up the Seine, on the 8th of last May!  I thought it looked so pretty, so white and bright!  That Being was on board of her, coming from there, where its race sprang from.  And it saw me!  It saw my house which was also white, and it sprang from the ship onto the land.  Oh!  Good heavens!

Now I know, I can divine.  The reign of man is over, and he has come.  He whom disquieted priests exorcised, whom sorcerers evoked on dark nights, without yet seeing him appear, to whom the presentiments of the transient masters of the world lent all the monstrous or graceful forms of gnomes, spirits, genii, fairies, and familiar spirits.  After the coarse conceptions of primitive fear, more clear-sighted men foresaw it more clearly.  Mesmer divined him, and ten years ago physicians accurately discovered the nature of his power, even before he exercised it himself.  They played with that weapon of their new Lord, the sway of a mysterious will over the human soul, which had become enslaved.  They called it magnetism, hypnotism, suggestion ... what do I know?  I have seen them amusing themselves like impudent children with this horrible power!  Woe to us!  Woe to man!  He has come, the ... the ... what does he call himself ... the ...  I fancy that he is shouting out his name to me and I do not hear him ... the ... yes ... he is shouting it out ...  I am listening ...  I cannot ... repeat ... it ...  Horla ...  I have heard ... the Horla ... it is he ... the Horla ... he has come!...